Early life (1909–1937) Tommy Trinder was born at 54 Wellfield Road,
Streatham,
South London, on 24 March 1909, the son of Thomas Henry Trinder, a London tram driver from
Shilton, Oxfordshire, and his
Scottish wife Jennie Georgina Harriet ( Mills). The family moved to
Fulham after Trinder's father was transferred to
Hammersmith. As a boy, Trinder would sneak into
Fulham Football Club's
Craven Cottage ground when the
Thames was at low tide to watch the club play. Trinder left school early for a job as an
errand boy. He made his first stage appearance at the age of twelve in a talent competition at
Collins's Music Hall. Trinder's singing act won the contest and when collecting his award, he was approached by Will Murray who recruited him for his Casey's Court juvenile comedy show. Trinder made his first appearance with the company on 5 June 1921 in
Oldham. The company, which also featured
Jimmy Wheeler at the time, toured
music halls including
Sunderland Empire Theatre. After a few years with Casey's Court, Trinder then joined a dancing act called Phil Rees' Stable Lads. At the age of 14, he performed with them at
Folies Bergère,
Paris. By the mid-1930s, Trinder was appearing in variety shows across the United Kingdom with an act titled "The Load of Nonsense".
Stardom and Ealing Studios (1937–1950) during the making of
Communal Kitchen: Eating Out With Tommy Trinder for the
Ministry of Information in 1941 Trinder began to achieve national recognition in 1937 with the touring revues
Tune In and
In Town Tonight. Trinder's stage persona was confident and cheeky with what historian
Matthew Sweet has described as a "transcendental self-belief" typified by his "you lucky people!" catchphrase. Trinder would often begin his act with "The name's Trinder. That's T-R-I-N-D-E-R, pronounced Chumley", a dig at the
upper classes. In December 1938, Trinder was spotlighted in an end-of-year review in
The Era, who said "Tommy Trinder has established himself firmly in his own special niche, as we knew he would. But it is not a niche easy of attainment. To abolish deliberately the
proscenium, to get down among the audience, treat individual members of it with easy familiarity, pinch their cigarettes and chocolates and to be loved for doing it... well, I have seen other artists try something like it, and their reward has been the frozen face and the indignant murmur. Tommy Trinder is a truly great artist". In July 1939, Trinder starred alongside
Arthur Askey in
Jack Hylton's stage version of the
BBC's radio comedy series
Band Waggon at the
London Palladium. By the time of the
Second World War, Trinder was one of Britain's foremost entertainers and regularly appeared in his own shows at the London Palladium. He performed for British armed forces personnel as part of ENSA (
Entertainments National Service Association) and would joke that the organisation’s name stood for Every Night Something Atrocious. Trinder would later dub its successor CSE (
Combined Services Entertainment) "Chaos Supersedes ENSA". In 1941, he appeared in
Eating Out with Tommy Trinder, a
public information film promoting wartime
British Restaurants. Trinder was known for his self-promotion and claimed that, had he not entered showbusiness, he would have worked in publicity. When appearing in
George Black's musical revue
Happy and Glorious in 1944, he arranged for large posters to be displayed across London bearing the slogan "If it's laughter you're after, Trinder's the name". One of the posters, in the East End of London, was in
Yiddish.
The Stage has described Trinder as one of the first artists to recognise the importance of advertising. Trinder began a film career in 1938, making his film debut in
Welwyn Studios'
Save a Little Sunshine. He starred alongside
Pat Kirkwood, who later described him as "rude and insulting and downright nasty". It was Trinder's most successful comedy film In 1944, Trinder starred in the
musical film Champagne Charlie, playing the 19th-century music hall performer
George Leybourne opposite
Stanley Holloway as his peer
Alfred Vance. In the same year, Trinder appeared in
Fiddlers Three, a loose sequel to
Sailors Three. He also took straight acting parts, playing an army driver in charge of a gang of French refugee children in
The Foreman Went to France (1942) and a
AFS fireman in
The Bells Go Down (1943).
Bitter Springs (1950) has been described as Trinder's last significant film and features the comedian as a failing travelling conjuror who makes a new life as a stockman in the
Australian Outback. Upon his arrival in
Sydney, he described himself as "just a pommy trying to make good". He began to work in television, describing the medium as "a powerful, but legitimate, rival to the theatre". In 1955, Trinder became the original compere for the
ATV television programme
Sunday Night at the London Palladium. A live
variety show featuring the
game show segment
Beat the Clock, the programme regularly attracted an estimated twelve million viewers. As he had in his stage act, Trinder often included pointed topical gags in the programme, a feature that sometimes proved controversial. Among Trinder's targets were fellow entertainers
Bob Monkhouse,
Liberace and Frank Sinatra. Explaining his position in 1956, he commented "It is expected of me to make jokes about current topical items of interest. I gag about
Lady Docker and
Diana Dors. If I happen to be in the news, I gag about myself." In October 1957, Trinder mounted a successful tour of
South Africa.
Sunday Night used a number of guest presenters in his absence. In 1967, Trinder and Forsyth appeared together in a pantomime production arranged to ensure the two would not share a scene. Beginning in 1957, Trinder was a regular panellist on the
BBC Light Programme radio show
Does the Team Think?. In May 1959, he was the subject of the 100th edition of
This Is Your Life when he was surprised by
Eamonn Andrews. He moved to the
BBC to host his own television series,
Trinder Box, in 1959. The programme was short-lived, as was a 1960 comedy quiz show ''It's Only Money''. Trinder never fully warmed to the medium of television, believing that the amount of daily rehearsal sapped performances of their spontaneity. and from 1959 until 1976, he was chairman of the club. In this position, Trinder championed the midfielder
Johnny Haynes. Confident that football's £20
maximum wage would remain in place, Trinder told Haynes that he would pay him £100 a week if he could. He repeated this to the press, telling them "If he asks for it, who am I to deny it to the best player in the world?". The wage cap was lifted in 1961 and Trinder kept his word. The rise kept Haynes from signing with
A.C. Milan and he remained with Fulham until 1970. The
Daily Mail sports columnist
J. L. Manning described Trinder's move as "a bold, brave and sensible application of soccer’s New Deal". He also continued to make occasional film appearances. Trinder's television appearances were largely limited to guest spots on programmes including
The Dickie Valentine Show during the 1960s. In May 1964, he reprised his
Champagne Charlie character in the first of several appearances on the BBC music hall programme
The Good Old Days. Later that year, Trinder adapted to the
satire boom with appearances in six episodes of the BBC series
Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life. Trinder performed before the
British royal family in six
Royal Variety Performances between 1945 and 1980. From 1937 onwards, he was a member of the exclusive entertainment fraternity, the
Grand Order of Water Rats. In 1956, Trinder was President of the
Lord's Taverners cricketing charity. Trinder celebrated 50 years in showbusiness in 1971.
Final years and death (1976–1989) In later years, Trinder performed in pantomime, appeared in holiday camps and worked as a
warm-up act for
Tyne Tees Television in
Newcastle. One notable latter-day television appearance was in a 1979 edition of
The Old Boy Network (
BBC2), with Trinder performing his act at
Great Yarmouth's Windmill Theatre and presenting a condensed history of his life and career. In 1982, Trinder was reported to be earning only £17 a week in a summer season in
Jersey. The following year, he was hospitalised after collapsing whilst appearing in the pantomime
Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp and was said to have been experiencing exhaustion. Trinder collapsed on stage again during a show in
Rotherham in April 1985 and during a
Burton-on-Trent show in January 1986. After a stroke, Trinder used a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. He continued to work, appearing on television in the
game show The Parlour Game. He made his last television appearance in February 1989, recalling his contemporary
Max Miller in the BBC
40 Minutes documentary
I Like The Girls Who Do. An exhibition of photographs and ephemera was held at
Streatham Library in March 1989 to mark Trinder's 80th birthday. He died at
St Peter's Hospital, Chertsey on 10 July 1989. Among the tributes,
Ernie Wise described Trinder as "one of the best ad lib comedians we have ever produced – he was in the same class as Max Miller". ==Personal life==