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FREDDIE FRINTON
1909-1968
COMEDIAN, MUSICAL HALL ARTIST, TELEVISION AND FILM ACTOR
BIOGRAPHYFrederick Bittiner Coo was born in Grimsby on 17 January 1909, the illegitimate son of Florence Elizabeth Coo (b 1892), a seamstress, and Frederick Bittiner (1876-1943), the proprietor of the Baltic Boot Store in Cleethorpe Road. Neither of them was prepared to be a hands-on parent to Freddie and so he was brought up by foster parents, first by the Rhodes family at 109 Barcroft Street in Cleethorpes and then by the daughter of the house Anne Rhodes and her husband Arthur Dore, who she married in 1913. Frederick Senior paid for his son's upkeep and although he did not take an active role in parenting his son, he would have been aware of his progress, as Anne Dore worked for many years at the boot store and she and her husband lived at the back of the shop.
At school, Freddie was abused and bullied because he was illegitimate, but perhaps his talent for comedy grew out of this as a defence mechanism. As a youngster he enjoyed imitating Charlie Chaplin and was also a member of a choral society and when he left school at 14 and went to work as a labourer for Forbes & Fish on the docks in Riby Street, he found an audience amongst his workmates.
He regularly had his colleagues in stitches, but unfortunately this didn’t go down at all well with the management. One day Freddie was in the middle of an improvised dance when the boss came in having heard the laughter of his workers. He was anything but amused and fired Freddie.
After that he performed with the combo “The Jolly Nibs” as a singer in pubs and clubs in the dock quarter of Grimsby, before his first career move took him from the smoky pubs to an open air beach stage in Cleethorpes as part of Jimmy Slater’s Super Follies, earning the princely sum of £3 a week. Performing under the name of Freddy Hargate, he entertained the visitors with such popular comic songs as 'Riding on a camel in the desert', dressed in appropriate apparel.
From Jimmy Slater’s gang, he moved on to perform in Tom Moss reviews and by 1939, he had changed his name to Freddie Frinton and was earning himself a reputation as a formidable pantomime dame. He also made his first radio broadcast with the Redcar Follies that year and was reportedly on a three-year contract.
During the war, Freddie performed with Stars in Battledress and was described in one report as the “king-pin of comedy” who “reached great heights in his comedy sketches”. He is listed as Lance Bombardier Freddie Frinton on a 1942 programme.
After the war, Freddie appeared in a number of films, including Trouble in The Air (1948), Penny Points to Paradise (1951), Forces’ Sweetheart (1953), Stars In Your Eyes (1956), Make Mine Mink (1960) and What A Whopper (1961).
Stage credits included Strike A New Note, Sky High, Together Again, Starlight Rendez-vous, Cap and Bells (with Max Wall and a singer named Julie Andrews – whatever happened to her?!), Humpty Dumpty, Red Riding Hood, Robin Hood, The Frog Prince, Jack and the Beanstalk (with Beryl Reid playing a maid) and Wedding Fever.
On British television, Freddie is best remembered for “Meet The Wife”, in which he starred with Thora Hird. The series, which was written especially for them, ran on the BBC for 39 episodes from 1963-1966 and is mentioned in the Beatles song “Good Morning, Good Morning.” He also made guest appearances on shows such as The Golden Shot, The Good Old Days, The Des O’Connor Show, Thank Your Lucky Stars, The Frankie Vaughan Show, Big Night Out and Comedy Band Box.
In 1966, he and Thora Hird appeared alongside Harry Secombe, Jimmy Tarbuck, Russ Conway and Anita Harris at the London Palladium in the “gay all comedy show”, London Laughs! One of Freddie’s final appearances was in “My Favourite Family” at Bournemouth Pier. Sadly, he passed away after suffering a heart attack on 16 October 1968 and, despite his large body of work over nearly forty years and being described in one theatre programme as “acclaimed by the press as the funniest comedian since Charlie Chaplin”, he has been largely and unfairly forgotten in this country, whilst many of his co-stars have gone on to become household names.
Happily, Freddie is still remembered and indeed loved in many other countries, especially Germany, thanks to the 11-minute sketch “Dinner for One”, which he recorded for German TV with actress May Warden in 1963. It may never have been shown in this country, but elsewhere it is shown every year as part of New Year’s Eve festivities. The sketch has become the most re-run piece of standalone television on Earth and has spawned drinking games, themed dinner parties and tribute shows, as TV viewers continue to enjoy “the same procedure as every year.”
In his private life, Freddie married 18-year old dancer Maisie Basil in 1931 and their son James Coo was born in late December that year. With both Freddie and Maisie presumably busy trying to forge careers in entertainment, James too was put into the care of Anne Dore, who effectively raised him until the age of 16.
Freddie and Maisie’s marriage did not last. They divorced and Freddie married again in 1945 to Nora Gratton, with whom he had two sons and two daughters. Maisie meanwhile emigrated to America with James in 1948. He joined the U.S. Air Force in 1950 and later went on to work at the Department of Defence for nearly twenty years.
James, who sadly died in 2020, was always very proud of all that his father achieved during his long career and of the acclaim that Freddie still receives many years after his death, thanks to the “Dinner For One effect”. Several years ago, whilst working in Germany as key grip on Captain America: Civil War, James’ son Michael Coo couldn’t buy a drink all night after his hosts discovered that he was Freddie Frinton’s grandson. From talking to James, it is clear that the whole Coo family in America are extremely proud of their Grimbarian ancestor.
Freddie Frinton is undoubtedly one of North East Lincolnshire’s and Great Britain’s greatest and most long-running European exports and will remain so, even after Brexit!
For more about Freddie Frinton's career, visit our sister website Lincolnshire Lass
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