Bernard Manning: Biography, Embassy Club, Cause of Death & More

Few British comedians divided audiences quite like Bernard Manning. When he died in June 2007 at the age of 76, according to Wikipedia’s biography of Manning, the argument he had spent half a century provoking — about how far a joke can go — didn’t die with him. This is the story of how a Manchester greengrocer’s son built a comedy empire around the Embassy Club, and what became of that empire after he was gone.

Born: 13 August 1930 · Died: 18 June 2007 (aged 76) · Occupation: Comedian, nightclub owner · Known for: Embassy Club, controversial comedy · Spouse: Vera Manning (m. 1953–1993) · Children: 1 son · Source: Wikipedia

Eight biographical facts, one pattern: every major chapter of Manning’s story runs through Manchester and the Embassy Club.

Who owns the Embassy Club now?

The short answer is that no one is running it as a comedy venue. The Embassy Club closed for good in 2016, almost a decade after Manning’s death. For most of those years the club stayed in the family: Manning’s son, Bernard Manning Jr, took over after his father died and kept the room open until the end, according to Wikipedia’s account of the venue’s final years.

Current ownership details

• The building is no longer part of Manchester’s live comedy circuit.
• Exact ownership of the site today is not publicly documented.

The lack of public detail is itself telling. A venue that once drew national television scouts has retreated into local records, its ownership a matter of property filings rather than headlines.

History of Embassy Club ownership

• Manning and his father bought the club in 1959.
• Manning remained its principal performer for roughly 40 years.
• After his death, the club passed to his son until it closed in 2016.

The ownership history is essentially a single-family story. Manning bought it with his father, ran it for four decades, and handed it to his own son. There is no corporate chapter, no rebrand, no second act — which is exactly why the club faded when the Manning name stopped being attached to it.

The implication: the Embassy Club was never a venue that happened to host Manning. It was an extension of him, and it had no independent life once he was gone.

The Embassy Club’s closure illustrates how a venue entirely dependent on one personality has no independent future.

Did Bernard Manning ever marry?

Yes — and the marriage lasted almost as long as his career. Manning married Vera in 1953, and the couple remained together until her death in 1993. The 40-year marriage was a rare area of quiet in a public life built on noise.

Bernard Manning’s marriage

• He married Vera in 1953.
• The couple had one son, Bernard Manning Jr.
• Vera died in 1993 after four decades of marriage.

Vera stayed almost entirely out of the spotlight. Biographical accounts mention her mainly as the anchor of Manning’s private life — the stable foundation beneath a stage act designed to provoke.

Bernard Manning’s wife

• Vera Manning died in 1993, fourteen years before her husband.
• There is no record of Manning remarrying after her death.

The timing matters more than it might seem: Vera died just as Manning’s television appearances were starting to decline. From the mid-1990s onward, the Embassy Club became not just his workplace but the last major stage that would still book him.

What this means: the private stability and the public offence were two halves of a single persona. Manning chose the provocation; the settled family life was the base he built it on.

Is Bernard Manning’s Embassy Club still open?

No. The Embassy Club closed in 2016, nine years after Manning’s death. It had operated for more than half a century, with Manning as its face for most of that period.

Current status of Embassy Club

• The venue is closed and no longer operates as a comedy club.
• No attempt to relaunch it as a comedy venue has succeeded since 2016.

Today the site is a footnote in Manchester’s comedy geography rather than a part of it. The room that once hosted the talent scouts who made Manning a television name is not on the current circuit.

Closure and reopening history

• The club was purchased by Manning and his father in 1959.
• Granada television discovered Manning there in 1971.
• The club was a major source of Manning’s wealth and central to his public identity (BBC News retrospective).

The history tracks Manning’s career with almost perfect precision: bought before he was famous, discovered in its room, and so identified with him that when he died the venue lost its reason to exist.

The trade-off: the club gave Manning total control over his stage, but it also made him the entire business. There was no Manning brand without the club, and no club without the brand.

What was Bernard Manning’s cause of death?

Manning died on 18 June 2007, aged 76. The cause of death was recorded as renal failure and a heart attack, according to Wikipedia’s biography of Manning.

Details of his death

• Died in Manchester on 18 June 2007.
• Age at death: 76.
• His health had been declining for several years beforehand.

The immediate response to his death split along predictable lines. Long-time fans remembered the comic energy; critics pointed to a career built on material that had aged very badly.

Health issues

• Renal failure and a heart attack were the recorded causes.
• Manning’s hospital death followed years of health problems.

The medical facts were straightforward, but the cultural argument was not. Manning’s obituaries became the opening round of a longer reckoning with a style of comedy that British television had already stopped broadcasting.

Why this matters: Manning died exactly when British comedy was finishing its verdict on him. Renal failure ended the man; the argument about his material kept running.

Who is a famous comedian also known for being fat?

If that query is meant to produce a name, it produces Manning’s. He was a large man, and his size was part of his stage presence — widely remarked upon, and woven into the blustering persona he performed.

Bernard Manning’s physical appearance and comedy style

• Manning was frequently described as overweight, and he used his size as part of the act.
• His comedy relied on racial and sexual stereotypes that drew sustained criticism (Vulture’s retrospective on Manning).
• He denied being a racist, insisting his jokes were aimed at everyone equally (Manchester Evening News account of Manning’s own words).

Vulture’s retrospective called his act “dangerous comedy” — a phrase that captured both its transgressive pull and the reason broadcasters eventually stopped booking him. His weight was part of the staging, but the danger was in the material. His career had genuine peaks outside Manchester, including a successful week at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in 1978, after he took advice from Joan Rivers about American audiences, according to The Herald Scotland.

Other comedians with similar traits

• The Comedians featured a roster of larger-than-life northern comics, including Frank Carson, George Roper, Colin Crompton and Stan Boardman (Evening Standard’s account).

Manning stood apart from that group in one decisive way. Carson and Roper could be sharp, but Manning’s version of working-men’s-club comedy was built on a nastier edge — which is why the “fat comedian” search query tends to surface his name rather than theirs.

Manning’s size got him noticed; his material got him remembered — and then, eventually, unbookable.

Key dates in Bernard Manning’s life

Eight dates, one arc: a Manchester comic builds a club, a television career, and a controversy that outlasts him.

The pattern: a long rise from the 1950s, a peak in the 1970s, then a quiet fade — the club followed its owner into history within nine years.

What’s confirmed and what’s still unclear

Three claims are solid enough to state plainly, based on the BBC News retrospective and Wikipedia’s biography — the rest of the public record is thinner.

Confirmed facts

• Manning was the Embassy Club’s principal performer for about 40 years, and the club generated much of his wealth (BBC News).
• He became a national name in the 1970s through Granada’s The Comedians (BBC News).
• He died on 18 June 2007; the recorded cause was renal failure and a heart attack (Wikipedia).

These are the facts that appear consistently across the BBC’s retrospective and Wikipedia’s biography. None of them is seriously disputed.

What’s unclear

• The Salisbury Review reported that Manning was secretly filmed making offensive remarks about a Black police officer at a 1995 charity dinner, and that the incident drew condemnation from then-Prime Minister John Major; the account is low on corroboration.
• Estimates of Manning’s net worth at death vary widely.
• The exact ownership of the former Embassy Club site is not publicly documented.
• The claim that the Beatles and Matt Monro were among the club’s guests rests on Manning’s own retrospective account (Manchester Evening News).

The thin record on money and property is typical for a comedian whose business was run out of one club rather than a corporate structure. The sharper question — what Manning said in that 1995 incident — remains a matter of one magazine’s report.

The gap between the two lists is the real story: we know exactly when and how Manning died; we know far less about the money and the building he left behind.

What others said about Bernard Manning

The public record on Manning splits cleanly into two views: the generous man his defenders described, and the high-profile TV comic that history files under controversy.

“Manning could be a polite, generous and courteous man, referring to himself as a comedian, not a racist.”

The Guardian, obituary of Bernard Manning

“Manning gained a high profile on British television during the 1970s.”

Wikipedia, biography of Bernard Manning

Both statements are true, and neither captures the whole picture. Manning was, by the standard of those who knew him socially, polite and generous; he was also, by the standard of what he put on stage, deliberately and repeatedly offensive.

The takeaway

The Embassy Club closed in 2016, but the questions Manning’s career raises didn’t close with it. For UK comedy clubs and broadcasters deciding where to draw the line, the choice is clear: keep treating offence as a laughing matter in the name of free speech, or accept that Manning’s style belongs in the history books — famous, documented, and not coming back to the Saturday-night lineup.

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