Popular entertainer was for years a punchline of jokes but remained humbly grateful for his success
Despite spending three decades as the punchline of cruel jokes by Britain’s most popular TV comedian, Eric Morecambe, Des O’Connor had the last laugh by sustaining a peak-time TV career from 1963 to 2012. Such longevity of success in a fickle field is rivalled only by that of Bruce Forsyth and David Attenborough.
On shows under various titles – including The Des O’Connor Show, Des, and Des O’Connor Tonight – he was a fixture in ITV weekend peak-time programming from 1963 until 1999, moving between songs, comedy and interviews – the order of that list reflecting the hierarchy of his talents. In this century, and his own eighth decade, he serenely adapted to daytime TV on Today with Des and Mel, co-hosted with Mel Sykes for ITV, and in a stint fronting Channel 4’s Countdown.
