Terry-Thomas was a distinctive British comic actor famous for the trademark gap in his front teeth, cigarette holder, dressing gown, and such catch-phrases as "You're an absolute shower!" and "Good show!"

Born Thomas Terence Hoar-Stephens in Finchley, London he worked in cabaret and as a film extra before finding success as an entertainer during World War II. After the war he worked in TV, radio and variety, but it was during the mid-1950s that he developed his famous persona: as Major Hitchcock in John and Roy Boulting's Private's Progress (1956) his "shower" catchphrase was born, a role reprised in I'm All Right Jack (1959). He played a variety of exuberant, malevolent and silly characters during the 1960s, and became famous for his portrayal of the archetypal cad, bounder, and absolute rotter.

In 1971 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, and by 1977 he had retired.