THE STORY OF TOMMY COOPER....DEATH ON LIVE TELEVISION.....
Thomas Frederick Cooper was born on 19 March 1921 at 19-On Street in Caerphilly. He was delivered by the woman who owned the house in which the family were lodging. His parents were Thomas H. Cooper, a welsh recruiting sergeant in the British army and later coal miner, and Catherine Gertrude. After school, Cooper became a shipwright in Southampton. In 1940, he was called up as a trooper in the royal horse guards , serving for seven years. He joined Montgomery's desert rats in Egypt. Cooper became a member of a navy, army and air force institutes entertainment party and developed an act around his magic tricks interspersed with comedy. One evening in Cairo, during a sketch in which he was supposed to be in a costume that required a pith helmet , having forgotten the prop, Cooper reached out and borrowed a fez from a passing waiter, which got huge laughs. He wore a fez whenever performing after th...