Jimmy Tarbuck’s real name is Bruce Urqhart. Born in Woking to a comfortable upper-middle class family, Urqhart first took to the stage in the late 50s and performed alongside such notable comedians as Tony Hancock and Tommy Handley. Urhart specialized in polished, high brow comedy, often featuring public school house masters and foppish lovers, and was especially adept at turning jokes on fine nuances in Latin grammar.

Quick to catch on to the Media’s new-found love of working class Northerners in the wake of Beatlemania, in 1963 Urqhart invented the character of Jimmy Tarbuck, a Liverpudlian stand up comedian. Apart from some gigs in the mid-seventies, when he briefly resurrected his sadistic homosexual Fox hunting squire character Toffy Cutherbert-Brown for a sell out season at the Britannia Pier, Gt. Yarmouth (catch phrase, ‘Well that’s filled a hole!’), Urqhart has appeared and performed solely as Tarbuck. Several other names had been considered for Tarbuck including Jerry McCouser (tag line – he’s a Scouser) and Bobby Bootle before Urqhart finally settled on Jimmy Tarbuck.

In 2008, following the opening of the Liverpool ONE shopping precinct, coffee shop chain Starbuck’s opened their signature Merseyside store ‘Tarbuck’s Starbucks!’. Urqhart is under contract to work the counter once every month and is apparently a dab hand at turning out a double choc with cream.

From Wikipedia - 'Because the internet never lies'