Actor, comic, visionary, and a dear friend Tributes to disability campaigner, 92
TV LEGEND BRIAN RIX: 1924-2016
TV legend Lord Rix died yesterday aged 92, weeks after he urged fellow peers to back assisted dying.
The actor and learning disability campaigner had been battling a terminal illness which left him “like a beached whale”.
He was president of Mencap and the charity’s chief executive praised him as a “visionary”.
Jan Tregelles said: “His unique charm, personality and passion have been invaluable in helping Mencap grow into the UK’s leading learning disability charity, and with his passing the charity has lost a very dear friend.”
Born in Cottingham, East Yorks, in 1924, Brian Rix was the youngest of four children.
He started acting aged 18 during the Second World War, then joined the RAF before becoming one of the Bevin Boys, who worked in coal mines. He later returned to acting and set up a theatre company in 1947.
As actor- manager of the Whitehall Theatre he was a regular performer in its farces. The scripts usually required him to lose his trousers.
He also starred in more than 90 BBC TV comedies and at one time was one of the corporation’s highest-paid actors.
He was a star of Sunday Night Theatre from 1950 to 1959. His last TV series, A Roof Over My Head, was shown in 1977. His first daughter Shelley had been born with Down’s Syndrome and he turned his back on acting to be a disabilities campaigner, joining Mencap in 1980.
In her tribute, Mencap’s Jan Tregelles said: “He and his wife Elspet were told to put her away, and forget about her. This started a quest lasting over 60 years to make the world a better place for all those with a learning disability.” The star was knighted in 1986 and became a peer in 1992 for services to charity.
He spoke regularly in the Lords, talking of his frustration at not being able to do more for Shelley, who died in 2005.
This month he said terminal illness had left him in constant pain. He said: “I have been dying now for two months or more and that is a very, very long time.”
He voted against the Assisted Dying Bill in 2006 but had changed his stance on the issue.
Lord Rix wrote to Speaker Baroness D’Souza pleading to put the subject back on the agenda.
He said: “I’ve lived for 24 years with an artificial heart valve and I have a pacemaker, so I’m used to the idea of death, but I’m not used to the idea of not dying.”
He considered going to a Swiss assisted death clinic but decided that it would be unfair on his children. Elspet, an actress, died in 2013. Lord Rix is survived by his children Louisa, 61, Jamie, 58, and Jonathan.