Funnyman EDDIE IZZARD struggled to make audiences laugh during his early days on the stand up circuit, according to comedienne JO BRAND.The comic turned actor, who starred aboard Tom Cruise in World War II drama Valkyrie, first found fame with his comedy routines in the U.K. But British stand up Brand insists Izzard was so bad when he first started, his fellow comedians pitied him until he eventually proved them wrong. Autobiography in her new, Look Back In Hunger, she writes: "Eddie Izzard was perfectly dreadful when he started, just not funny. It became a standing joke: 'Eddie's died again'. "One night at the Red Rose Labour Club we were steeling ourselves for Eddie to have another nightmare, feeling sorry for him because we all liked him, and out of the blue he stormed. The crowd went mental, gave him an encore, and he never looked back."
