Benny Hill was an unlikely figure of global admiration—he was a deeply private individual, a loner, uninterested in money and the trappings of success. Acclaimed in the 1950s as the first British TV comedy superstar, loved for his pioneering ideas and humor, Hill"s popularity remained undimmed for decades. But in the 1980s, he was reviled in Britain, with his innuendo-strewn humor branded sexist. His TV show"s sudden end in 1989 was followed by a self-inflicted decline in his health, and Benny died in 1992.