Late Bremner, Bird and Fortune star John Bird leaves almost whole £1.2million fortune to his 2 stepsons
- John Bird has actually left most of his £1.2 million fortune to his 2 stepsons
- The comic likewise left £10,000 to his university King’s College, Cambridge
Comedian John Bird has left almost £1.2million to his two stepsons following his death in December 2022, it has been revealed in his will.
Bird, who became famous for his satirical television appearances, was best known for the Channel 4 sketch show Bremner, Bird and Fortune.
The comedian, whose will has just been published, died aged 86 at a care home near his home in Midhurst, West Sussex, on Christmas Eve last year.
He asked for his body to be cremated but left no specific details in the will as to what should be done with his ashes.
Bird left a £10,000 legacy to King’s College, Cambridge, where he took an English degree after leaving school and left the remainder of his fortune to his stepsons.
John Bird (pictured) has left the majority of his £1.2 million fortune to his two stepsons Daniel and Josh Crandon
The comedian rose to fame for appearing on Channel 4’s Bremmer, Bird, and Fortune alongside impressionist and comic Rory Bremner and fellow satirist John Fortune.
The bulk £1.2million fortune has now been left to his two stepsons Daniel and Josh Crandon, the children of his third wife Libby Crandon, a concert pianist who died in 2012.
Bird was most famous for his double act with John Fortune where one would be the interviewer and the other would play an interviewee whose increasingly ridiculous position would rapidly unravel during the interrogation.
Rory Bremner said in the wake of Mr Bird’s death: ‘It’s an irony that one of our greatest satirists, so brilliant at portraying ministers, civil servants or high-ranking officials who exuded self-satisfaction, was himself so modest and self-effacing.
‘John Bird was, to the end, never pleased with himself, always feeling he should have done better, been less lazy, had a late period like Brahms, ‘where everything was spare and abstract’.
John Bird (left) rose to fame for starring in Bremmer, Bird and Fortune alongside Rory Bremmer (centre) and John Fortune (right)
‘The reality was that he and his friend and collaborator John Fortune, together with Peter Cook, were pillars of the anti-establishment.’
Bird and Fortune were nominated for four Baftas, winning one in 1997. Bird, Bremmer and Fortune also collaborated on BBC shows Now Something Else and The Rory Bremner Show.
Bird appeared in the film Jabberwocky and in comedy shows including Yes, Prime Minister and One Foot in the Grave.
Bremner added: ‘They realised that true satire lay not in ad hominem attacks on politicians but in exposing the cant behind the ‘discipline of the market’ and the culture of privatisation where chief executives were rewarded for success and equally compensated for failure.’
