Cap'n Birdseye gone to great fish finger in the sky

[quincyg]

from Telegraph site

John Hewer

Last Updated: 1:56am GMT 22/03/2008

John Hewer, who died on March 16 aged 86, was the definitive Captain Birdseye in countless television commercials for fish fingers and other frozen fish products.

John Hewer


With his trademark twinkle, (false) snowy-white beard and piratical vowels, Hewer played the jovial captain - invariably commanding a crew of ravenous children - from 1967 until 1998. In a poll in 1993 he was voted the most recognised naval captain after Captain Cook.

In 1971, when the Birds Eye company decided to drop him, it placed a newspaper death notice marking the demise of a character noted for "his selfless devotion to the nutritional needs of the nation's children". Reinstated three years later, in the wake of the cod war, Captain Birdseye eventually outlasted the Milky Bar Kid and Ronald McDonald to become one of the longest running "brand personalities" in the history of food advertising.

John Hewer was born on January 13 1922 at Leyton, east London, the son of an engine driver. After attending Leyton High School he worked for the social services' department of the London county council until the Second World War, in which he served as a navigator in the Fleet Air Arm.

On his demob, Hewer returned to the LCC but felt drawn to the professional stage and joined the Unity and Players' Theatres, with the result that he was offered numerous television and film roles in the early 1950s. His big break came when he starred as Tony opposite a young Julie Andrews in the original Broadway production of Sandy Wilson's The Boy Friend. He later took the show on an American tour.
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Returning to London, Hewer enjoyed West End successes with roles in Six Of One and in a revival of Noël Coward's Sail Away, with Elaine Stritch, in 1962. With Mike Hall, son of the bandleader Henry Hall, he also ran a business organising sales conferences.

For 10 years, from the late 1960s, Hewer hosted a popular variety series for CTV in Canada called The Pig And Whistle, set in a fictional English pub and featuring the music of the Carlton Showband, a Canadian-Irish musical group.

After a one-off booking to appear in a television commercial for Birds Eye frozen peas, Hewer was offered the Captain Birdseye role in 1967.

John Hewer married, in 1943, Edna Vernon, who died in 1998.

Their son and daughter survive him.