Howerd was born the son of a soldier Francis Alfred William[2] (1887–1934)[3] and Edith Florence Howard[2] (née Morrison, 1888–1962),[2][3] at the City Hospital in York, England, in 1917 (not 1922 as he later claimed).

[5] His first stage appearance was at age 13 but his early hopes of becoming a serious actor were dashed when he failed an audition for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

[2] Despite suffering from stage fright, he continued to work after the war, beginning his professional career in the summer of 1946 in a touring show called For the Fun of It.

[6] His act was soon heard on radio, when he made his debut, in early December 1946, on the BBC's Variety Bandbox programme with a number of other ex-servicemen.

His profile rose in the immediate postwar period (aided with material written by Eric Sykes, Galton and Simpson and Johnny Speight).

[2][full citation needed] He then experimented with different formats and contexts, including stage farces, Shakespearean comedy roles, and television sitcoms.

At the start of the 1960s, he began to recover his old popularity, initially with a season at Peter Cook's satirical Establishment Club in Soho in London.

Ray Galton and Alan Simpson wrote for him from 1964 to 1966 when he worked for the BBC and also for a one-off show for Thames, Frankie Howerd meets the Bee Gees, shown on 20 August 1968.

His television work was characterised by direct addresses to camera and by his littering monologues with verbal tics such as "Oooh, no missus" and "Titter ye not".

"[8] Another feature of his humour was to feign innocence about his obvious and risqué double entendres, while mockingly censuring the audience for finding them funny.

Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band playing Mean Mr Mustard, acting alongside musical and film talent such as Peter Frampton, the Bee Gees, George Burns, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith and Steve Martin.

In the last years of his career, Howerd developed a following with student audiences and performed a one-man show at universities and in small theatrical venues.

[14] In 1990, he contributed to the last recording studio collaboration between Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson, on the album Freudiana, performing "Sects Therapy".

Howerd's uncomfortable relationship with his sexuality – he once allegedly said to Cilla Black, "I wish to God I wasn't gay" – as well as his depressive mental state, led him to seek resolution through a series of different methods.

[18] In his early career, Howerd suffered from a stutter, which caused him some distress,[19] but which he turned to an advantage in developing his delivery style as a comic.

[5] For the last 20 years of Howerd's life, he and Heymer lived in Wavering Down, a house in the village of Cross, Somerset, under the Mendip Hills.

Having contracted a virus during a Christmas trip to the Amazon in 1991, Howerd suffered respiratory problems at the beginning of April 1992 and was taken to a clinic in London's Harley Street, but was discharged at Easter.

[26][28] Wavering Down is now a tourist attraction and, in the summer, hosts concerts and opens regularly as a museum of Howerd's collection of memorabilia and personal effects such as his false teeth and ill-fitting toupee, to raise funds for charity.

In March 1999 former colleagues and friends and Howerd's sister Betty attended a fund-raising weekend in York and a blue plaque was placed on the Cumberland Street entrance to the Grand Opera House.