Tommy Cooper

He was married to Gwen Henty from 1947 till his death. They had two children.

He was addicted to alcohol and this created havoc with his married life. He physically abused his wife who had to seek help for dealing with this domestic violence.

He had an affair with his personal assistant Mary Fieldhouse from 1967 till his death.

He was born as the son of army recruiting Sergeant Thomas Cooper and his wife Gertrude in South Wales.

When Tommy was three, the family moved to Devon where he acquired the West Country accent that became a part of his act.

He went to Mount Radford School for Boys.

His aunt gifted him a magic set when he was eight years old. He enthusiastically practiced the tricks till he perfected them.

He was appointed as a magician on a boat when he was 16. The young boy had a stage fright and messed up his magical acts. The performance was a failure and the audience laughed hard.

He enlisted in the army when the World War II broke out. He became a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards regiment of the British Army in 1940.

He was a part of the Montgomery’s Desert Rats that served in Egypt.

As a member of the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes (NAAFI) entertainment party, he began polishing his magical skills and comedy. He developed a routine that combined magic with comedy, and was looking for opportunities to perfect this act.

Once while performing in Cairo, he was required to wear a costume that included a pith helmet. He misplaced the helmet, and in order to quickly find a replacement he grabbed a fez from a waiter’s head and placed it on his own. The audience simply loved this gesture and started laughing really hard! Thus was born his trademark red fez.

After serving in the army for seven years, he was demobilized in 1947 and made his entry into the show business.

He is mainly remembered as the large funnyman with a red fez who made millions of his viewers laugh over a career spanning almost four decades. Cooper was an intrinsically funny person--his very presence could make people laugh—and that is the quality that made him immortal in the minds of his fans.