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maleficent · 06-18-2007, 11:01 AM

Maybe I need to get out more -I've never heard of him - so - for those who are in the same boat...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Manning

http://www.guardian.co.uk/race/story/0,,2105919,00.html

Quote:

Mark Tran and agencies
Monday June 18, 2007

The controversial Mancunian stand-up comedian Bernard Manning has died of kidney failure, at the age of 76.

A spokesman for North Manchester general hospital, where he was being treated, said: "He died here at 3.10pm today."

Manning had been a patient in the hospital for the past two weeks and was admitted to intensive care over the weekend, but only yesterday his son Bernard Jr had said his condition was improving.

A show business agent and close friend, Mickey Martin, led the tributes, telling the Manchester Evening News Manning's death was a sad loss.

"I was going to visit him today but young Bernard called to say he's gone," Mr Martin said. "It's come all of a sudden; we thought he was on the mend."

Mr Martin added: "He was the godfather of [the TV show] The Comedians and it's a sad loss to Manchester as well as to the world of comedy."

But critics accused him of picking on minority groups, although he denied he was a racist. Jokes that would have got a laugh in the 1970s would probably be considered risquéé today.

"I'm not a racist, I have a colour TV," he once joked. He also said: "I'm no racist, I take the piss out of the poofs too!"

Manning was born in 1930 in Ancoats, one of Manchester's poorest suburbs, the second of three brothers and two sisters.

"We had absolutely nothing," he once recalled. "One cold water tap in the house, no bath, outside toilet."

His career in entertainment began when he was doing his national service in Germany. To pass the time, Manning began to sing popular standards to entertain his fellow soldiers. Eventually he became a fulltime comedian.

During the 1950s and 1960s, he worked mostly in comedy clubs and working men's clubs in northern England. He made his TV debut on Granada's stand-up comedy review The Comedians in the early 1970s and went on to compere The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club.