Biography

During the original run of the series, Fawlty Towers (1975), as television critic of "The Spectator" magazine, he wrote a scathing review of the program. John Cleese, whom he criticized personally in the same review, was a friend of Peter Cook, who was the owner of "Private Eye", the magazine which Ingrams edited, and took great exception to the review. Cleese's revenge was to write in a character called Mr Ingrams into a later episode, a guest whom Basil discovers blowing up an inflatable sex doll.

His maternal grandfather was a famous 19th-century surgeon and the most senior of Queen Victoria's medical advisers.

His life has frequently been marked by tragedy. His father died when he was age 16. All three of his brothers (two of them younger) have long since predeceased him. He has also been predeceased by two of his three children. His first wife had a long struggle with mental illness and divorced him after 31 years of marriage; she died about thirteen years later. Many of his colleagues at "Private Eye" magazine have also died relatively young, including Peter Cook, William Rushton, Miles Kington, Auberon Waugh, Paul Foot (of whom he wrote an admiring biography) and John Wells.

His first wife, Mary Morgan, died in 2006.

In 1976, he was the subject of a private prosecution for criminal libel, brought by the multi-millionaire James Goldsmith. It was the first such prosecution to take place in Britain for 53 years. It was Goldsmith's avowed aim to close down the magazine "Private Eye", which Ingrams edited and in which, Goldsmith claimed, he had been libeled. Ingrams could theoretically have been imprisoned in the event of a successful prosecution. However, the case attracted many criticisms of Goldsmith from journalists, and he was subsequently foiled in his efforts to become the owner of various British newspapers. The case was eventually settled out of court.