What was Harry Hill's old job? Comedian reveals he used to work 100 hours a week on Desert Island Discs
Harry Hill used to work 100 hours a week before making his switch to comedy, he has revealed.
The comedian, 60, said he was “absolutely driven” to succeed in his previous career, which saw him struggle with the harsh realities of the downsides to his profession.
Hill, whose real name is Matthew Hall, used to work as a doctor - and was accustomed to working 14-hour shifts each day.
Speaking on BBC’s Desert Island Discs, he revealed he gave up his career in medicine to have a go at comedy, recalling an incident where he had to tell a man that his wife had unexpectedly died during an operation.
“I was completely out of my depth,” he said. “I told him and he started crying, and I started crying. I thought this is – this isn’t good.
“What it makes you do is bottle up your emotions.”
Upon leaving his career, Hill said he found himself with “all this time free during the day” and wanted to prove himself; his advice to budding comedians was not to necessarily be the funniest person on the circuit, but the pushiest.
His first gig was at a Mexican restaurant in south London, which went far better than he had expected.
He said: “I would just bug them and bug them - I was absolutely merciless in my pursuit of it. It’s not the funniest people that get on, it’s the pushiest.
“My first gag got a laugh, and it completely threw me because I had been rehearsing it without laughs.”
Hill, who won the Perrier Award for best newcomer at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1992, said being a comedian means “I can get away with just about any silly behaviour”.
The comedian created and presented Harry Hill’s TV Burp on ITV from 2001 to 2012, which alongside You’ve Been Framed, catapaulted him to national fame.
As an actor, he has appeared in 19 different projects on TV and film, including Sooty and Co, ChuckleVision, and The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm.
Talking about his comedy routines, he added: “It’s not a character, it is me. It is a persona, if you like.
“I have to pace up and down and work myself up, because if I don’t do that it’s not as funny.”
Is Harry Hill married?
Despite keeping his family life fairly private, Harry Hill is married - and has three children.
He wed artist Magda Archer in 1996, not long after his stand-up career began to blossom.
The couple have been married ever since and have three daughters together: Kitty Clover, Winnie Millicent and Frederica Aster. All three children were apparently born in Kensington and Chelsea, London.
What’s Harry Hill’s net worth?
With a successful career in comedy, which has now spanned more than 30 years, Hill has accumulated a nice little nest egg for his family.
Between his rural home in Kent, massive TV earnings and guest appearances on other programmes, Hill has an estimated net worth of around £12m, according to the Sun.