Kenny Everett

Diagnoses

Personal

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Vocation

Lifestyle

Family

British actor, comedian, and radio D.J., who entered the film industry in 1965 and became the star of his own TV series in the '70s. As a kid, Kenny had so strong a religious drive that at age 12 he took two years study toward a future goal of the priesthood. He had difficulty coming to terms with his homosexuality and reconciling his lifestyle with his draw toward Deity. In show business he became famous for his bad taste and his flaunting of camp and outrage with such brilliant alter-egos as biker Sid Snot and busty Cupid Stunt. He was with Radio One from 25 December 1967 but increasingly made the sponsors nervous about how far he might go. One day when he told a comparatively tame joke on the air about a Cabinet Minister's wife, on 18 July 1970, it gave Radio One bosses the opening to fire him. During the summer of 1975, he came out of the closet to his wife and himself and by the mid-'80s, spoke openly to the press about his sexuality. At the peak of his fame, Kenny was drawing some 15 million viewers when he walked away from TV in 1989. Married for 16 years, he was HIV+. He died of AIDS on 4 April 1995, aged 50. Link to Wikipedia biography