Christopher Biggins is happy to keep working for so long that he dies on stage like Tommy Cooper.
The showbiz legend has no plans to retire any time soon so knows there’s a chance he’ll peg it while he’s performing. It would mirror what happened to comedy icon Tommy when he was killed by a heart attack while doing a gig that was being broadcast on live TV.
Biggins said: “I won’t retire. I’ll go on as long as I can walk. If I died in the middle of the act, that would be perfect. I can think of nothing nicer.”
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I’m A Celebrity winner Biggins keeps working because he loves earning big money. The star gets lucrative contracts to do panto every Christmas at 74.
(Image: Ken McKay/ITV/REX)
He said: “I want to keep doing panto because the money is very tempting. I love it. It’s great.” Biggins admits the only reason he would retire from the stage is if snowflakes ruin pantos.
The former Porridge star worries efforts to modernise shows will take the fun out of it. He said: “I will leave pantos when they start to use women to play the panto dame. Things are changing so drastically. It would be a shame. It would be terrible. Who knows what will happen? There is still a market for the old fashioned pantomimes. I remember when principal boys were women in fishnets slapping their thighs saying, ‘It’s 12 o’clock and still no sign of Dick.’”
(Image: Popperfoto/Getty Images)
It comes after Biggins revealed he felt a ‘terrible coldness’ before he saw the ghostly figure of a woman walking by his bed during a hotel stay once. He revealed: “Do you know, I have just been asked to do a programme about ghosts. And I have seen a ghost – in a hotel.
“I was in bed, and there was a terrible coldness that came through in the middle of the night. And I woke up, and I saw a woman walking at the bottom of the bed. It was extraordinary.” He also rubbished any suggestion that AI – artificial intelligence – could knock him off his perch as the king of pantomime.
(Image: REX/Shutterstock)
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He said: “No they’re not. I have no fears, I suppose they could do a Biggins voice but listen, it won’t be the same! I am still doing panto, I’m in Southampton this year doing Snow White, I think last year I worked out I’d been doing 40 years!” It’s little wonder then that the former Porridge actor is so loved by the public after so many years in showbiz.
He said: “Living legend is a great expression and as you get older, and I’m 75 this Christmas, I appreciate that. “To be called a national treasure? They’re all fabulous things and it’s wonderful and when I look back on my career and see what I have done, I understand why people say that, I think it’s marvellous that I’ve done so much to help so many people. “I enjoy life and I think that comes over and I love people so it’s good.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
