COMEDIAN and writer Michael Bentine, a creator of the Goon Show and the originator of Potty Time, It's A Square World and The Bumblies, has died, it was announced yesterday.
Mr Bentine (74), had been suffering from prostate cancer but refused conventional treatment after seeing his parents and two of his daughters die of cancer.
Mr Bentine's final hours in London's Royal Marsden Hospital were eased by a visit from one of his fans. Prince Charles spent half an hour with the comedian on Sunday night.
Mr Bentine's son Richard said yesterday: "They talked about how incredibly important laughter was and Prince Charles said that he had dropped by because he wanted to make sure that Daddy was comfortable and to have the opportunity to say thank you for all the years that Daddy had made him laugh."
The comedian Rory Bremner said: "He had a huge irrepressible sense of fun. His genius was creating worlds out of nothing, where he provided all the characters."
Born as Michael Bentin in Watford in 1922, Mr Bentine was the grandson of a former president of Peru. His slightly surreal origins may help to explain the brand of humour he was to develop. He went to Eton and worked as an intelligence officer for the RAF during the second World War. After the war he turned to comedy, teaming up with the three other Goons, Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers. He played Professor Osric Pureheart in the first series of the Goons but few of his appearances have been preserved.
Denis Main Wilson, a BBC producer instrumental in launching the Goons, said: "While Spike Milligan was the abstract thinker, Michael Bentine was a superb technician. He was very, very eloquent. His command of the English language was incredible."
Mr Bentine left after recording 41 episodes of the show, and although he made several acclaimed television series, never achieved the fame of the other Goons. He wrote an autobiography, The Long Banana Skin, in 1975, updated as The Reluctant Jester in 1993.
In 1993, he returned to his comic beginnings, taking a stand up show with a difference to the Edinburgh Festival: the performance took place inside a bus.
He had a parallel career as an author on the paranormal, writing two respected works. His friendship with Prince Charles was cemented when he organised faith healing sessions to mend the prince's arm after he broke it playing polo.
The surreal nature of his work was reflected in his life. He was the author of 16 books, as well being a sailor, a charity worker, a restorer of Victorian watercolours and a collector of and authority on Chinese jade. He was also a firearms expert and a member of the first hovercraft expedition up the Amazon, in 1968. He was awarded the CBE last year.
Mr Bentine explained why he had turned to alternative medicine to treat his cancer. "Radical surgery did nothing for my mother and very little for my two daughters." He refused to submit to chemotherapy, saying: "I saw what it did to my children. All I am trying to do is to see how much one is helped by positive thinking. I want to see how long humour can help me, because it might help somebody else on the way there."