I’ve not just lost a DAD, I’ve lost MY HERO
Still raw with grief, Ronnie Corbett’s daughter breaks her silence on the star’s courage in his final days – and shares her treasured photo album
TODAY, on what would have been Ronnie Corbett’s 86th birthday, his family will gather at the home he shared with Anne, his wife of almost 50 years. Inevitably, there will be tears over the tremendous sense of loss they have felt since Ronnie’s death earlier this year. But, fittingly for a man who created some of the most memorable moments in British comedy, there will also be much laughter.
Ronnie’s death from motor neurone disease (MND) was met by an outpouring of public sadness and affection across the country. Over the course of his long, brilliant career, most famously as one half of The Two Ronnies, he earned a reputation as one of the most genuinely kind and funny people in showbusiness.
He was devoted to Anne, 83, and daughters Emma, 49, and Sophie, 48 – and they adored him.
It is eight months since he passed away on March 31, yet with the grief still raw, his family have not spoken publicly about their loss.
But today actress Sophie gives a moving tribute to her father – and reveals how his battle against the ravaging illness has inspired her to help raise awareness about the condition. At present there is no cure.
‘We’ve lost our best friend, our rock, our hero. It’s the biggest journey any of us have made,’ she says of an experience made all the more traumatic by MND – a cruel, degenerative condition which robs sufferers of their ability to walk, speak, swallow and breathe.
After Ronnie was diagnosed in March 2015, he disappeared from public view. Sophie says: ‘He didn’t want people visiting him after that. It was horrific but Dad never moaned. He had a really tough last ten months. The final six were tough-tough.’
Ronnie eventually died in hospital with Anne, Sophie and Emma by his side.
Sophie says: ‘It’s the hardest thing saying goodbye to somebody you don’t want to be parted from, but there was no last conversation.
‘We didn’t think he was going to go. We thought we were going to be able to bring him home again.
‘There was a little rattle in Dad’s chest and he was put on antibiotics to strengthen him. It was all incredibly peaceful, and he left with impeccable timing, as ever.’
Since then the biggest consolation to the family has been the tide of affection that flowed towards them from the public.
‘The fact that Dad was so widely loved has been a great comfort to us,’ says Sophie, who owns a boutique in Brighton named Four Candles, after The Two Ronnies’ most famous sketch.
‘Outside my boutique I have three big plant pots, and when I returned to work a few months after Dad died I found that someone had planted beautiful flowers in them and I have no idea who that was.
‘People taped four candles to lamp-posts near Mum and Dad’s house in Surrey. Such gestures help us all.
‘I feel Dad is still with me – a really strong presence.
‘When Dad passed away, Nikki, our cousin who lives in North Berwick [in East Lothian], where we’ve had a second home since I was 11, asked if she could do anything. Emma suggested she take a picture of our house and send it to us.
‘She did and, amazingly, there was a double rainbow right over it. So we said, “He’s all right.”’
Ronnie was born and brought up in Edinburgh, before moving to London to start his career as an entertainer. His diminutive stature – he was only 5ft 1in – made him conspicuous, but Sophie says the lack of height never bothered him. ‘He had confidence and something about him that was larger than his stature,’ she adds. ‘His auntie was more bothered – she bought him a stretching machine but he never used it.’
Anne was also in showbusiness – she was an actress and dancer when she and Ronnie married in 1966. They worked together in comedian Danny When he left us, it was with impeccable timing, as ever La Rue’s club until Anne became pregnant with Emma.
One year earlier, the couple had lost a son, Andrew, who died aged six weeks from a heart condition.
‘Mum will well up now if she thinks about Andrew,’ says Sophie. ‘When they then had Emma and me, Mum didn’t want to return to work because she was terrified something was going to happen to us too. When Dad put me to bed, he’d tuck the sheet and blankets around me like I was a pea in a pod and he’d sing the song Christopher Robin.
‘But most of the time Mum put us to bed as Dad was working late. He was a very driven man. Many years later he said to me, “To succeed you’ve got to be selfish and live a bit, as long as you take your family with you.”’
It was Ronnie’s appearances on David Frost’s satirical The Frost Report in the mid-1960s that established him. It was also where he met Ronnie Barker. ‘Mum was Dad’s No1 but Ronnie B was Dad’s soulmate,’ says Sophie. ‘He never had a cross word with Ronnie B. They truly respected and adored one another.’
The Two Ronnies ran on BBC1 from 1971 to 1987 and attracted audiences of more than 18million. The show featured the duo performing musical numbers, spoof dramas and sketches. Ronnie C also delivered his famous meandering monologues while sitting in a big chair wearing a V-neck golf sweater.
‘When Emma and I were old enough, we’d go and watch the recordings,’ recalls Sophie. ‘We didn’t get Dad’s monologues until we were older. The first time he let us sit in the audience on our own we were eight and nine, and as he came out to do his monologue he saw Emma and me walking hand-in-hand up the aisle and out.’
In 1971, when Sophie was three, her parents bought their dream home beside a golf course in Addington, Surrey, with seven bedrooms and a swimming pool. They had a stream of celebrity visitors, including Sean Connery, Bruce Forsyth, Jimmy Tarbuck and Michael Parkinson.
‘It was normal to us,’ says Sophie. ‘One day as we drove away from home, we saw a motorcyclist in black leathers entering our gravel drive. Mum, fearing we were about to be burgled, turned back saying, “Who the hell is that?” Off came the rider’s helmet and it was Honor Blackman shaking loose her long blonde hair.
‘I also remember Mum and Dad wanting Emma and me to go to St Andrews for the golf, saying, “Sean Connery is coming with his son Jason and he hasn’t got anyone to hang out with. Will you and Emma come?”
‘We said, “No, we’re going to a party in Croydon.”’
Despite her father’s fame, Sophie says that the family were happiest alone together at home. ‘It was Dad
and three strong women,’ laughs Sophie. ‘But he’d just get it. He had a kind of feminine side to him, and he was often a softie.
‘He was a great dad, very approachable, especially with really serious stuff. He never let us down.
‘The only thing Mum and Dad ever rowed about was raising us two. Dad was stricter than Mum. I think he feared that Emma and I would be flash, and he wanted us to be grounded. The cross face he show s to Ronnie B in the Four Candles sketch… that’s when we knew we were in trouble.’
Ronnie’s fame meant he was constantly recognised and approached by the public – something he handled with impeccable good manners. ‘Occasionally, when Dad noticed somebody was going to be annoying, he’d say “Rabbit, rabbit!” and we’d start talking intensely among ourselves about anything to put people off from interrupting us.
‘Most people just said “Thank you for making us laugh”, and that really touched him. He was often moved to tears by the public.’
IT WAS perhaps inevitable that Sophie would follow in her parents’ footsteps. She trained in performing arts and has sung in bands and worked as an actress and voice-over artist. She lives in Hove with her husband, singer/ songwriter Gordon Grahame, and sons Dylan, 19, and Billy, 11.
Sophie says the death of Ronnie Barker in 2005 hit her father hard.
‘Dad spoke to Ronnie B two days before he died and knew he was saying goodbye,’ recalls Sophie. ‘Did he cry? Absolutely. Did he not go out for about a week? Absolutely. When Ronnie B died, cab drivers used to wave to Dad and that choked him.’
In recent years, he was touched to be bombarded with offers of work from modern comedians, with David Walliams casting him in Little Britain and Ricky Gervais giving him a role in Extras.
‘When Dad told Mum he’d been asked by Ricky to do a scene where he takes drugs in a toilet, Mum said, “Well, you can’t do it, obviously.”
‘Then Dad said “Moira Stuart will be my drug dealer”, and Mum roared with laughter and said, “You’ve got to do it!”
‘Before he was poorly, Dad would say to me, “I’ve lived my dream.” And he had. He did everything he wanted to do – being a comedian and having an amazing wife and family were his dream. He had no unfulfilled ambitions.’
Sophie keeps press cuttings, obituaries and tributes in a drawer but hasn’t yet read them. Sometimes she can’t watch when her father pops up on TV, although she is pleased the BBC is planning a tribute to him at Christmas, which will be a difficult time without him.
‘We would always be altogether, all chipping in with the cooking – Dad was always in charge of the turkey,’ she says. ‘We would have champagne and smoked salmon on Dad’s home-made brown bread, then all sit in the lounge and open our presents, with all the kids and dogs too. We would all sit down for a late lunch at about 4pm, then retire to the sitting room to chat and watch TV. And yes, we would watch The Two Ronnies.’
The family haven’t yet scattered his ashes. ‘At the moment it feels too soon, so he’s still with us,’ says Sophie. ‘But we will scatter them in both Addington and Scotland.
‘Dad’s passing hit Mum really hard – harder than she expected – and she misses him terribly. Thank goodness we’re a seriously close family. We feel really blessed to have had such an amazing man in our lives.’