My rocker son’s music brought me out of a coma says star Tim
‘His album was playing on a loop… then I came round’
AUF Wiedersehen, Pet actor Tim Healy has revealed how his son’s music brought him out of a coma.
The actor, 65, was left fighting for his life after being hit by a mystery illness in Spain last year while filming the upcoming series of ITV show Benidorm.
His wife Joan Anderton, 55, a former pub cleaner, was “in bits” while he lay wired to hospital machines. In a bid to bring him round she played an album recorded by his son Matt’s charttopping band The 1975.
Tim said: “She kept playing my son’s music to me, she had his album on a loop.
“After a few days I started smiling and then I came round. So it was my son’s music that brought me back to the land of the living.”
Matt, 27, is the actor’s oldest son with ex-wife and Loose Women regular Denise Welch, 58.
He fronts the rock band which had a No1 hit with their first album The 1975 in 2013.
His father’s cross-dressing Benidorm character Les was written out of the sitcom while he fought the mystery illness.
“I’ve been so poorly that I have been out of the loop. I came off set and then went to hospital, that was it,” the actor said.
He’s no idea how creator Derren Litten wrote him out of the show so will “wait and see – like the viewers”.
He added: “I feel bad though, for causing him such a headache with all those rewrites.”
Healy is now on the mend after a tough few months, but his illness has taken its toll physically.
“I lost about three stone, which is good but I wouldn’t recommend losing it the way I did,” he said.
He continued: “Mentally I’m absolutely fine, I feel sharp, but it’s my body that’s taking time to catch up. The doctors say it’s going to take me at least a year to get myself back to full strength.
“Just lying in a bed, you lose your muscle.”
Healy, probably best known for playing Dennis in comedy-drama Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, which ran for 20 years from 1983, no longer smokes as a result of his illness and has gone off alcohol.
“I used to love my beers, but it doesn’t matter what I try now, it all tastes awful,” he said.
The ninth series of Benidorm starts on ITV on March 1 at 9pm.