The World's Worst Trumpet Player...

...is how Marty Feldman once described himself.  Still, despite harbouring dreams of becoming a great jazz trumpeter, Feldman became a household name in the field of comedy.  It seems a little unfair, though perhaps understandable, that he is best remembered for his role as Igor - "It's pronounced EYE-gor" - in the Mel Brooks classic, Young Frankenstein.

Born in East London in 1934, the son of Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine, Feldman's protruding eyes resulted from an unsuccessful operation to treat him for Graves' Disease.  As mentioned above, the young man fancied a career in music, and actually played in a band, but by the age of 20, he had already turned to comedy.

In 1954, Feldman joined forces with Barry Took, and the pair spent the next twenty years as a successful writing partnership working on several radio and television shows, including The Army Game, Round the Horne, and The Frost Report.

Feldman's reputation a s a performer really took off with the 1967 television series, At Last the 1948 Show, alongside Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graham Chapman, and John Cleese.  This led to him being given his own show, which ran from 1968 to 1972.

Already a well-known figure in the UK, he had made something of an impact in the United States when he was cast in one of the greatest comedy films ever, Young Frankenstein (1974).  Playing Dr. Frederick Frankenstein's servant, the hunchback Igor, Feldman really became a star.  Several other film roles followed, most notably in another Mel Brooks offering, Silent Movie.

Thirty-three years ago today, on 2nd December, 1982, Marty Feldman died from a heart attack while filming Yellowbeard on location in Mexico.  He was 48 years old.