Billie Ritchie

What a way to go, kicked to death by an ostrich while shooting a feeble Fox flick. Poor old Billie, one of the top practitioners of slapstick in the wide world, master of the golden rule of comedy* and star of the silver screen, second only to Chaplin, destined to be forever remembered as ‘that bloke that got killed by a bird’.

Harry phoned to tell me, "A transatlantic call for you Mr Karno," my secretary said. Julie's her name, tasty piece of flesh, barely 16, barely legal. I brushed subtly against her as I took the phone from her grasp.

"Fuckin' 'avoc it was," Harry said from two thousand miles away, long-distance obscenity. "Seventeen fuckin' ostriches running 'round. They were 'sposed to be choreographed in a funny dance. Fuckin' stupid idea, ostriches can't dance."

I know the expression 'herding cats' has caught on in modern parlance, but 'choreographing ostriches' is the superior phrase. Be honest, poorly herded cats never killed anyone. Anyway, I digress, Harry was telling the story.

"Billie's trying to keep to what there was of a script, prepares himself to take what he thinks will be a custard pie in the face, when wham! He gets a fuckin' ostrich foot right in his nozzle. He wobbles for a bit, before finally going the way of the golden rule. By the time we'd stopped laughing and thought to check his pulse he was stone cold dead."

"I bet he took the kick well," I said. Though he liked a script, he could improvise like the best of 'em could Billie.

I got the boat over for the funeral. Cost me two week's takings, but I had the best cabin on the ship and was star turn on the captain’s table.

The funeral took place just hours after I arrived in the States, right in the centre of Hollywood. The whole world was there: Syd and Charlie Chaplin, Billy Reeves, Stan Jefferson, Jimmy Aubrey and no less than five Keystone Cops.

I was allowed to sprinkle the first clod of earth onto Billie's coffin, as a mark of respect for the role I'd played in his early (pre-ostrich-debacle) career. Right up to the end he knew me as 'the govnor'.

I was overcome with grief. So overwhelmed that I lost all control, and the mud landed on Charlie's shoe by mistake. Quick as a flash he'd picked up a clod and thrown it back at me. He missed and hit one of the Keystone Cops, and all five Cops picked up mudballs and hurled them at assorted victims, who responded with mud pies of their own.
Within seconds a dignified, noble funeral to mark the demise of one of our great artistic talents had descended into a mad mud frenzy.

It's what Billie would have wanted.

* The golden rule of comedy, in case you're wondering, is "if in doubt, fall on your arse."