Can you just tell me, finally, what city he lives in? In a 1963 entry, Williams described Baxter as disarming, honest, charming and hilariously funny all at once. Helen Wright and Moira Robertson were in a police raid (Image: Spindrift) Two Glasgow pensioners caught with more than 24,000 of cocaine are behind bars. Looking up at me, expecting me to speak. Stanley would indeed come to regret it for the rest of his life. But it was because I knew I'd made the biggest mistake of my life.. You can tell Ive talked to the press before, cant you? But Stanley couldnt contain his sexual frustrations. 'She would think the television was talking to her.' He said lots of theatrical things about how marvellous it had been to work with Baxter, with whom he still corresponded from time to time. The show featured interviews about his life alongside new comedy material including a skit about the Queen's Christmas speech. He is completely woven into the Scottish psyche, says Mary Brennan, a critic for the Herald. But although the urgency had gone, the curiosity remained. Stanley reckoned his wife's place was in the home. Of all those stories, it is hard to imagine anything more sad than this one. Hes offered stage plays and everything all the time, but he doesnt want to lock himself into eight performances a week for six months, you know? He felt guilty for the many affairs and the new partners. Private passions are what we care about most, skeletons in the cupboard; but even knowing the colour of the upholstery will do. He had recorded a radio version of Compton Mackenzies book, Whisky Galore! Yet he was, and is, missed: in England, as the funniest man on television; in Scotland where they take panto very seriously as the greatest dame of the century: a master of the double entendre and the quick, stunning costume-change. He took her passport, to prevent her from trying to follow him. So that was the answer: a recluse in the phone book. It was absolutely selfish. Tanned and fit-looking, straight-backed, with his broad face exactly as it was on the television years ago, eyes that were calm but curious, and slightly sparkling. Fine, I said. Moura A.J. Eccentric. Managing Director. If you are dissatisfied with the response provided you can inaccuracy or intrusion, then please But had Moira truly leapt at the idea of leaving Glasgow and friends and family behind? Say goodbye? Anybody who has acquired that kind of carapace is not going to come on like John Inman, rushing out of a closet, shouting, Im free! They have prided themselves on conducting their life with dignity.. Im going to cut you short. Actor Stanley Baxter, 94, has bravely come out as gay and opened up about how his sexuality impacted his relationship with his wife Moira Robertson, who died in 1997. His biographer Brian Beacom examines why the brilliant Scots entertainer with a thousand faces refused to show his real one to the world. He took an immediate shine to Baxter. 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He moved to London eight years later. Finally, I realised that I would have to let Stanley Baxter rest in peace. He was previously married to Moira Robertson. Moiras role, however, was reduced from Actress to Wife. Dunoon, Scotland, United Kingdom. The charges were dropped, on condition that Baxter promised not to sue the police for wrongful arrest. A year later, on March 5, 1952, the train sped west to Moiras parents home in Dumbarton for the ceremony. 'One wounded bird helping to look after another,' Stanley said. They moved to London and Moira gave up the theatre, to be a housewife. So he just thought: No, its all too much for me. His lawyer managed to get the charge dropped but the incident left him in fear for his acting career. Or just give her the only thing she had ever asked for to be with him. Farm Heroes Saga, the #4 Game on iTunes. ', Until, inevitably, it did. Offer price valid until 06/11/2020. This was Angus Lennie, once the chef in Crossroads. Er, or something like it. He plays in Scotland to capacity every time, but thats not the point. (this was eventually broadcast on Radio 2 earlier this week). . The book was 10 years old, but it was worth a try. Yet my interest had been rekindled, my hopes raised, before being dashed against the same old stonewalling. Im not sure that Stanley would say it just now, but he had this kind of sexual whats the expression? I believed that no-one in our family should be anything but a star.. One more try. Tragically, however, in 1997, the year Princess Diana died, Moira took her own life. Stanley Livingstone Baxter (born 24 May 1926) is a Scottish actor, comedian, impressionist and author. Hes never done a chat show in his life. Still smiling, though. They went on a trip to Amsterdam together in 1964, although Williams who described their sitting in clubs with a load of poofs returned to Britain early. View more posts, Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), It was 20 years ago todayish. Optimieren Sie Ihren Workflow mit unserem erstklassigen Digitalen Asset Management System. It was all I ever dreamed of.. If there were someone I were interested in, I could bring them home. Well, I spoke to your television company, and they said you might be doing some soon. Then youve got the orchestra, and dancers. Actors have agents, and Baxters was listed in various theatrical yearbooks as David White Associates. Baxter is appearing on a charges of. After all, the pair had spent endless hours discussing sexuality, preferences and honesty. The spotlight was his. I kept getting those sheeps eyes every time she passed me in the theatre and she appeared to be heartbroken. A dreadful fantasy played in his head, that he would suffer a heart attack backstage during panto season and be found dead on the floor of the dressing room. She may have worshipped Stanley but she never got herself worked up if her husbands white shirts were dry in the morning or not. . He kept phoning all the time, telling me there was something special between us. So he must have felt a shiver when the waspish diaries of his late friend Kenneth Williams were published two years ago. By that time, I had so many tender feelings for her, he explains. But unknown to the world, Granny and the eponymous hero had decided to marry. In the past, the journalists job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. But Stanley, and Moiras family, coaxed her to take medication. We need you! Club gossip suggested that he preferred the bigger and busier squash changing- rooms to those by the poolside, and was a bit of a loner.) There, he saw a notice appealing for performers to join the Combined Services Entertainment unit [CSE]. View the profiles of professionals named "Moira Robertson" on LinkedIn. There are 30+ professionals named "Moira Robertson", who use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas, and opportunities. There's no doubt about that. I really dont. A stage smile. What Williams didnt know, however, was the pressure Stanley had been under. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. So I asked if he was aware that there had been a piece in the Sun over the summer, calling for Baxter to come back to television. One of Scotland's greatest comedians has come out as gay but admitted: "I never wanted to be, I still don't." Stanley Baxter, 94, said that he and his wife, Moira Robertson, knew that he was. Then one night she invited me for my favourite spaghetti up to her little rented flat at 65 Clouston Street and I was seduced back into bed again., The appetite sated, Stanley reckoned the only way to break off the relationship once and for all was to be entirely honest with Moira. Jul 1988 - Present34 years 4 months. I still dont. Stanley was bringing the values of a different time and place into a world that had changed. 'I'm too afraid of what people will think of me,' he said. IN MARCH 1952, 26-year-old Stanley Baxter, recognised as the brightest young star in the Citizens Theatre Company, made a decision that was to shock his parents, stun his close friend Kenneth Williams and even surprise himself. My dad said This is a very big step you're taking, Stanley. Unknown to Stanley, Moira had ditched her medication and the demons raged again. Profitieren Sie von der globalen Reichweite, datengesttzten Erkenntnissen und einem Netzwerk von ber 340.000 Content-Anbietern von Getty Images, die exklusiv fr Ihre Marke Inhalte erstellen. By the age of 14 when he became radio star he knew where his destiny lay. Brian Beacom 2020. Well, it was worth a go. almost as often as a chambermaid turns down bed sheets.'. It was partly a feeling of I'll show them, that I could be as heterosexual as the rest of them.. I dont deserve it, I know, but if anyone can help me at this dreadful period, it is him, Williams wrote before leaving home. Facebook gives people the power. The veteran Glaswegian actor reveals in his new biography The Real Stanley Baxter, written with his approval by Brian Beacom, that his wife of 45 years Moira Robertson knew about his sexuality and he brought men home with her blessing. but hes never done one. Registered in England & Wales | 01676637 |. "However, Moira was very, very upset. They all wanted him: Aspel, Parkinson. Aug 2017 - Aug 20225 years 1 month. Play it now! To pre-empt that, he agreed to let me tell his story . We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse. She was in love with him and Baxter believed he was falling in love with her. He adds that he only agreed not to break things off when she threatened to jump out the window of their flat. Oh yes? Still smiling. Just when it was looking hopeless, I discovered a quote from Don Black, the lyricist of Sunset Boulevard, about keeping himself fit at the RAC Club: I take a Turkish bath at the club every Saturday. He had to get on with it, focus on finishing the last 10 days of the panto season and his last 10 days at the Citz. Your Trusted Advocate. I wondered if I could have a word? By then, he had fallen in love for the first time. British actress Moira Robertson and her husband, British comedian and actor Stanley Baxter, at Clerkenwell Magistrates Court in London, England, 5th March 1962. I felt I had to be very careful not to allow anyone a glimpse of my predilection.. Men just look nelly, however hard they try. And he had been sighted on a visit to Scotland in July 1994, to unveil a tribute to his late friend and fellow comic Duncan Macrae, during which he had confirmed that it had been his intention to drop out of public life completely: Most comics work till they drop, but Im happier now than ever. Tayside & Stirling. Im a character actor. By 1999, he was fearful that an unauthorised biography might be commissioned against his wishes. Managing a portfolio of SME clients across a range of sectors and complexities. Gay men up and down the UK lived in constant fear of having their careers and lives wrecked. What else did I expect? In 1959, Stanley realised the writing was on the wall for variety theatre in Scotland and moved to London. But just weeks later he realised he had boarded a runaway train. At one point during my researches I was intrigued to meet a person in north London who had lived near the Baxters for a while in recent years, and who believed that they now lived apart, but that Stanley visited his wifes new home for lunch most days. I shouldn't have done, but I did. By being proactive, well informed and aware of your condition this is the first step to making a difference. The star, who is best. The critics loved it. Since then, he has been completely absent from stage or television, and rarely even mentioned in print. She is the. Thinking about that took me back to my first major feature for the IOS, commissioned as an act of reckless faith by the editor Ian Jack and Richard Askwith, who ran the Review magazine and remains one of the finest copy editors I have ever come across. The lavish, multi-layered dresses worn by classic pantomime dames are built on a bodysuit of gripping Lycra whose fierce constriction can leave the body raw and bruised by the end of each performance. Yet he was, and is, missed: in England, as the funniest man on television; in Scotland - where they take panto very seriously - as the greatest dame of the century: a master of the double entendre and the quick, stunning costume-change. As he grew up, she was intensely jealous and would shoo away any girls who admired him: 'She started telling me about these two boys who once took a wee girl into a haunted house up the road and did terrible things to her. But the question is also intriguing: how could someone who once inspired such affection slip from the public gaze so completely, in so short a space of time? He was happy to talk about the Scottish approach to pantomime, with its emphasis on storyline and tradition, but declined to talk about Baxter as a person. In 1949, it was illegal to be gay and entrapment of homosexual men by covert police officers was common. Not him, then. When he sat down on a streetcar bench between a priest and a woman with a hat box on her lap, he suddenly saw another female rider in front of him lose her clothes (through a double-exposure dissolve), and then his seat-mates on his right and left turned female without clothes. And although she was a good cook, she wasn't very good at washing. However, it was Moira who was determined to take the relationship to the next stage. 1952, the journalists job was to collect and distribute information to the stage! Had gone, the curiosity remained show them, that I would have to me. Williams didnt know, however, Moira was very, very upset and. Examines why the brilliant Scots entertainer with a thousand faces refused to show his real one to world. He became radio star he knew where his destiny lay values of a different time and place into world! 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2022-11-07