Barry Hilton

Early life and education

Hilton was born in 1956 to Irene Natalie Lieveaux, a French Mauritian descendant and Lancashire-born father Jack Hilton. In 1961 Hilton's family moved from Southern Rhodesia to North Wales where he attended St Joseph's Roman Catholic Junior School from the age of 5 (1961) to the age of 10 (1966). Ages 11 to 12 were spent at Blessed Edward Jones RC High School in Rhyl until the family relocated to Newlands in Cape Town, South Africa where his father worked as a bricklayer. From March 1969 to December 1971 Hilton was a pupil at Observatory Boys (now Rhodes High School) but left at age 15 to start an apprenticeship at Joffe Electrical, which he completed in 1974.

Early career

Whilst working as the maintenance manager of a hotel frequented by the cast of the comedy television show 'Biltong and Potroast' Hilton met Johnny Noble who managed to get him into his first gig at The Holiday Inn, Port Elizabeth in May 1983. This was followed by a six-month stint as compere at cabaret spot, the Millionaires Club in Cape Town after which he relocated to Johannesburg to perform at local pub, The Jolly Roger. It was here where agent Josie Broude(of the "Don Hughes Organisation" run by Maurice Fresco discovered Hilton and represented him for 10 years up until her death in 1994. Performances at the Runway Bar, Royal Swazi Sun and Wild Coast Sun followed, making Hilton the first South African comedian ever to perform at the latter. Hilton is also the first South African comedian ever to perform at the Sun City Extravaganza. There he shared the stage with eccentric French actress / dancer / singer Jacqueline Du Gay from Las Vegas whilst continuing to perform as a relatively unknown comic at the Sun City Super Bowl in 'Laugh Aid' 1989. Due to his mother's illness with cancer, Hilton returned to South Africa from a four night gig called 'In on the park' at St Helier on the Channel Islands Jersey where he opened for Billy Connolly. In 1990 he moved back to South Africa permanently, returning to the Runway Bar for four years to continue his work in a new Connolly inspired direction. Here Joe Parker advised him to book sets and take money from the door rather than working for guaranteed money gigs. Basil O'Hagen gave Hilton the opportunity to do so at Dan Keld West, and after having performed for only six people on the first night, gigs picked up steadily and Hilton's career in comedy started to look promising. To date Hilton has opened for comic greats such as Bob Monkhouse, Bobby Davro, Billy Connolly and Les Dennis and is also the first South African to perform at London's Comedy Store. To this day Hilton continues to fill 4000 seat theatres with his solo shows.

Television

Besides comedy, Hilton has also contributed to television by hosting talk shows Catch A Wake Up and Funny You Should Say That and TV game show The Generation Game in 2008. More recently Hilton guested on TV game show I Love South Africa. He has also guested numerous times on The Expresso Show.

2015 saw Hilton perform a comedy special, titled The Live Series – Barry Hilton. Developed especially for DStv’s Box Office by Mannequin Pictures and launched on Box Office and released later in 2015 on DVD. DStv says sales from show "exceeded expectations, it was one of the best-selling shows on Box Office when it was released in February 2015— selling more rentals than some well-known Hollywood feature films. Again in 2015, he appeared in an M-NET documentary series titled, My Story. He appeared in Episode 4.

Commercials

Hilton was the Savanna Cider brand face from 1999 to 2011. He reprised his role as Larry the Bartender for thirteen commercials in those 12 years. Since 2011 Hilton has featured in fourteen commercials in an ongoing campaign for newly re-launched fast food outlet, Romans Pizza The “Schoolkids” ad was placed ninth in the Millward Browns 2012 Best Liked South African adverts. 2012 – 2013 Hilton featured in radio voiceover and print adverts for the Chevrolet Campaign 2014 and three television commercials for Lasher Tools.

Movies

At the Feel Good Film Festival in Hollywood, Hilton was nominated for best actor in a lead role for 'Finding Lenny' which also ended up winning best narrative feature in the Pan African Film Festival in Cannes. In 2010 he starred in a South African stand up comedy feature film titled 'Outrageous' with fellow comedians John Vlismas and Mark Banks. Barry hosted and performed an episode for Comedy Central Africa in June 2012 filmed at Parkers Comedy and Jive and was shortlisted, alongside John Cleese, for Best Comedy Act Dubai TimeOut Night Life Awards in 2013. Hilton has over seven signature comedy DVDs attributed to his name and celebrated 30 years in comedy in 2012.

Live shows

September 2013 saw Hilton as the first South African comedian to be invited to perform at The Improv at Harrah’s in Las Vegas. Hilton also performed MC duties for the famous South African singer, Steve Hofmeyr in January 2014. In February Jami Gong from Take Out Comedy Club invited Hilton back to perform his new show, The Way I see It in Hong Kong and Vietnam. Hilton was invited to attend and perform at the Top Gear Festival in Durban, South Africa in June. After a tour of the UK in June, Hilton returned to Hong Kong as one of the headlining acts at the 8th International Comedy Festival in September 2014 with shows in Hong Kong, Singapore and Macau. He followed this up with performances in Australia and New Zealand. Hilton’s audio track of his famous joke, “Nou Gaan Ons Braai” was used on the “Lag n Slag” CD. The CD is a compilation of South African jokes and short stories told by their often famous creators. Other artists featured on the CD are Tolla van der Merwe, Leon Schuster, Nico Nel, Nataniël and Kobus Galloway to name a few. The CD was released for sale in July 2014 and is still for sale at all major music outlets. In 2012 Hilton launched an online store dedicated to the sale of Braai merchandise. His Nou Gaan Ons Braai clip on YouTube has received over 600000 views. A solo performance for 4000 people at Carnival City in Johannesburg in 2015 saw Hilton completely surrounded by the audience on a centre stage, a first for South African Comedy. Hilton was the only South African comic to perform at the 2015 KLICFEST in Kuala Lumpur. January 2016 saw Hilton performing in Australia at The Sydney Opera House, Perth Convention Centre and Brisbane Convention Centre

Awards

In June 2013 he was invited back to Live at Parkers and again filmed for Comedy Central with the top rated headlining acts from the past season. In July Hilton received the Comics Choice Lifetime Achiever Award. Winners of the prestigious awards are voted by fellow artists and receive a “Waldo” statuette of which only 6 are made each year, however only the “Lifetime Achiever” recipient receives the ring called the “Charles” named after Charlie Chaplain and are 'honoured' at a special grilling at Parker's a few weeks before the formal awards ceremony. Zimbabwean born Hilton qualified for a nomination in 2014’s Zim awards for the Personality of the year award. Other nominees included John Vlismas, Getmore Sithole, Melgin Tafirenyika and Leroy Gopal. Hilton won, and was at the prestigious ceremony in Johannesburg to collect his award. In 2015 The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International named Hilton a Paul Harris Fellow in appreciation for assisting in the better understanding and friendly relations among peoples of the world.

Personal life

Having six children of his own, Hilton is an avid supporter of the ‘Little Fighter's Cancer Trust’ and continually takes part in charity events to raise money and awareness for the West Rand Heart and Organ Transplant Foundation. Hilton is married to third wife Sandy Hilton (2007 – current) after two previous marriages to Janet McKirdy (1976–1980) and Jane Tweedie (1980–2004). He presently resides in Hermanus, South Africa with his wife and children.