Harry Hill has hailed the late Paul O'Grady as a "one-off."
Harry Hill pays tribute to Paul O'Grady
The TV legend - who died suddenly at the age of 67 last Tuesday (28.03.023) - shot to fame as pioneering drag queen Lily Savage in the 1980s and made regular appearances as her right up until the early 2000s, when he abandoned his alter ego completely in favour of carving out a career on screen as himself with his own self-titled chat show.
Following his passing, fellow TV star Harry Hill remarked that he was "full of admiration" for Paul over the career move and noted that his death came as such a "shock" because he was so loved for "being himself."
Speaking on ITV's 'This Morning', he said: "He was his own thing. And then he rested his own thing. He created a whole scene, he didn't come up through the comedy clubs that I came up in. He created a new thing and he was...I was full of admiration for him because he killed off that Lily Savage thing that everyone loved.
"I don't know what he thought about it but maybe he realised it didn't have the long-term [appeal]. And the fact about Paul O'Grady...what people loved about him, and what I loved about him, is that not just that he was funny but you loved him being himself which you probably never would have got with Lily Savage. This is why everyone is so kind of shocked and upset about it. He was a one-off, there's no other word for it."
Meanwhile, the former 'TV Burp' host has written 'Tony! The Tony Blair Rock Opera' musical about the former Prime Minister - which is set open in London on April 15 before embarking on a UK tour - but initially worked as a doctor before breaking onto the comedy circuit in the early 1990s and reflected that his 30 years in show business have been "great."
He said: "It's been great. I always feel, because I used to be a doctor and I always feel that I escaped. I escaped that and joined the circus!"
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