British actor John Bird never minced his words throughout his life - with his satire he made fun of politicians and despots. In old age, Bird really gets going again with a show. Now he dies at the age of 86. His peers hailed him as "one of the last surviving pillars of the anti-establishment."
Mourning for John Bird: The British actor and comedian died on December 24th. He was 86 years old. According to a statement quoted by the Daily Mail, among other things, Bird died peacefully in a nursing home in West Sussex, southern England.
Born on November 22, 1936 in Nottingham in the middle of the country, John Bird first made his name as a satirist on British television in the 1960s. Among other things, he appeared in the satirical weekly review "That Was The Week That Was". In the 1960s and 1970s, John Bird also played sporadically in movies. Among other things, he was seen in the 1976 crime parody "No Coke for Sherlock Holmes" and a year later in Terry Gilliam's fantasy comedy "Jabberwocky".
In 1975 he co-released the comedy album The Collected Broadcasts of Idi Amin with British comedian Alan Coren. With these satirical recordings they mocked the then Ugandan military dictator Idi Amin, who is considered one of the most brutal despots of the 20th century.
After numerous appearances on television and on stage, John Bird started again around the turn of the millennium. The satirical show "Bremner, Bird and Fortune" made Bird famous again from 1999.
Here Bird once again performed with his longtime sketch partner John Fortune, whom he had met while studying at Cambridge. Bird and Fortune were popular on the show for The Two Johns format. These were interviews with fictitious politicians or officials, all of whom went by the name of George Parr. John Fortune died in 2013 at the age of 74.
Rory Bremner, the third member of "Bremner, Bird and Fortune", paid tribute to the late colleague Bird on Twitter. "One of the humblest men and most brilliant satirists," wrote Bremner. "And one of the last surviving pillars of the anti-establishment."
