Date of Birth

19 March 1921, Caerphilly, Wales, UK

Date of Death

15 April 1984, Haymarket, London, England, UK (heart attack)

After leaving the army Tommy Cooper took up show business in 1947 and so started his long career of comedy derived around visual humour, magic tricks that didn't work and his trademark red fez, a prop that started from his days in the army. The BBC described him as an "Unattractive young man with an extremely unfortunate appearance" in an audition for new talent.

While making a series of 28 shows for ITV over a period of eight years, he suffered his first heart attack which forced him to give up his love for cigars. Tommy collapsed on the stage of Her Majesty's Theatre in April 1984, live on air. Ten minutes later he had died. He was later cremated and ashes scattered at Mortlake Crematorium, London.

Although the hallmark of his act was to get magic tricks wrong, he was in reality an accomplished magician and member of the Magic Circle.

He collapsed on stage while in the middle of his act on a live Sunday evening variety show, falling backwards through the centre of the stage curtain. As he began to snore loudly (often a symptom of a massive heart attack) and as his feet remained protruding underneath the bottom of the curtain the theatre audience assumed this was part of his "failed magic trick" act and continued to roar with laughter. After a few moments of confusion the orchestra struck up and the show went to a commercial. Although the incident had been seen live by millions of viewers at the time, the sequence was never shown again out of respect to his family and to his memory.

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