Jeremy Beadle

Published Tuesday 5 February 2008 at 11:00 by Patrick Newley

TV presenter Jeremy Beadle, Britain’s best known practical joker, regularly attracted audiences of 15 million for his programmes Beadle’s About and You’ve Been Framed.

The quick-witted star shot to fame in 1981 as a co-host of Game For a Laugh, the hit ITV show that used hidden camera set-ups. But it was Beadle’s About, in which members of the public fell victim to practical jokes, that made him a national institution.

In 1996 he fooled Dorset housewife Janet Elford into believing an alien had landed in her garden. As a little green man emerged from a ‘spaceship’, she sang to him and offered him a cup of tea. In 1993 Beadle - disguised as a policeman - had to step in to calm things down after his team dumped a ton of manure on victim Joe Grant’s manicured lawn in Wiltshire.

Once dubbed ‘the most hated man in Britain’ by critics, Beadle raised more than £100 million for charities and was awarded an MBE in 2001.

He once said: “People feel guilty about enjoying the cruelty of comedy which is at someone else’s expense. They transfer their guilt on to me. But I say let them hate me - as long as they watch.”

Beadle was born in Hackney, East London on April 12, 1948, the result of an affair between his mother, Marjorie, and a married man who soon abandoned them both. He was born with Poland’s syndrome, which meant his right had never developed properly and needed many operations.

After leaving school he took various jobs including as a tour guide, journalist and glamour photographer - “It was a good way of meeting young ladies” - and in the seventies, broke into television and radio as a writer and producer.

He was a presenter on Capital Radio and LBC and joined Terry Wogan’s game show, You Must Be Joking. In 1980, he presented the Saturday morning children’s TV show Fun Factory.

Game For a Laugh, in which he co-starred with Henry Kelly, Matthew Kelly and Sarah Kennedy, made him a star name in the eighties and he progressed to Beadle’s About in 1987.

Beadle also appeared in numerous provincial pantomimes and enjoyed stints as a circus ringmaster for Gerry Cottle. He wrote an autobiography, Watch Out!

When the ratings fell for Beadle’s About and You’ve Been Framed, he published a series of trivia books which became bestsellers. Television fame brought him considerable wealth which he invested in his home in Hertfordshire with its library of 22,000 books, many of them about murder and crime. “I have always been fascinated by blood, sex and death,” he said. “I collect autopsy reports. If ever I appeared on Mastermind, I would choose classic English murders as my subject.”

He had been diagnosed with leukaemia in 2005, only months after having a kidney tumour removed. Before he died on January 30, 2008, after a short battle with pneumonia, he had been working on some new television formats.

He is survived by his wife Sue, two daughters, and a stepson and daughter.

Co-presenter Henry Kelly paid tribute: “Jeremy and I were firm friends for 30 years. I loved and admired him and I shall miss him desperately. Not only was he a terrific colleague in our Game For a Laugh days and beyond, but he was a most wonderful friend to have and the most entertaining company you could possibly imagine.”

ITV entertainment chief Paul Jackson said: “Jeremy Beadle entertained a whole generation of viewers - he was the ultimate joker and consummate prankster.”