| Peter Brough | |
|---|---|
| Born | Peter Brough 26 February 1916 Shepherd's Bush, London, UK |
| Died | 3 June 1999 (aged 83) England |
| Occupation | Actor, ventriloquist |
Peter Brough (26 February 1916 – 3 June 1999)[1] was an English radio ventriloquist who became a well-known name to audiences in the 1950s. He is associated with the puppet Archie Andrews.
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Born in Shepherd's Bush, London, Peter began his radio career in 1944 in ventriloquism (audiences didn't mind the fact that you couldn't see him) but in 1950 he debuted Archie, a mischievous child who domineered his mentor. Archie's chief characteristics were his Savile Row tailored blazers and manic eyes.
Archie followed in the tradition of the American ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy.
His radio series based around the character - Educating Archie - featured the likes of Dick Emery, Freddie Sales, Benny Hill, Tony Hancock, Hattie Jacques, Bruce Forsyth, Harry Secombe, Beryl Reid and even a young Julie Andrews as the girlfriend of Archie; Eric Sykes was one of the series main writers in the early 1950s. The show often averaged 15 million listeners, and a fan club boasted 250,000 members.
Due to the success of his radio show, he made his debut on television in 1956 in the BBC sitcom Here's Archie which co-starred Irene Handl and Ronald Chesney. The show was written by the latter and Ronald Wolfe, who would later team up on classic British sitcoms The Rag Trade and On the Buses.
Two years later, Peter was on ITV in Educating Archie, utilising the same team as before, although Marty Feldman took some of the writing credit as well. The TV appearances exposed his limitations as a ventriloquist, as his lips were frequently seen to move. In later years a critic remarked aptly, "Ventriloquism on the radio - I could have done that."
By 1961, Peter decided to retire Archie following the death of his father, also a ventriloquist, and he then took over the family's textile and menswear business. His TV appearances were sporadic from then on. He died in 1999.
In November 2005, the original Archie Andrews doll was sold at auction in Taunton for £34,000.