Ian Handford: Comedy brothers faced rivalry, fame, and ill health

There had always been a rivalry between comic Bernie Winters and his brother, Mike. 

This was made worse by the scriptwriters of their shows always allowing Bernie to “get the girl” while Mike would play the “dummy”. But then a revival of Rhapsody in Blue finally turned the rivalry into a disaster when both “dried up on stage”. With the theatre manager publicly screaming, “Get out of the business, you’re both useless,” he immediately sacked them.

Mike now chose to ask for external advice before going to work as a market trader in London. Bernie, meanwhile, still in his early 20s, entered yet another local talent contest and won. Then he moved to Blackpool to find work on the amusement rides of the Golden Mile. Sometime later, it would be Lionel Blair who gave them their next break into his world. Having seen Bernie doing a one-night stand-up as a cockney, he had noted the so-called “plummy” Mike being approached by a manager who wanted to put them together again as part of his new show comprising a band, singers, dancers, and a comedian. who were about to appear in front of soldiers. 

Bernie preferring stand-up anyway still often chose to go on stage bent double, his logic being better to not see the eyes of the audience to avoid any occurrence of stage fright. The next move came after they met Jack Farr, who wanted the double act for his new show, Three Loose Screws, which strangely included an uncontrollable mongrel called Lulu. Toured widely with rising stars like Anne Shelton and Tommy Steele, ultimately, they arrived in Brighton and finally in 1955 Weymouth, where Bernie fell in love with a young dancer in the show — Siggi Heine.

When in love, Bernie was a “stammering jelly”, though somehow, he plucked up courage to invite Siggi to lunch in a rented caravan. Now the brothers worked with stars of the day, including Benny Hill, George Formby, Max Miller and Tommy Steele, although Bernie greatly missed Siggie when touring. 

The partnership then presented to American soldiers based in Germany, where they are hoping to repeat the success of playing before soldiers in Britain. They actually adopted Canadian accents so that the audience might think they were not British, which was a great success. This in spite of playing to a diverse audience of soldiers who, when drunk, would make any loose remark turn the theatre into a war zone. The trip involved playing three times nightly, and Bernie was far from happy.

But then Siggi came to Stuttgart, and this saw Bernie immediately spending his last fiver  on a first engagement ring. 

Sadly, within an hour, they were in conflict after a remark about any children having to be Jewish. The ring was thrown into a drain as a horrified Bernie watched. Now it took months before at a gig in Birmingham they met again and this time the engagement lasted three months before the ring was thrown out of a window.

A turning point came for the partnership when Mike introduced the idea of over-tailored suits, making them funny visually. Now they widely toured the UK before returning to Finsbury Park to meet up with pal Tommy Steele. Later, when interviewed live on TV’s Six-Five Special Show, Bernie confirmed he had been offered the opportunity of acting in American movies. It created a new dilemma; could it mean ending the double act? To placate Mike, Bernie offered to share all his earnings. That allowed him to appear in the films Jazzboat, then In the Nick and Let's Get Married plus Johnnie Nobody. Yet in America, Bernie mixed with drinkers, including Oliver Reed and Tony Newley, and being a serious smoker was all dangers in the making.

Once back home, a third engagement ring was given to Siggi, and they finally married on February 28th, 1958. Thankfully not a leap year, that meant they always celebrated their wedding every year thereafter.

IAN'S COMMENT Mike never enjoyed the thirty years of touring and their rivalry also never helped. The brothers agreed to end the partnership when Bernie said: “OK, let's break up.”

With the partnership firmly re-established due to their joint interest in football — Mike and Bernie had supported the All Stars Football Team for many years — a new highlight dawned in what had been a “rocky year” when appearing alongside Shirley Bassey at the Palladium in 1961.

 It was also the year that Siggi had Bernie's first child, Raymond.

With life seeming complete, the first appearance on Sunday Night at the Palladium turned out to be another disaster for their career. Some said they were “a bit like Marmite”: you either loved or hated their style of comedy. In the following season they returned to Weymouth with Dusty Springfield and Matt Munro, which again restarted their career. They were given a TV show, the Mike and Bernie Show, and afterwards toured Australia and South Africa, where sadly the race question arose again, which always badly affected Bernie. 

Michael Grade billed them in advance as England’s top Jewish comedians, yet neither brother ever told a Jewish joke on stage and with black and white problems rife, the billing became horrific.

Fortunately, their style of comedy owed its success to timing, mirroring in fact the other famous double act, Morecambe and Wise. But unlike Eric and Ernie, attempts at situation comedy failed due to Bernie's short temper and being a worrier on stage. In 1973 the Bernard Delfont Company featured them in his latest production, Showtime at Torquay, and this became a precursor to real success, until Mike started intimating he wanted to permanently move to Florida in America, and in 1978 Mike and his family did leave Britain and Bernie.

In America, Mike soon became a highly successful nightclub owner and never returned to a British stage again. Being successful in Florida, the county state a few years later awarded him the Keys to the City for his outstanding work for charity. He had also published a number of books, including one called Memoir. Earlier in Britain, during their partnership period, the brothers had been awarded their first TV show, having been recognised as pioneers of the TV comedy show, which had run for eight years while featuring famous guests of stage and film plus television. In those early years they had even put their infamous rivalry aside and eventually made their peace just before Mike left for America and Bernie was formally diagnosed with cancer.

But now it was 1978, and with Mike gone, Bernie returned to the stage in partnership with his large St Bernard dog, Schnorbitz. Ultimately, they even appeared on our TV screens, which seemed a bit weird and yet was fun and seemed to work for a time.

Then four years later, at a Christmas pantomime show in Bath, Bernie was billed fifth, which says it all, and then a little later on the It’s Berni TV show, he was not popular. Then he hosted the Make Me Laugh Show and compered the Whose Baby Show before finally fronting the more popular Blankety Blank.

Real fame returned when playing Bud n' Ches opposite Leslie Crowther, and they created a new act, which took them straight to the West End's Prince of Wales Theatre and success. 

However,  Bernie's long addiction to heavy smoking finally caught up with him when he was diagnosed with cancer in 1990. He continued to smoke before finally collapsing on stage in a birthday gala show for  the Queen Mother. Most of his stomach had to be removed, yet he still returned to the stage when playing the famous Widow Twankey and then Aladdin at Basildon, which demanded being on stage three times a day. In recalling Schnorbitz, the press was cruelly reporting Bernie as part of “Britain's unfunniest double acts” in spite of him having already lost four stone.

In hospital again, it was reported that he still told the occasional joke until, with Siggi and their mutual friend Raymond at his bedside, he  died on May 4, 1991.