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Spike Milligan est un Acteur, Scénariste, Son et Ecrivain additionnel Irlandais né le 16 avril 1918 à Ahmadnagar (Inde)

Spike Milligan

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Nom de naissance Terence Alan Milligan
Nationalité Irlande
Naissance 16 avril 1918 à Ahmadnagar (Inde)
Mort 27 février 2002 (à 83 ans)
Récompenses Chevalier commandeur de l'ordre de l'Empire britannique

Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan KBE (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was a British comedian, writer and actor. The son of an Irish father and an English mother, his early life was spent in India where he was born. The majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He disliked his first name and began to call himself "Spike" after hearing a band on Radio Luxembourg called Spike Jones and his City Slickers.

Milligan was the co-creator, main writer and a principal cast member of The Goon Show, performing a range of roles including the popular Eccles and Minnie Bannister characters. Milligan wrote and edited many books, including Puckoon and his seven-volume autobiographical account of his time serving during the Second World War, beginning with Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall. He is also noted as a popular writer of comical verse; much of his poetry was written for children, including Silly Verse for Kids (1959). After success with the groundbreaking British radio programme, The Goon Show, Milligan translated this success to television with Q5, a surreal sketch show which is credited as a major influence on the members of Monty Python's Flying Circus. He was the oldest, longest lived and last surviving member of the Goons.

Milligan claimed a right to Irish citizenship (as a child of an Irish citizen) after the British government declared him stateless.

Biographie

Family
Milligan married his first wife, June (Marchinie) Marlow, in 1952; Peter Sellers was best man. They had three children – Laura, Seán and Síle – and divorced in 1960. He had one daughter with his second wife, Patricia Ridgeway (known as Paddy): the actress Jane Milligan (b. 1966). Milligan and Patricia were married in June 1962 with George Martin as best man. The marriage ended with her death from breast cancer in 1978.

In 1975 Milligan fathered a son, James (born June 1976), in an affair with Margaret Maughan. Another child, a daughter Romany, is suspected to have been born at the same time, to a Canadian journalist named Roberta Watt. His last wife was Shelagh Sinclair, to whom he was married from 1983 to his death on 27 February 2002. Four of his children collaborated with documentary makers on a new multi-platform programme called I Told You I Was Ill: The Life and Legacy of Spike Milligan (2005), which includes an accompanying website.

In October 2008 an array of Milligan's personal effects was sold at auction by his third wife, Shelagh, who was moving into a smaller home. These included a grand piano salvaged from a demolition and apparently played every morning by Paul McCartney, a neighbour in Rye in East Sussex.

Shelagh Milligan died in June 2011.

Health
He suffered from severe bipolar disorder for most of his life, having at least ten serious mental breakdowns, several lasting over a year. He spoke candidly about his condition and its effect on his life:

I have got so low that I have asked to be hospitalised and for deep narcosis (sleep). I cannot stand being awake. The pain is too much ... Something has happened to me, this vital spark has stopped burning – I go to a dinner table now and I don't say a word, just sit there like a dodo. Normally I am the centre of attention, keep the conversation going – so that is depressing in itself. It's like another person taking over, very strange. The most important thing I say is 'good evening' and then I go quiet.

Nationality
As Milligan was not born in the United Kingdom, his claim to British nationality was never clear. Milligan felt that he was entitled to a British passport, after having served in the army for six years. His passport application was refused, primarily because he would not swear an Oath of Allegiance; his Irish ancestry gave him an escape route from his stateless condition. He became an Irish citizen and remained so until his death.