Dick Bentley - Revision history

Kurt at 14:58, 19 April 2023

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	~~{{short description\|Australian actor and comedian}}~~
	~~{{Use dmy dates\|date=September 2016}}~~
	~~{{Use Australian English\|date=September 2016}}~~
	{{Infobox person		{{Infobox person
	~~\| name = Dick Bentley~~
	\| image = Dick Bentley Actor.jpg		\| image = Dick Bentley Actor.jpg
	\| caption = Dick Bentley		\| caption = Dick Bentley

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	{{reflist}}		{{reflist}}
	* {{cite book\|title=A Kentish Lad\|author=Frank Muir\|publisher=Bantam Press, London\|year=1997\|isbn=0-593-03452-X\|url-access=registration\|url=https://archive.org/details/kentishladautobi0000muir_u8q6}} Frank Muir's autobiography.		* {{cite book\|title=A Kentish Lad\|author=Frank Muir\|publisher=Bantam Press, London\|year=1997\|isbn=0-593-03452-X\|url-access=registration\|url=https://archive.org/details/kentishladautobi0000muir_u8q6}} Frank Muir's autobiography.

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	[[Category:20th-century Australian comedians]]		[[Category:20th-century Australian comedians]]
	~~[[Category:Deaths from dementia in England]]~~
	~~[[Category:Deaths from Alzheimer's disease]]~~

Kurt at 12:53, 28 October 2022

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	{{Infobox person		{{Infobox person
	\| name = Dick Bentley		\| name = Dick Bentley
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	\| spouse = Petronella (Peta) Curra (1939–1991)		\| spouse = Petronella (Peta) Curra (1939–1991)
	}}		}}
	'''Charles Walter''' "'''Dick'''" '''Bentley''' (14 May 1907 – 27 August 1995) was an [[Australia]]n-born comedian and actor of radio, stage and screen. He starred with [[Jimmy Edwards]] in ''[[Take It From Here]]'' for [[BBC Radio]]. He was a staple of and pioneer of radio, having started his career in the medium in the early 1930s. He appeared on screen from the late 1940s until retiring in 1978.		'''Charles Walter''' "'''Dick'''" '''Bentley''' (14 May 1907 – 27 August 1995) was an [[w:Australia\|Australia]]n-born comedian and actor of radio, stage and screen. He starred with [[Jimmy Edwards]] in ''[[Take It From Here]]'' for [[w:BBC Radio\|BBC Radio]]. He was a staple of and pioneer of radio, having started his career in the medium in the early 1930s. He appeared on screen from the late 1940s until retiring in 1978.

	==Biography==		==Biography==
	===Early life and radio===		===Early life and radio===
	Bentley was born in [[Melbourne]], [[Victoria (Australia)\|Victoria]], Australia. As a child, Bentley learned several musical instruments, and while still in his teens was a staple on the Melbourne cabaret circuit as a comedian and singer, his act consisting of playing a few bars of music deliberately badly, interspersed with jokes and legitimate musical numbers. He made his first appearance on [[ABC Radio and Regional Content\|ABC Radio]] in the early 1930s and by 1938 had become a fairly prominent personality, notably on [[Wilfrid Thomas]]'s show ''Out of the Bag''.<ref>{{cite news \|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article51599758 \|title=He has lived on air for 35 years. \|newspaper=[[The Australian Women's Weekly]] \| date=19 November 1958 \|accessdate=9 June 2012 \|page=36 \|publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref> In that year he moved to London, and worked for the [[BBC]]. Newly married to Petronella "Peta" Curra, with the war raging in England, he returned to Australia, and during the years of [[World War II]], he spent entertaining the troops in the Pacific theatre.		Bentley was born in [[w:Melbourne\|Melbourne]], [[w:Victoria (Australia)\|Victoria]], Australia. As a child, Bentley learned several musical instruments, and while still in his teens was a staple on the Melbourne cabaret circuit as a comedian and singer, his act consisting of playing a few bars of music deliberately badly, interspersed with jokes and legitimate musical numbers. He made his first appearance on [[ABC Radio and Regional Content\|ABC Radio]] in the early 1930s and by 1938 had become a fairly prominent personality, notably on [[Wilfrid Thomas]]'s show ''Out of the Bag''.<ref>{{cite news \|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article51599758 \|title=He has lived on air for 35 years. \|newspaper=[[The Australian Women's Weekly]] \| date=19 November 1958 \|accessdate=9 June 2012 \|page=36 \|publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref> In that year he moved to London, and worked for the [[BBC]]. Newly married to Petronella "Peta" Curra, with the war raging in England, he returned to Australia, and during the years of [[World War II]], he spent entertaining the troops in the Pacific theatre.

	===Return to Britain===		===Return to Britain===

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New page

{{short description|Australian actor and comedian}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2016}}
{{Use Australian English|date=September 2016}}
{{Refimprove|date=December 2020}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Dick Bentley
| image = Dick Bentley Actor.jpg
| caption = Dick Bentley
| birth_name = Charles Walter Bentley
| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1907|05|14}}
| birth_place = [[Melbourne]], [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]], Australia
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1995|08|27|1907|05|14}}
| death_place = [[St John's Wood]], [[London]], England
| nationality = Australian
| occupation = Comedian and actor
| spouse = Petronella (Peta) Curra (1939–1991)
}}
'''Charles Walter''' "'''Dick'''" '''Bentley''' (14 May 1907 – 27 August 1995) was an [[Australia]]n-born comedian and actor of radio, stage and screen. He starred with [[Jimmy Edwards]] in ''[[Take It From Here]]'' for [[BBC Radio]]. He was a staple of and pioneer of radio, having started his career in the medium in the early 1930s. He appeared on screen from the late 1940s until retiring in 1978.

==Biography==
===Early life and radio===
Bentley was born in [[Melbourne]], [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]], Australia. As a child, Bentley learned several musical instruments, and while still in his teens was a staple on the Melbourne cabaret circuit as a comedian and singer, his act consisting of playing a few bars of music deliberately badly, interspersed with jokes and legitimate musical numbers. He made his first appearance on [[ABC Radio and Regional Content|ABC Radio]] in the early 1930s and by 1938 had become a fairly prominent personality, notably on [[Wilfrid Thomas]]'s show ''Out of the Bag''.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article51599758 |title=He has lived on air for 35 years. |newspaper=[[The Australian Women's Weekly]] | date=19 November 1958 |accessdate=9 June 2012 |page=36 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref> In that year he moved to London, and worked for the [[BBC]]. Newly married to Petronella "Peta" Curra, with the war raging in England, he returned to Australia, and during the years of [[World War II]], he spent entertaining the troops in the Pacific theatre.

===Return to Britain===
By 1946, he was one of Australia's highest-paid entertainers and returned to Britain to try to re-establish himself in a much larger market. He joined up with writer [[Denis Norden]] and guested on many of the leading radio shows of the day. An appearance on ''Navy Mixture'' teamed him successfully with [[Jimmy Edwards]], and indirectly led to the pairing of Denis Norden with [[Frank Muir]], who was Edwards' writer. Muir and Norden together wrote ''[[Take It From Here]]'' (1948–60), with Edwards and Bentley as two of the three stars. The most memorable feature of ''Take It From Here'' was ''[[The Glums]]'', with Edwards playing the slightly seedy Pa Glum and Bentley his terminally dim son, Ron. Bentley was thirteen years older than Edwards.

In 1951, during the run of ''Take It From Here'', Bentley briefly returned to Australia to star in a ten-episode radio comedy series, ''Gently Bentley'', commissioned to celebrate the silver jubilee of the ABC. In 1954, he starred in ''[[And So to Bentley]]'', a sketch-format comedy show for the BBC, co-starring [[Peter Sellers]]. The show only lasted for one series, and the gently self-deprecating humour of Bentley was overshadowed by the charismatic Sellers. Both these shows were also written by Muir and Norden.

==Films==
After making his film debut in 1959, Bentley returned to Australia to play a sheep drover in ''[[The Sundowners (1960 film)|The Sundowners]]'' (1960), starring [[Robert Mitchum]] and [[Deborah Kerr]]. In the late 1960s, he was briefly back on BBC radio in the short-run comedy series ''If You Had a Talking Picture of Me''. Bentley was featured in the movies ''[[The Adventures of Barry McKenzie]]'' (1972) and ''[[Barry McKenzie Holds His Own]]'' (1974), derived from the [[Barry McKenzie]] comic strip in ''[[Private Eye]]''. By 1974, he had largely retired but briefly returned to the screen to appear in ''[[Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em]]'' (1978) as Frank Spencer's grandad, fittingly since the hapless Spencer was in many ways a descendant of Bentley's Ron Glum character in ''TIFH''.

==Death ==
His wife died in January 1991, and Bentley died from complications from [[Alzheimer's disease]] in 1995.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-dick-bentley-1598630.html|title=OBITUARY : Dick Bentley|work=[[The Independent]]|author=Denis Gifford|date= 29 August 1995 }}</ref>

==Filmography==
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Role
! Notes
|-
|1959|| ''[[Desert Mice]]'' || Gavin ||
|-
|1960|| ''[[And the Same to You]]'' || George Nibbs ||
|-
|1960|| ''[[The Sundowners (1960 film)|The Sundowners]]'' || Shearer ||
|-
|1961|| ''[[Double Bunk]]'' || Ron || Voice, Uncredited
|-
|1961|| ''[[In the Doghouse (film)|In the Doghouse]]'' || Mr. Peddle ||
|-
|1962|| ''[[The Golden Rabbit]]'' || Insp. Jackson ||
|-
|1962|| ''[[The Girl on the Boat (film)|The Girl on the Boat]]'' || American || Uncredited
|-
|1963|| ''[[Tamahine]]'' || Storekeeper ||
|-
|1964|| ''[[Gunfighters of Casa Grande]]'' || Doc ||
|-
|1972|| ''[[The Adventures of Barry McKenzie]]'' || Detective ||
|-
|1974|| ''[[Barry McKenzie Holds His Own]]'' || Colin 'The Frog' Lucas ||
|}

==References==
{{reflist}}
* {{cite book|title=A Kentish Lad|author=Frank Muir|publisher=Bantam Press, London|year=1997|isbn=0-593-03452-X|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/kentishladautobi0000muir_u8q6}} Frank Muir's autobiography.

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bentley, Dick}}
[[Category:1907 births]]
[[Category:1995 deaths]]
[[Category:Comedians from Melbourne]]
[[Category:Australian male television actors]]
[[Category:Australian male film actors]]
[[Category:Australian male radio actors]]
[[Category:Australian expatriates in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Australian male comedians]]
[[Category:20th-century Australian male actors]]
[[Category:20th-century Australian comedians]]
[[Category:Deaths from dementia in England]]
[[Category:Deaths from Alzheimer's disease]]