Information AboutMichael Bentine |
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Michael Bentine ( 26 January , 1922 - 26 November , 1996 ) was a Comedian , comic Actor , and member of the Goons . Bentine was born in Watford , Hertfordshire , of Anglo - Peru vian parentage and grew up in Folkestone , Kent . He was educated at Eton College . In World War II he served as an RAF Intelligence officer, and took part in the liberation of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp . He had acted before the war, and afterwards he decided to become a comedian, specialising in off-the-wall humour, often involving cartoons and other types of Animation . For example, a prominent feature of his series, ''It's a Square World'', was the imaginary Flea Circus . He was also a Television Presenter and writer. He appeared in the '' Goon Show '' film ''Down Among the Z Men'', and at the time seemed perhaps the most comfortable of the cast in working in a visual medium. During the 1960s he also took part in the first Hovercraft Expedition up the Amazon river. Bentine was a crack pistol shot, and helped to start the idea of a counter-terrorist wing within 22 SAS Regiment. In doing so, he became the first non-SAS person ever to fire a gun inside the close-quarters battle training house at Hereford. His interests included Parapsychology . This is a result of his and his family's extensive research into the paranormal which resulted in him writing ''The Door Marked Summer'' and The Doors of the Mind. Appeared in:
In 1995, Michael Bentine received a CBE from Queen Elizabeth II "for services to entertainment". He was a holder of the Peruvian Order of Merit, as was his grandfather Don Antonio Bentin Palamero. He was married to Clementina, a Royal Ballet dancer, for over fifty years; their two surviving children, Richard and Serena, both work in Marketing . He died from Prostate Cancer , at the age of 74, at his home in England . BOOKS
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