The darkness that tormented the brilliant Bill Oddie: The Goodies were so funny their fans literally died laughing. But the beloved 70s sitcom star was haunted by a family secret... and almost tore his life apart with one night stands

By CHRISTOPHER STEVENS, TV CRITIC Published: 01:00, 28 July 2026 | Updated: 01:00, 28 July 2026 Few people were ever more multi-talented than Bill Oddie. A ferociously funny, slapstick comedian and stinging satirist with The Goodies, he also wrote their string of novelty hits before reinventing himself as television’s best-loved bird-watcher. Yet Bill, who has died aged 85, was not always able to take much pleasure in his success. Plagued by fits of depression throughout his life, which escalated into suicidal lows as he got older, he too often lashed out at people around him, whether friends, fans or family. He deplored this tendency and fought against it. But he was never quite able to accept how well-liked he was. Apart from his wife and three adored daughters, the one thing that gave him respite from the waves of sadness was his love of birds. Watching them, he lost himself. Visitors to his home on the edge of Hampstead Heath were ushered into his den at the back of the house, with a couple of chairs crammed among the drumkit, electric guitars, heaps of books and a clutter of paraphernalia from his life in television. The sign on the door warned of a ‘Grumpy Old Man’ inside. Whenever I interviewed him, the undercurrent of irritability was there – Bill didn’t suffer fools – but more obvious was the need to be distracted from himself. His attention was constantly drawn to the window and when a robin alighted on the sill he was thrilled, bubbling with excitement. He told me one of his favourite memories was as a student at Cambridge: ‘One night in 1961, I was making my way back to my rooms at Pembroke College when I realised the air was alive with bird calls. ‘I stared up into the night and realised that the sky over my head was full of the calls of Scandinavian migrants – redwings, golden plover, lapwings, snow buntings and many more, arriving on an easterly airstream. I was transfixed for at least two hours.’ Bill, who has died aged 85, was not always able to take much pleasure in his success Apart from his wife and three adored daughters, the one thing that gave him respite from the waves of sadness was his love of birds. Watching them, he lost himself, writes Christopher Stevens Cambridge was the beginning of a chaotically brilliant comedy career. With fellow students in the Footlights Society, including Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and John Cleese, he wrote and starred in a BBC radio show called I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again. He wrote for TV’s Doctor In The House and That Was The Week That Was, and co-starred with Brooke-Taylor and Garden in a BBC2 sketch show called Broaden Your Mind with Michael Palin and Terry Jones. The latter two joined Monty Python, while Bill and the others formed The Goodies – which immediately proved far more popular. All three played cartoon versions of themselves. Part of the show’s success was down to its appeal to children. The Goodies were almost a traditional nuclear 1970s family: Graeme the wildly brainy but slightly aloof father, Tim the fussy, tearful mum in a Union Jack pinafore, and Bill a demanding, truculent toddler in bell-bottom dungarees and hippy hairdo. Their trademark was a three-seater bicycle. While Tim and Graeme were pedalling like mad, Bill loafed at the back with his feet up on the handlebars. From their Cricklewood offices, they ran an agency that promised to do ‘anything, any time, anywhere’, from guarding the Crown Jewels to running a safari park and, unsuccessfully, preventing the end of the world. The show became BBC1’s most successful sitcom of the 1970s, with Christmas specials watched by almost half the country. They won the Silver Rose at the Montreux Light Entertainment Festival twice: the first time for one of the most memorable half-hours of BBC comedy ever – Kitten Kong, in which they accidentally let loose a gigantic white fluffy kitten on London.  Inspired by silent comedy greats such as Buster Keaton, The Goodies revelled in slapstick comedy so uproarious that one of their fans literally died laughing. After a 1975 episode called Kung Fu Kapers aired, featuring a martial art from Yorkshire called Ecky Thump that used black puddings as truncheons, a woman in King’s Lynn wrote to the BBC to tell them her husband had laughed so much, he suffered a fatal heart attack. His last moments, she said, were happy ones. With fellow students in the Footlights Society, including Tim Brooke-Taylor (right), Graeme Garden (3rd left) and John Cleese (2nd left), he wrote and starred in a BBC radio show called I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie get ready to jump on their bike on The Goodies (1973) Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie in The Goodies, 1981 Their first novelty single, The Inbetweenies, charted at No 7 in 1974, and was followed by The Funky Gibbon a year later. That saw them appearing on Top Of The Pops, urging a studioful of teens to scratch their armpits and swing from imaginary branches. ‘Give me an Ooo, Ooo, Ooo,’ they chanted, and the whole country was doing it. They had another hit with the Osmonds send-up Nappy Love, and a couple of Christmas songs. But Bill struggled with the recognition that came with pop stardom, and when accosted in public would sometimes refuse to admit who he was. ‘Not a good idea,’ he said in his self-lacerating autobiography, 30 years later. ‘I would appear perverse, paranoid or hostile.’ His first marriage, to actress Jean Hart, broke up under the pressure of his frequent one-night stands. ‘I know we weren’t real pop stars,’ he said, ‘but we were certainly treated as though we were. I applied myself to the earlier lack of a “wild oats” period (I was a virgin till I was 18).’ The slow start to his love life was far from the worst aspect of his youth. Born in 1941, he was an only child, though his mother had previously suffered a late miscarriage and then the death of a baby girl, aged just five days. Growing up in Rochdale, in a terraced house without a garden, he stayed away from home as much as he could. A fascination with birds began when he saw his first skylark. Aged about seven, he brought home a bird’s nest to show his parents Harry and Lilian, and found a scene of devastation, with smashed furniture, broken crockery, and blood on the walls. His mother, in the throes of a psychotic illness, had attacked his father. She spent years in mental hospitals and Bill was never fully reconciled with her. When she died in 1990, he paid for her funeral but did not attend the service. Bill launched Visit Scotland's then-new website in 2004 with Tam the peregrine falcon perched on his left hand After a series of stand-up rows, including an argument with co-presenter Kate Humble, he was dropped from Springwatch By then, he was reinventing himself as the BBC’s bird-mad wildlife expert, a tubby, grumbly teddy bear who went gooey at the sight of a nestful of fledglings. In 2005, he became the first presenter of Springwatch, but acquired a reputation for being abrasive, sweary and difficult to manage. After a series of stand-up rows, including an argument with co-presenter Kate Humble, he was dropped from the show. The sacking hit him hard. ‘It precipitated an awful decline, the worst year of my life,’ he said. His wife Laura and their daughter Rosie, along with his daughters Kate and Bonnie from his first marriage, saw him retreat into a shell of misery. He attempted to take his own life, before he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Lithium helped, but his mental health remained delicate for the rest of his life. What really helped him was his garden and the birds he loved to see. ‘They give me joy,’ he told me. ‘Our very tame blackbird starts singing at about 5pm and I tend to go out there and stand under his tree, whistling back at him. ‘I can copy his notes, but I don’t have a hope of mimicking his beautiful tone. You’ll find me out there on many evenings... dueting with the blackbird.’