Denis Norden dead at 96

Beloved British comedy writer and TV presenter Denis Norden has died at the age of 96.
Norden, who presented the TV outtakes show It’ll Be Alright on the Night from 1977 until his retirement in 2006, passed away on Wednesday (19Sep18) after spending “many weeks” in London’s Royal Free Hospital, his family told Britain’s Evening Standard newspaper.
“We’d like to say a huge thank you to all the dedicated staff and doctors who have looked after him – with much devotion,” his children Maggie and Nick said in a statement. “A wonderful dad, a loving grandfather and great great-grandfather – he gave his laughter mongering to so many. He will be in our hearts forever.”
Born in the London borough of Hackney in 1922, Norden wrote his first radio script for the BBC, Let’s Go to the Holborn, at the age of 19 and served in the Royal Air Force in the Second World War. After the conflict, he teamed up with the comic Frank Muir in 1947, forming a writing partnership that would last into the 1960s, and produced comedies including BBC radio’s Take It From Here, and the TV shows Whack-O! and Faces of Jim. The duo dissolved their partnership in 1964, and Norden went on to write the scripts for films including Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell and The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom.
He is best known to audiences as the host of British network ITV’s It’ll Be Alright On The Night, which took viewers behind the scenes of the TV industry using footage of outtakes and bloopers – and was a fixture on screens for nearly three decades.
Norden retired from the role in 2006 due to ill health, but continued to occasionally appear on TV to talk about his life and career.
Several British stars paid tribute to the U.K. entertainment legend, including Piers Morgan, Rory Bremner and Stephen Fry, who wrote on Twitter: “A simply wonderful man. Kind, wise, funny, friendly and unassuming (with less reason to be so than most of us). So sorry he’s no longer in the world.”