Character: Kenny Everett. Born Maurice Cole in 1944 (died in 1995), made his name as an anarchic DJ on pirate radio in the sixties before setting sail into the comedy mainstream in the seventies where he was the missing link between Monty Python and Chris Morris.
Programmes: The Kenny Everett Video Show (1978 - 1980) & The Kenny Everett Television Show (1981 - 1987)Standout moment: A pioneer of new TV technology, he used it to great effect to play all three toothy, hairy Bee Gees at the same time. Even funnier was his Rod Stewart send-up, when his ever-inflating bum carried him to the studio ceiling before exploding.
Memorable catchphrase: "It's all done in the best possible taste!" – regularly declared by one of his notorious characters, the hairy- legged Hollywood blonde bombshell, Cupid Stunt.Lowest ebb: Being sacked from Radio One in 1970 for suggesting that the Transport Minister's wife had bribed her examiner to pass her driving test. Appearing at a Tory Party Conference wearing giant foam hands and declaring "Let's bomb Russia" in the eighties was pretty dodgy too.
Big screen potential: It is surprising that no-one has attempted to make a movie version of Everett's colourful antics. The 1997 Howard Stern biopic Private Parts showed that larger-than-life disc jockeys can often make the transition to celluloid easier than sitcom icons.Friday Night Project comedian Alan Carr would make a pretty convincing Kenny. The only worry is that Everett's single foray into film himself, the horror spoof Bloodbath at the House of Death, was a 24-carat stinker.
Why are they a hero? Everett was a true one-off who genuinely did his own thing simply because he enjoyed doing it. If his career hadn't been a success he'd probably have spent his life splicing up tapes in his bedroom for his own amusement.
Factoid: He borrowed his showbiz surname from film star Edward Everett Horton
