Rod Hull: A Bird In The Hand

Thursday 3 July 2003, 9pm

During the 70s and 80s Rod Hull was a top ranking star of British showbiz and a multi-millionaire. His slapstick routine with an over-sized glove puppet took him to Hollywood and back. But when he died he was worth less than £2,000.

The act he developed with the anarchic Emu brought Rod to England from Australia, and by the early 70s he became one of the most recognisable faces on TV.

Over ten years later, he was still riding high. He had made it on to the highest-rating talk show in the world, The Tonight Show, and was even invited to Kensington Palace to make a private appearance.

But Rod longed to be taken seriously, and enjoyed a love-hate relationship with the puppet, increasingly seeing the emu as an albatross. Then came the recession.

By the early 1990s, Rod Hull had not been on TV for three years. He worked long hours for low pay on the variety circuit in an attempt to pay off his huge debts. His house was repossessed, and his second wife left him.

But he still had to work and survive, and this meant unpacking the hated Emu and heading back on the road. This is how he continued until early 1999, when his life ended in a bizarre accident that was to put him back in the headlines for the very last time.