WHY BILLY FAILED TO SEE PARKY’S FUNNY SIDE
Three months after Sir Michael Parkinson claimed Sir Billy Connolly had been ‘dulled’ by an age-related disease, the comedian has launched a withering response
THERE was a time when Parky and Billy were one of the great showbiz double acts. Sir Billy Connolly, known as the Big Yin, made repeated appearances on Sir Michael Parkinson’s chat show from 1975 and the rapport between the two men was always a delight to witness.
Then in August Sir Michael claimed that the last time he had seen Sir Billy he was not sure if he had recognised him. His “wonderful brain is dulled”, he lamented.
The comedian’s wife Pamela Stephenson responded immediately by giving him both barrels. “Mike Parkinson is a daft old fart... doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” she said, adding: “Billy’s doing great and is still funny as hell.”
Sir Billy kept his own counsel – until now. In fact, the Big Yin is keen for all his fans to know that his mind is as sharp as ever even if, at 76, his body is frail.
His problem is Parkinson’s disease which he was diagnosed with five years ago. But Sir Billy confirms he has still got all his marbles in a newspaper interview with The Times to promote his upcoming ITV travelogue Billy Connolly’s Ultimate World Tour.
Back in his native Glasgow recently on a visit from his home in Florida, Sir Billy said he was at a loss to know why Parky had said what he did. “I don’t know. You’d better ask him,” he said. “It was two years since I’d seen him and that occasion was the GQ dinner and I did really well so what he was talking about I’ll never know.”
In a dig at Parky’s TV adverts for a life insurance company, the comedian joked, “He’s been selling funerals too long!”
But the comment had clearly upset him: “The thing that got me about it was, what if it was true? It’s still a s ***** thing to do. What do you think of Billy Connolly? ‘Oh, he’s f ***** ’.”
Sir Billy admitted that his degenerative condition had taken its toll physically. He and wife Pamela had moved from New York to Florida because he struggled with the Big Apple’s slippery pavements in winter, he said, and his trademark long hair, now snowy white, has been cropped because he has trouble looking after it. He lifted a shaky right hand to demonstrate the “nonsense” the disease causes him.
But he keeps the Parkinson’s at bay with standard drugs and by doing exercise: taking regular walks and boxing.
Sir Billy said he has not been in touch with Parky to question his comments. “I don’t speak to him normally anyway,” he said.
And it turned out that reports of the Big Yin losing his faculties are not the only thing that has been exaggerated.
In a remarkably frank interview, Connolly denied he was burdened with memories of his father’s sexual abuse of him as a child.
The stories of his childhood trauma emerged 17 years ago when wife Pamela published a biography of him and he described then his unnecessary feelings of guilt as a “big rucksack full of bricks” that he carried around.
The comedian laughed off the idea that his humour was used to repress bad memories and said: “I’ve psychologically put it behind me, like the rucksack full of bricks.”
He said a psychologist had taught him to put the metaphorical bag down and walk away from it, and he took a swipe at TV programmes featuring parents talking about how abuse has “ruined their child’s life”, making the listening children believe they have no future.
He said: “It’s not the truth. It needn’t ruin your life. You can go beyond it. You’re the victim, not the perpetrator. You bear no guilt whatsoever so you can put it down. You have to learn to put the rucksack down.”
SIR BILLY’S new programme, poignant though it is to see how less mobile he is now, is not in any way an attempt for him to find himself, he said. It’s purely about finding things that are funny.
The documentary includes clips of him dancing naked in the Arctic Circle and between the ancient standing stones in Orkney. “You mustn’t act your age. Act some other b ***** ’s age. You must stay alive,” he says.
When he does finally leave life’s stage Sir Billy says he would like his ashes sprinkled in Loch Lomond and the River Clyde, a nod to when he was an apprentice welder in the Glasgow shipyards. But don’t expect him to take out one of Parky’s funeral plans any time soon.