Johnnie Cradock

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John "Johnnie" Whitby Cradock, 17 May 1904 - 30 January 1987, cook, writer, broadcaster and former British Army Major; the fourth husband of television cook and writer Fanny Cradock.

Johnnie is best remembered as being the long suffering stooge for his wife in their popular United Kingdom cooking programmes which were shown from the 1950s to the 1970s. Wearing a traditional blazer and sporting a monocle above his trademark handlebar moustache, he would remain around the back of Fanny's studio sets awaiting her imperious commands which, when they came, usually resulted his being berated for being too slow.

With his wife, he wrote a number of cook books (see below), which were popular reading at the time. Johnnie and Fanny also wrote the "Bon Viveur" restaurant column for the Daily Telegraph newspaper from 1950 - 1955. This was one of Britain's first restaurant columns and led to their first television series in 1955.

At first they presented the BBC's "Kitchen Magic", but were soon poached by ITV's first cooking programme, which they presented as "Fanny & Johnnie".

At that time Johnnie and Fanny were not married. Fanny adopted his name for their writing and television work and they eventually married in 1977: she died in December 1994, Johnnie pre-deceased her in 1987.