Michael Bentine - Family and Health

Family and Health

He was married twice, remaining with his second wife, Clementina Stuart, a Royal Ballet dancer, for over fifty years. He had a child from his first marriage, Elaine, from whom he has a granddaughter, Marie Laurence, and three great-grandsons, William, Arthur and Nicholas. His children from his second marriage were better known by their family nicknames than their birth names: Gus (real name Stewart), Fusty (real name Marylla), Suki (real name Serena) and Peski (real name Richard). Two of his five children, his eldest daughters, died from cancer (breast cancer and lymphoma), while his elder son, Gus, was killed when a Piper PA-18 (Super Cub, registration G-AYPN) crashed into a hillside at Ditcham Park Woods near Petersfield, Hampshire, on 28 August 1971. His body, together with that of the pilot and the aircraft, was found on 31 October 1971. Bentine's subsequent investigation into regulations governing private airfields resulted in his writing a report for the Special Branch of the British police into the use of personal aircraft in smuggling operations. He fictionalised much of the material in his novel Lords of the Levels.

When his son Richard's first boy Elliot was born, he tried to give him an MG 08 machine gun, which his daughter-in-law refused to accept. When Richard's second son Harry was born, Michael bought him a train set.

From 1975 until his death in 1996, he and his wife spent their winters at a second home in Palm Springs, California, USA.

Shortly before his death from prostate cancer at the age of 74, he was visited in hospital in England by the Prince of Wales, who was a close personal friend, as well as a devoted fan of the Goons.