Host of British surreal radio game show dies
Jazz trumpeter and broadcaster Humphrey Lyttelton, host of the surreal British radio game show "I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue," died Friday at the age of 86. The performer's Web site said Lyttelton died peacefully at a London hospital after surgery. Born into a prominent British family and educated at the elite Eton College, Lyttelton was a lifelong jazz fanatic who taught himself to play the trumpet as a teenager. He became an accomplished musician -- Louis Armstrong once called him Britain's best trumpeter -- and made a series of records for the EMI label with his Lyttelton Band. He toured with the band well into his 80s and made an appearance on Radiohead's track "Life In A Glass House" in 2000. Lyttelton's varied career took in World War II service in the Grenadier Guards and a stint as a cartoonist for the Daily Mail newspaper. He also wrote several books about music. But for many he was best known as the host of British Broadcasting Corp.'s "I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue," launched in 1972. A self-styled "antidote" to ordinary game shows, the program built up a passionate following with its mix of silliness, wordplay and innuendo. Lyttelton was a master at delivering ribald double entendres, usually involving the show's fictitious scorekeeper, "the lovely Samantha." He was also famous for his imaginative sign-off lines, which would begin, "As the delicate mayfly of time collides with the speeding windscreen of fate" or with some equally fanciful metaphor. |
