Harry Hill

Harry Hill was born in Aberdeen, Scotland. He was educated in Aberdeen Grammar School and then undertook an honors degree course in English at Aberdeen University. He began performing in a choir to overcome a stammer, and got his first taste of acting at university when he appeared in several student shows. He made his own puppet shows and went around primary schools entertaining his fellow students.His Edinburgh-born father had moved to Aberdeen as manager of the SAI fertilizer factory. His mother came from Musselburgh.During his studies at Aberdeen University, Hill excelled in both comedy and drama.On graduating with honors in English, he took up a year-long appointment at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, a popular first posting for Aberdeen English graduates at that time. Thereafter, he attempted to launch a career in the theatre but had a hard struggle finding work. A season of summer stock in Alberta and a tour with Vancouver Playhouse tided him over until he spent 12 months as the artistic director of a new theatre company in Victoria, British Columbia.In 1969, he returned to university work, lecturing in English at Winona State College, Minnesota. The following year, he joined the English department of Concordia University, Montreal, as lecturer assistant, rising to associate professor. From then until he took early retirement from the university, in 1999, he enjoyed a dual career of academic and actor. He appears to have been as much at home in the lecture-room as he was in the theatre. A former student testified that, in the opinion of numerous former students, he was "quite simply the best teacher" they had ever had.Hill was equally comfortable on radio, stage, film and television. He first taught English at Loyola College was also an associate professor of English at Concordia University until June, 1999, as well as a published writer (A Voice for the Theatre, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1984) and recording artist.Before coming to Canada in 1963, he performed frequently at His Majesty's Theatre in Aberdeen in musicals, operetta and opera as well as in the modern and classical repertory.In all he did, he was committed to the cultured life, and the vitality of the arts in the lives of all with whom he came in contact. He had expensive, but refined cultural tastes.He did a great deal of voice work in film and television. He was probably best known for lending his plummy voice to the stuffy, rheumatism-plagued old raven Jacob Scribble in the Canadian cartoon series 'Wunschpunsch'.Sadly, Jacob was his final acting role. He suffered from poor health in his last years and died of a short illness in Montreal in August 2005, at the age of 64. Show less «