Comedian, singer, and media personality, born in Swansea, SC Wales, UK. A choir boy and office worker, he made his stage debut in 1946 before becoming a regular on the radio show Variety Bandbox (1947). An exuberant comic, he was a member of The Goons (19519), a radio show whose lunacy had a wide-reaching influence. Besides countless variety shows, his stage appearances include Humpty Dumpty (1959), Pickwick (1963), and The Four Musketeers (1967), and his films include Oliver! (1968) and Song of Norway (1970). As a writer he contributed regularly to Punch, and his fiction includes Twice Brightly (1974), Katy and the Nurgla (1978), and The Nurgla's Magic Tear (1990). A professional singer with dozens of albums to his credit, he hosted the religious television series Highway (198393). He was knighted in 1981, and a volume of autobiography, Arias and Raspberries, appeared in 1989.
Sir Harry Donald Secombe, CBE (8 September 1921–11 April 2001) was a Welsh entertainer with a noted fine tenor singing voice and a talent for comedy.
Secombe appeared in many stage musicals, including Pickwick (1963, based on Dickens's The Pickwick Papers) and The Four Musketeers (1967), and had several chart successes, the song most associated with him being "If I Ruled the World" (from Pickwick).
Later in life, Secombe (whose brother Fred Secombe was a vicar) attracted new audiences as a presenter of religious programmes, such as the BBC's Songs of Praise and ITV's Highway. Comedian Vic Reeves mentioned Secombe in his 1991 song Meals On Wheels ("Harry Secombe wants his pie and peas").
Secombe suffered a stroke in 1997, from which he made a slow recovery, only to be diagnosed with prostate cancer the following September.
Secombe and his wife, Myra Atherton, had four children:
Jennifer Secombe, married to actor Alex Giannini. Andy Secombe, an accomplished voice and film actor, as well as an author David Secombe, a writer and photographer Katy Secombe, an actressHis niece, Joan Secombe, is a head of house at Bishop Luffa school, in Chichester.
He died at the age of 79, from prostate cancer, at his home in England.
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