Anthony John Hancock (12 May 1924 – 25 June 1968) was an English comedian and actor. High-profile during the 1950s and early 1960s, he had a major success with his BBC series Hancock's Half Hour, first broadcast on radio from 1954, then on television from 1956, in which he soon formed a strong professional and personal bond with comic actor Sid James. Although Hancock's decision to cease working with James, when it became known in early 1960, disappointed many at the time, his last BBC series in 1961 contains some of his best-remembered work (including The Blood Donor and The Radio Ham). After breaking with his scriptwriters Ray Galton and Alan Simpson later that year, his career declined. Early life and career Hancock was born in Southam Road, Hall Green, Birmingham (then in Warwickshire), but, from the age of three, he was brought up in Bournemouth (then in Hampshire), where his father, John Hancock, who ran the Railway Hotel in Holdenhurst Road, worked as a comedian and entertainer. After his father's death in 1934, Hancock and his brothers lived with their mother and stepfather Robert Gordon Walker at a small hotel called Durlston Court, in Gervis Road, Bournemouth. He attended Durlston Court Preparatory School, part of Durlston boarding school near Swanage (the name of which his parents adopted for their hotel) and Bradfield College in Reading, Berkshire, but left school at the age of fifteen. In 1942, during the Second World War, Hancock joined the RAF Regiment. Following a failed audition for the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA), he ended up on the Ralph Reader Gang Show touring production of "Wings". After the war, he returned to the stage and eventually worked as resident comedian at the Windmill Theatre, a venue which helped to launch the careers of many comedians at the time. A favourable press review of his work at the Windmill was seen in July 1948. "But mention must made of a new young comedian…who with a piano partner, gives some brilliant thumbnail impressions of a “dud” concert party." He took part in radio shows such as Workers' Playtime and Variety Bandbox. In July 1949, he was praised for his work in the summer presentation of "Flotsam's Follies" at the Esplanade Concert Hall, Bognor Regis. Christmas 1949 saw him in the part of "Buttons" in the Cinderella pantomime at the Royal Artillery, Woolwich. In June 1950, he opened