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Michael Bentine

Michael Bentine
CBE
Michael Bentine.jpg
Born Michael James Bentin
(1922-01-26)26 January 1922
Watford, Hertfordshire, England, UK
Died 26 November 1996(1996-11-26) (aged 74)
Palm Springs, California, USA
Cause of death Prostate cancer
Nationality English
Education Eton College
Occupation Comedian, actor
Years active 1940, 1946–1996
Spouse(s) Clementina Stuart (m. 1946; his death 1996)
Parent(s) Adam Bentin
Florence Dawkins


Michael Bentine, CBE (born Michael James Bentin; 26 January 1922 – 26 November 1996) was an English comedian, comic actor and founding member of the Goons. He was a Peruvian Briton. In 1971, Bentine received the Order of Merit of Peru following his fund-raising work for the 1970 Great Peruvian earthquake.

Bentine was born in Watford, Hertfordshire, to a Peruvian father, Adam Bentin, and a British mother, Florence Dawkins, and grew up in Folkestone, Kent. He was educated at Eton College. With the help of speech trainer, Harry Burgess, he overcame a stammer and subsequently developed an interest in amateur theatricals, along with the Tomlinson family, including the young David Tomlinson. He spoke fluent Spanish and French. His father was an early aeronautical engineer for the Sopwith Aviation Company during and after World War I and invented a tensometer for setting the tension on aircraft rigging wires.

In World War II, he volunteered for all services when the war broke out (the RAF was his first choice owing to the influence of his father's experience), but was initially rejected because of his father's nationality.

He started his acting career in 1940, in a touring company in Cardiff playing a juvenile lead in Sweet Lavender. He went on to join Robert Atkin's Shakespearean company in Regent's Park, London, until he was called up for service in the RAF. He was appearing in a Shakespearean play in doublet and hose in the open-air theatre in London's Hyde Park when two RAF MPs marched on stage and arrested him for desertion. Unknown to him, an RAF conscription notice had been following him for a month as his company toured.


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