Dick Bentley

Who was Dick Bentley?

Charles Walter "Dick" Bentley, born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, was a comedian and actor. He starred with Jimmy Edwards in Take It From Here for BBC Radio.

As a boy, Bentley learned several musical instruments, and while still in his teens was a staple on the Melbourne cabaret circuit as a comedian and singer, his act consisting of playing a few bars of music deliberately badly, interspersed with jokes and legitimate musical numbers. He made his first appearance on ABC Radio in the early 1930s and by 1938 had become a fairly prominent personality, notably on Wilfrid Thomas's show "Out of the Bag". In that year he moved to London and worked for the BBC. Newly married to Peta, he returned to Australia on the outbreak of war, and spent several years entertaining the troops in the Pacific theatre.

By 1946, he was one of Australia's highest-paid entertainers, and returned to Britain to try to re-establish himself in a much larger market. He joined up with writer Denis Norden and guested on many of the leading radio shows of the day. An appearance on Navy Mixture teamed him successfully with Jimmy Edwards, and indirectly led to the pairing of Denis Norden with Frank Muir, who was Edwards' writer. Muir and Norden together wrote Take It From Here, with Edwards and Bentley as two of the three stars. The most memorable feature of Take It From Here was The Glums, with Edwards playing the slightly seedy Pa Glum and Bentley his terminally dim son, Ron. Bentley was thirteen years older than Edwards.