Crusading comic with a big heart
Lord Rix Actor and disability campaigner BORN JANUARY 27, 1924 - DIED AUGUST 20, 2016 AGED 92
AS THE king of Whitehall farces, Brian Rix estimated that he dropped his trousers 12,000 times between 1950 and 1980. When it came to giving theatre-goers a good belly laugh Rix knew exactly what the public wanted – and he gave it to them in droves.
He played to packed theatres and when his productions were later televised on the BBC, attracting millions of viewers, he soon became the country’s highest-paid actor. Reluctant Heroes, Dry Rot and Don’t Just Lie There, Say Something! were made into films.
But behind the funnyman routine Rix hid a heartbreaking secret. His daughter Shelley, born in 1951, had Down’s syndrome. And it was this life-changing event which ultimately spurred him on to give up acting and become a tireless campaigner for people with disabilities.
More recently, as he battled his own terminal illness, the TV legend fought for a change in the law on assisted dying after admitting that his own illness had left him feeling “like a beached whale” and in permanent discomfort.
Brian Norman Roger Rix was born in Cottingham, Yorkshire, to Herbert, a successful ship owner, and Fanny. His mother, a keen amateur dramatics producer, would regularly put on Gilbert and Sullivan operas with Rix taking on small roles.
Despite his parents’ hopes that he would become a doctor, Rix had other ideas and at 17 joined Donald Wolfit’s touring company, making his debut carrying a spear in King Lear.
After serving in the RAF and working as a Bevin Boy in the mines in Doncaster he set himself up as an impresario and bought the rights to Colin Morris’ farce Reluctant Heroes in 1950. It marked the start of his high-flying career. The play ran for four years at the Whitehall Theatre and one critic wrote: “A farce is now running at both ends of Whitehall.”
Other hits such as Simple Spymen and One For The Pot followed and when his tenancy at the Whitehall ended in 1966 Rix took his “theatre of laughter” to the Garrick.
It was around this time the actor became involved with the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children and Adults, later known as Mencap. He and his wife Elspet knew only too well the heartache, desperation and lack of support that came with caring for a child with disabilities.
When Shelley was born doctors advised the couple to put her in an asylum and start again. They refused and tried as best they could to look after her but when Shelley was five she went to live at Normansfield, one of the leading hospitals for people with learning disabilities, and returned home at weekends.
“There was no question we could look after Shelley at home,” Rix once explained. “There was just no support and we were isolated.”
He later admitted that he spent the rest of his life being driven by “fantastic guilt”. Although he never shied away from talking about his daughter, the day after he gave a speech about her in front of 2,000 theatre-goers it became headline news.
He realised in that moment how much he could do to raise funds and awareness and gradually became increasingly involved with Mencap, rising from the charity’s secretarygeneral to become president in 1998.
During that time he helped to expand Mencap into a £130million organisation with a staff of 6,000 and was also heavily involved in making amendments to the Childcare Bill of 2006 and the Electoral Administration Bill, which gave people with learning difficulties the right to vote.
He became a CBE in 1977, a knight in 1986 and a life peer in 1992.
Elspet died in 2013 and Shelley passed away in 2005.
Lord Rix is survived by his two sons Jamie and Jonathan and daughter Louisa.