‘Stanley Baxter used costumes to obfuscate his sexuality’
A new biography gives a rare insight into the comedian’s life, saystom Fordy
For the 1976 Stanley Baxter special – a Christmas telly staple that rivalled even the mighty Morecambe and Wise – the comic hired a boat off the coast of Margate. In the sketch the gag, ultimately, was Baxter prancing about the boat in a pair of giant fake breasts. A cheap gag, but – as was usually the case with Stanley Baxter – very costly.
“At the time, hiring the launch cost over £200,000,” says Brian Beacom, author of a new biography on Baxter. “It was madness. Just to produce two minutes of television. But Stanley was indulged by producers.”
The reason for their indulgence was simple: his shows – a combination of big musical numbers, television and film parodies, and saucy, close-to-theknuckle humour – attracted huge audiences. “Stanley could clear streets,” says Beacom. “When he was on television, there was no one outside. That’s how big he was.”
Baxter the man, however, remained a mystery. Unusually for such a big star, he never appeared on talk shows. He was suspicious of journalists and guarded his privacy closely. “I’m not a personality, I’m a character actor,” the entertainer once said. “I like to retreat into playing other people.”
Now the biography, The Real Stanley Baxter, gives an unprecedented insight into the star’s life and career, most notably, the disclosure by Baxter, at the age of 94, that he is gay.
The book also details dark episodes in Baxter’s life: being arrested for soliciting in public toilets (“His career would have been over if he’d been found guilty,” says Beacom. “There was a real chance he may have killed himself.”); and his wife Moira’s battle with depression and suicide attempts. When he confessed he was gay and tried to break off their relationship, Moira tried to throw herself from a window ledge. But they married, and Moira let him bring men home for sex. She died from an overdose in 1997.
Watching the comedian’s shows now, it’s hard to imagine that Baxter’s sexuality wasn’t plainly obvious: the humour is gleefully camp and stuffed with innuendo. In a song-and-dance sketch he plays a cross-dressing jockey (“Legs over the saddle, thighs properly spread, I like to be mounted on some thoroughbred”). Rude certainly, but more knowing than it seemed.
“Stanley was sort of going under the radar, using costumes and clever lines as a way to obfuscate, daring the public to assume his sexuality,” says Beacom. Baxter was also a control freak. “Someone like Russ Abbot would be given a bundle of scripts,” says Baxter in the book. “I had to come up with the ideas. They had to be mine.”
It was because of this that Baxter stopped making multi-episode series and started doing specials. His first, in 1973, took an incredible five months to make. The second won three Baftas.
But not everybody was a fan. When John Birt took over as director of programmes at LWT, he sacked Baxter, largely because of the cost of his shows. Baxter returned to the BBC, but when Birt followed him there, the comedian was sacked again.
The entertainer went on to make three series of the children’s show Mr Majeika and continued with panto, where he was still the star and creative force. But he rejected other work. “He could have done other things,” says Beacom. “But he didn’t want to. He’d gone out on a high – 20 million people. He didn’t want to do anything less.”
I have to ask Beacom how Baxter feels about being laid bare in the biography. “Well he’s 94, he’s left it quite some time,” says Beacom. “Showbiz people don’t like the lights to be switched off. They want a little light to still be on, to illuminate them. I think this is the little light that Stanley has on at this time.”