- Born
- Died
- Birth nameDenis Winston Healey
- Height5′ 11¼″ (1.81 m)
- Denis Healey was born on August 30, 1917 in Mottingham, Kent, England, UK. He was married to Edna Healey. He died on October 3, 2015 in Alfriston, Sussex, England, UK.
- SpouseEdna Healey(December 21, 1945 - July 21, 2010) (her death, 3 children)
- Amazingly bushy eyebrows
- Was vice chancellor of the exchequer when he appeared on the BBC's improvised television spoof Christmas with Nationwide - The Pantomime (1977)
- When an opponent criticised him and said "Denis Healey would sell his own grandmother", his deputy at the Treasury leapt to his defence with "No, he would get me to do it for him"
- Mike Yarwood invented "Silly Billy" as a catchphrase for his impersonation of Healey. Healey adopted it and used it to put down opponents.
- Graduated with a double first in Mods and Greats from Balliol College, Oxford University.
- He played several musical instruments, including the piano and double bass. He also enjoyed gardening, painting, and photography.
- [when asked in 2009 whether he would have made a good prime minister if he had stood for the Labour leadership against James Callaghan in the 1970s] "I probably would. But it is better for people to wonder why I wasn't prime minister than to wonder why I was."
- As prime minister she was bad, without any question, but when I got to know her as a human being I found she had quite attractive qualities. One felt rather sorry for her because she was quite fragile. (On Margaret Thatcher)
- [In 1978, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, replying in the House of Commons to a speech in which Geoffrey Howe, the Shadow Chancellor, censured him] "That part of his speech was rather like being savaged by a dead sheep".
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