GEORGE MELLYFlamboyant jazz veteran George Melly, who died on 5 July 2007 aged 80, was one of the most colourful characters in British showbusiness of the last 50 years.A true Renaissance man, he wrote 13 books, gave lectures on fine art and performed on stage for nearly sixty years while also finding time to indulge his passions for film, fishing, drink and sex.His style was heavily influenced by his jazz idols Fats Waller and Bessie Smith and he became famous for his performances in which he delighted audiences with saucy jokes and witty asides.With his loud suits, hats and cigars, he epitomized the gangster style of the 1930s.Alan George Heywood Melly was born in Liverpool on 17 August 1926. His interest in jazz, blues and art began at the liberal Stowe public school.At the end of the Second World War, Mr Melly joined the Navy where he risked court-martial distributing anarchist literature. He left in 1948 and worked in a Surrealist art gallery in London before becoming a jazz trumpeter in Mick Mulligan's Magnolia Jazz band.After a successful career, he retired from the jazz world in 1962 to become a writer. He was The Observer’s film critic and wrote for the Flook cartoon strip in the Daily Mail.He returned to his jazz career in the early 1970s, performing with John Chilton's Feetwarmers and releasing three albums including Nuts (1972) and Son of Nuts (1973). His column in Punch magazine, ‘Mellymobile’, described the band’s tours.He spent the next three decades touring, lecturing, writing and indulging his passion for fly-fishing. He wrote many volumes of his autobiography recounting his wild times and interesting adventures.Mr Melly was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2005. He also suffered from the brain condition vascular dementia and had increasingly poor hearing due to environmental hearing loss from sound systems.In January 2007, he was taken to hospital after collapsing on stage during a performance with his band Digby Fairweather's Half Dozen. Despite his declining health, he was performing until the very end, saying: "I've always said I wanted to die coming off stage with the applause in my ears”.He made his last stage appearance on the 10th June at London’s 100 Club, giving a concert in aid of his carers at Admiral Nurses. He died at home on 5 July 2007 aged 80.Eccentric, flamboyant and at times shockingly open, Mr Melly became a cultural icon. In 1978 The Stranglers wrote him a track which he recorded with the band called 'Old Codger'.He had a keen intellect and his lectures and his writings on surrealism were highly regarded. Mr Melly was a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association and Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society.He was a much-loved colourful character, always full of hilarious tales of his wild adventures. He talked openly about the bisexual exploits of his past, but enjoyed a happy family life with second wife Diana, his two children, stepdaughter and four grandchildren.Roy Hudd remembers his friend warmly: "It was rather a tight-arsed thing, this revival of trad jazz, but George brought huge fun to it. He brought us a lot of fun and a lot of pleasure."
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