Begin the Big Yin...
AS SIR BILLY CONNOLLY TURNS 80, MARION MCMULLEN LOOKS BACK AT THE HUMBLE ORIGINS OF
HEARD the one about the welder who became an international comedy star?
Sir Billy Connolly says the talent to make people laugh changed his life. “I used to be a folk singer, but I was dreadful,” he said. “I had a voice like a goose f**ting in the fog. And being a folk singer doesn’t make you attractive to women.”
Born in Glasgow on November 24 in 1942, he began his working life as a welder in the Clyde shipyards before embarking on a career as a folk singer and musician alongside Baker Street singer Gerry Rafferty in The Humblebums. Billy’s witty patter between songs would later develop into a stand-up act that made him world famous.
He used to joke about his home city saying: “The great thing about Glasgow is that if there’s a nuclear attack it’ll look exactly the same afterwards.”
In an era when mother-in-law jokes were the norm, Billy’s style of observational comedy and real-life stories was groundbreaking. He joked: “I set out to be a cross between Lenny Bruce and Robert the Bruce.”
Billy and Gerry started off performing songs about cuckoos and chicken pie. “You had to introduce your songs, and I used to introduce them funny, in a light, sometimes abstract way. That got the shape of my comedy going,” he recalled.
His humour connected with people from the start. “I’ve always admired ordinary people – the electrician, the nurse, the secretary. You’ll see them in the pub, roaring with laughter, not a comedian among them. Ordinary people are great at comedy. They wish they could do it – they don’t know they can.”
He learned from the best – the “patter merchants” at the Glasgow shipyards, where Billy picked up his first wage. Every tea break, the men gathered round and told tales – rough, rude and hilarious. “They were heroes,” he says. “They didn’t change anything, but they changed me.”
He became affectionately known as the Big Yin and his comedy reached new audiences across the country when he appeared on Michael Parkinson’s famous BBC chat show in 1975.
Billy recalled the experience during a talk at the Edinburgh TV Festival and said: “I had done wee talk shows in Scotland and they were
THE KING OF COMEDY
good, but there wasn’t the big time thing that Parkinson had.”
He said he was applauded by members of the public when he landed at Glasgow’s airport following his appearance on the show. “It’s a thing the Scots have got about accents,” he said. “You can be as popular as you like but if you don’t have a Scottish accent when you’re doing it, it’s different. They loved the fact I went on with my Scottish accent and got famous. “They took it personally and they all applauded and it was lovely.”
Billy became a regular guest on Parkinson over the years and his sell-out comedy tours made him a star. He went on to crack America, thanks to an HBO special with Whoopi Goldberg in 1989, and acting roles followed.
He won praise for his work opposite Dame Judi Dench in Mrs Brown in 1997, as well as The Man Who Sued God and The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies. The comedy favourite also proved a gifted travel reporter, making a string of popular documentaries.
“I’m a huge film star,” he joked, “but you have to hurry to the movies because I usually die in the first 15 **** ing minutes. I’m the only guy I know who died in a **** ing Muppet movie.”
He met his future wife, actressturned-clinical psychologist and author Pamela Stephenson when he made a guest appearance on BBC comedy sketch show Not The Nine O’clock News and they married in 1989. The couple now live in Florida.
In 2010, Billy was given the highest honour Glasgow could bestow upon him, the Freedom of the City.
He became Sir Billy in 2017, when he was knighted for services to entertainment and charity, but was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2013 and retired from live performances five years later.
Sir Elton John, Dustin Hoffman and Sheridan Smith were among those who paid an emotional tribute to the comedy star when he marked the end of his stand-up career with ITV special It’s Been A Pleasure.
Sir Elton described him as “the first rock star of comedy” and Sheridan said she had named her baby son Billy after him.
Billy found international fame with his comedy, but once joked “I always look skint. When I buy a Big Issue, people take it out of my hand and give me a pound”.
He said he enjoyed making audiences laugh because “it is a jolly thing, it is good for you and it is good for them. It is a dynamite thing to be able to do, to get a laugh out of someone.”
So how would the king of British comedy like to be remembered? “It’s a very simple thing. I would like to be remembered as being good at what I did. I’d like it to be on my gravestone: ‘He was a comedian, and he was very good at it’.”
Ordinary people are great at comedy. They wish they could do it – they don’t know they can! Billy Connolly