Marty Feldman (July 8, 1933–December 2, 1982). English writer, comedian and film and television actor, famous for his bulging eyes, which were the result of a thyroid condition.

Like Spike Milligan, Feldman started his show-business career as a trumpet player, but soon turned to comedy. He formed a flourishing writing partnership with Barry Took in 1954. For British television they wrote situation comedies such as The Army Game , Bootsie and Snudge, and most notably the ground-breaking BBC radio show Round the Horne, which starred Kenneth Horne and Kenneth Williams. Feldman was also a writer on The Frost Report with several future members of Monty Python.

The television sketch comedy series At Last the 1948 Show featured Feldman's first on-screen performances. In one memorable sketch, first broadcast on March 1, 1967, Feldman harassed a patient shop assistant (John Cleese) for a series of fictitious books, finally achieving success with Ethel the Aardvark goes Quantity Surveying. The sketch was revived as part of the Monty Python stage show repertoire (without Feldman).

Following his success on At Last the 1948 Show, Feldman had a memorable series of his own shows on the BBC, called It's Marty. His performances on American television included The Dean Martin Show and Marty Feldman's Comedy Machine.

He is remembered for his role as the hunchback Igor (pronounced as eye-gor) in Young Frankenstein—in which, as usual, many of his lines were improvised.

Feldman appeared in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes's Smarter Brother and several Mel Brooks films, including Silent Movie and Young Frankenstein. He directed and starred in The Last Remake of Beau Geste and died from a heart attack in Mexico filming his last performance in the film Yellowbeard .

He also released one long playing record called I Feel A Song Going Off (1969), re-released as The Crazy World of Marty Feldman. The songs were written, not by him, but by Dennis King, John Junkin and Bill Solly (a writer for Max Bygraves and The Two Ronnies).¹

Feldman was an active member of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Reference

¹Kettering Magazine Issue #2.

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