Comic Norman Collier dies aged 87
COMIC Norman Collier, a star of numerous TV light entertainment shows and famed for his faulty microphone routine, has died at the age of 87.
Collier became a major figure on the club circuit and on TV with his stuttering performances as he pretended to have a sound problem, as well as for another long-running gag where he strutted and clucked like a chicken.
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Norman Collier being escorted to a stint in the Black and White Minstrels show in 1972
The sandy-haired comic suffered from Parkinson's disease for a number of years and died in a residential care home close to his home town of Hull.
Collier's son-in-law, John Ainsley, said his father-in-law died peacefully in his sleep at a nursing home in Brough, East Yorkshire, at 6.05pm yesterday.
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Impressionist Jon Culshaw was among those paying tribute to Collier, calling him a "wonderfully funny man".
"People would be permanently laughing whenever they were around him," he said.
Ricky Gervais made a comic reference to Collier's long-standing microphone gag, in which he would pretend the sound had an intermittent fault causing letters and syllables to be silent.
Gervais wrote on Twitter: "R P orman ollier."
Comedy writer and broadcaster Danny Baker said of the mic routine: "That really was some act."
Mr Ainsley, who is married to Collier's daughter Karen, said: "His passion was making people laugh and that's what he did all his life. He was the same at home as he was on stage.
"He was adorable; he was hilarious. He was a wonderful person who just wanted to get out there and make people laugh.
"He loved his family and just wanted to be around all his grandchildren and great-grandchildren."
Collier rose to fame on the local club circuit. By 1971 he was on the bill for the Royal Variety Performance and in the years that followed he became a regular face on TV entertainment programmes.
Collier had been a gunner in the Second World War and made his comedy debut in 1948 when a performer at Hull's Perth Street Club failed to show up and he agreed to fill in. Collier and wife Lucy had been married for more than 60 years and had three children.
Comments
by charlie12341
Saturday, March 16 2013, 4:21PM
“In the early 1990s, I worked for Dingles and attended a corporate event in Birmingham, where Norman Collier was the guest act. He was hilarious and a good night was had by all. RIP Norman. Very funny guy,”