John Fortune

John Courtney Fortune (born John Courtney Wood; 30 June 1939 – 31 December 2013) was an English actor, writer and satirist, best known for his work with John Bird and Rory Bremner on the television series Bremner, Bird and Fortune.

Fortune was born John Courtney Wood in Bristol on 30 June 1939. He was educated at Bristol Cathedral School and King's College, Cambridge, where he was to meet and form a lasting friendship with John Bird.

Fortune's early work included contributions to Peter Cook's Establishment Club team in 1962, and as a regular member of the cast of the BBC-TV satire show Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life, both alongside Eleanor Bron and John Bird. Fortune and Bird also worked together on the TV show A Series of Birds in 1967, and Fortune and Bron wrote and performed a series of sketches for TV in Where Was Spring? in 1969. In 1971, with John Wells, he published the comic novel A Melon for Ecstasy, about a man who consummates his love affair with a tree. He appeared with Peter Sellers in a Barclays Bank television commercial in 1980, shortly before Sellers' death.

Along with writing several series for the BBC, in 1982 Fortune appeared in an episode of the BBC sitcom Yes Minister, as an army officer who brings the minister's attention to British-made weapons getting into the hands of terrorists. In 1999, he starred with Warren Mitchell and Ken Campbell in Art at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End. He also appeared in the films Take A Girl Like You (1970), in which he shared a TV debate with John Bird, Kenny Everett's horror spoof Bloodbath at the House of Death (1984), England, My England (1995), Maybe Baby (2000), and Saving Grace (2000), and had a guest part in the sitcom Joking Apart.

In 1993, Fortune and Bird began co-starring with Rory Bremner in the sketch show Rory Bremner...Who Else? on Channel 4. In 1999, the show changed its name to Bremner, Bird and Fortune and continued until 2010, receiving several BAFTA nominations along the way.

Fortune's other work with John Bird included their series of satirical sketches The Long Johns, in which one interviewed the other, the latter being in the guise of a senior figure such as a politician, businessman or government consultant. The sketches earned several BAFTA award nominations, winning the Television Light Entertainment Performance award in 1997. In one episode, they were two of the very first to predict the financial crisis of 2007–2010 during an episode of The South Bank Show broadcast on 14 October 2007. In Fortune's latter years, he featured in the Radio 4 sitcom Ed Reardon's Week, playing the head of a literary agency and as theatrical agent Mel Simons in a 2008 episode of New Tricks.

Fortune died on 31 December 2013, aged 74. His agent Vivienne Clore said he died peacefully, with his wife Emma and dog Grizelle at his bedside.