James Brown Whittaker (born Peter Williams; 20 August 1937 – 14 March 2018), known professionally as Jim Bowen, was an English stand-up comedian, actor and television personality. He was the long-time host of the ITV game show Bullseye, which he presented from its beginning in 1981 through to the end of its original run in 1995.
In early adulthood, Bowen was a teacher and took part in local dramatic groups. He first appeared on television in The Comedians (1971) and he eventually devoted himself to comedy full-time, appearing in other television shows in the 1970s. After the popular Bullseye, he subsequently worked for various radio stations and toured with stand-up shows. Towards the end of his life he was affected by a number of strokes.
Early life
Bowen was born in Heswall, Wirral, Cheshire, to an unmarried mother by a working-class couple, Joe Whittaker, a World War I veteran, He grew up in Clayton-le-Moors, just outside Accrington, where Joe was a bricklayer for Accrington's Nori brick factory and Annie worked as a weaver at Atlas Street Mill.
During his National Service, Bowen served in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps from 1955 to 1957 as an ammunition inspector with the rank of Corporal. After making a serious error during the Suez Crisis, when he sent the wrong batch of ammunition to Barry Docks, He studied at Chester Diocesan Training College, eventually becoming a deputy headmaster at St. Paul's primary school in Caton, near Lancaster.
Bowen also appeared in TV dramas and comedies. In 1981 he played "Dad" in the Victoria Wood television play Happy Since I Met You. He played a crooked accountant in ITV's 1982 mini-series Muck and Brass, and later guest-starred in BBC1's Jonathan Creek and Channel 4's Phoenix Nights, playing the hotel owner Frank "Hoss" Cartwright. He subsequently appeared in Peter Kay's 2005 Comic Relief video for "(Is This the Way to) Amarillo"?
Bullseye
In 1981, Bowen became the presenter of a new ITV game show, Bullseye, which mixed general knowledge questions with darts. The show quickly became a popular feature of ITV's schedules on Sunday early evenings, achieving 15–20 million viewers and at times obtaining higher ratings than prime-time soap operas. It ran for fourteen years. On the back of his fame, he delivered several speeches at the Oxford Union.
Bowen was the presenter throughout, alongside Tony Green as the darts commentator, and several of the catchphrases he used on the programme became well-known (though he claimed never to have said "Super, smashing, great").