Eric Morecambe - First Heart Attack

First Heart Attack

In his 2003 book, Life's Not Hollywood, It's Cricklewood, Gary Morecambe revealed that his father mentioned sporadically in his diaries that he was suffering from pains in his back and arms in both 1967 and 1968. In one diary entry from 17 August 1967, when Morecambe and Wise were appearing in Great Yarmouth as part of a summer season, Morecambe noted, "I have a slight pain on the left side around my heart. It's most likely wind, but I've had it for about four days. That's a hell of a time to have wind."

In retrospect, these pains may have been the first warning signs of the heart attack he was to suffer the following year. Morecambe was a hypochondriac, but he rarely wrote about his health concerns, until after his heart attack. At the time, Morecambe was smoking 60 cigarettes a day and drinking. Combined with stress and overwork, and possibly the heart defect that led him to be invalided out of the coal mines, he was to suffer a massive heart attack in the early hours of 8 November 1968 at the age of 42, after a show, whilst driving back to his hotel outside Leeds.

Morecambe had been appearing with Wise during a week of midnight performances at the Variety Club in Batley, Yorkshire. Morecambe and Wise appeared there in December 1967 for a week, making £4,000. After that, they were booked to play a New York nightclub, the Royal Variety Performance and then eight weeks in pantomime the coming winter.

Morecambe had complained of pains in his right arm from the beginning of the week but thought little of it, thinking the pains were perhaps tennis elbow or rheumatism.

Morecambe headed back to his hotel, and recounted in an interview with Michael Parkinson in November 1972 that, as the pains spread to his chest, he became unable to drive. He was rescued by a man named Walter Butterworth, as he stopped the car. ("I'll never forget him," said Morecambe. "That wasn't his real name, but I'll never forget him"). It was now 1 am and the streets were almost deserted. When Morecambe asked Butterworth to drive the car as he felt unable to, he received the reply, "I'm in the Territorials; I've only ever driven a tank!".

The first hospital they found had no Accident and Emergency. At the second one, Butterworth left Morecambe in the car as he went to search for a wheelchair. Then Morecambe walked in himself. A heart attack was immediately diagnosed. Morecambe, by this time laid on a trolley, thanked Butterworth, who in return asked for an autograph, asking "before you go, can you sign this piece of paper? My mates will never believe me about this." Morecambe scribbled away, convinced it was the final autograph he would ever sign, before he was taken away.

Upon his release from hospital, two weeks after the heart attack, Morecambe learned that Des O'Connor had told his audience in Paignton to pray for Morecambe's recovery as he was fighting for his life. When told, Morecambe's reply was "Tell him that those six or seven people made all the difference."

After leaving hospital, Morecambe gave up his cigarette habit to start smoking a pipe, as he mentioned that he was trying to do in August 1967. He also stopped doing summer and winter seasons and reduced many of his public engagements. Morecambe took six months off, returning for a press call at the BBC Television centre in May 1969. In August of that year, they returned to the stage at the Wintergarden Theatre in Bournemouth, and received a four-minute standing ovation.