Terry-Thomas (14 July 1911 – 8 January 1990) was a distinctive British comic actor famous for the trademark gap in his front teeth, cigarette holder, dressing gown, and such catch-phrases as "You're an absolute shower!" and "Good show!"

Born Thomas Terence Hoar-Stephens in Finchley, London he worked in cabaret and as a film extra before finding success as an entertainer during World War II. After the war he worked in TV, radio and variety, but it was during the mid-1950s that he developed his famous persona: as Major Hitchcock in the Boultings Brothers ' Private's Progress (1956) his "shower" catchphrase was born, a role reprised in I'm All Right Jack (1959). He played a variety of exuberant, malevolent and silly characters during the 1960s, and became famous for his portrayal of the archetypal cad, bounder, and absolute rotter.

In 1971 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, and by 1977 he had retired.

Selected films

1950s

• The Green Man (1956)
• Private's Progress (1956) as Major Hitchcock
• The Naked Truth (1957) as Lord Mayley, a shifty peer of the realm
• Lucky Jim (1957)
• Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957) as Captain Romney Carlton-Ricketts
• I'm All Right Jack (1959) reprising the role of Major Hitchcock
• Carlton-Browne of the F.O. (1959)
• Too Many Crooks (1959)
• School for Scoundrels (1959) as a British cad in a game of oneupmanship

1960s

• It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) as Lt. Col. Algernon Hawthorne
• How to Murder Your Wife (1965)
• Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) as Sir Percy Ware-Armitage
• Our Man in Marrakesh (1966) as El Caid
• Rocket to the Moon (1967) as Sir Washington-Smythe
• Diabolik (1968) as the Minister of Finance
• Monte Carlo or Bust (1969) as Sir Cuthbert Ware-Armitage

1970s

• The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
• Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)
• Disney's version of Robin Hood (1973), as the voice of Sir Hiss
• Spanish Fly (1976) as Sir Percy De Courcy
• The Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones (1976)
• The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978), his last film role

External links

• Terry-Thomas at screenonline