Many weeks later, I was browsing for biographical material on someone else when I came across an old copy of Whos Who In Television, with an entry on Baxter. Favourite Place: My living room in [he named a very nice suburb of north London]. In that moment, I thought the world had changed. So: a legend. By that time, I had so many tender feelings for her, he explains. Kenneth asked Stanley what future he could expect if he married Moira Robertson. You wont tell me which part of London, will you? He returned to the BBC but, after a one-off in 1986 in which he played 37 roles (including Mae West, whom he first impersonated aged six), that contract also ended. Im not entirely sure who I am. Stanley and Moira (born Moira Robertson) on their honeymoon in London in 1952. What had happened to Stanley Baxter? I felt vulnerable. This is no mean achievement. His performance of Eager Young Husband was the worst he would give in his life. Yes. And although she was a good cook, she wasn't very good at washing. So funny that hes disappeared. It was all I ever dreamed of.. When Baxter retired in 1872 . ', Beset with doubts, he confessed to Moira that all his previous affairs had been with men. I didn't want to know, but gradually I was falling in love.'. It was a relief. Is there any likelihood of that happening? Yes, there would be a show. I never wanted to be gay. And that was that. Hanover Public Library. Baxter was a most brilliant cowboy Coward, a smouldering Dietrich. . The tracks had long been covered by this time last year, when Ian Jack, then editor of the Independent on Sunday and (being a Scot) a Stanley Baxter fan, issued his decree. but hes never done one. Er, or something like it. Its a long season in Scotland, it runs from November through to February. If you are dissatisfied with the response provided you can Anyone trying to hide will be photographed from a distance or forced on to daytime television. Perhaps it was time to forget it, let him be. In 1944, his call-up papers arrived. She was in love with him and Baxter believed he was falling in love with her. And as the years progressed, the medicated Moira and Stanley became close again. Just when it was looking hopeless, I discovered a quote from Don Black, the lyricist of Sunset Boulevard, about keeping himself fit at the RAC Club: I take a Turkish bath at the club every Saturday. I turned to walk away. Course Outlines; Job Offers; ruth sheen chin Menu Toggle. No. Baxter had married Moira Robertson, an actress at the Citizens Theatre, in the early Fifties. Ill be calmer tomorrow. He had his chance to make a clean break, to move on alone. Supported creation and implementation of TD Summer Reading and StoryWalk program. In December at the Citz, Stanley and Moira starred in the Christmas panto Red Riding Hood (Stanley played Granny McNiven, Moira played Red Riding Hood). Smiling at me. Actor: Crooks Anonymous. How? But rejection and the stress of his double life had chewed away his confidence. tyson jost dad; sean penn parkinson's disease; mockingbirds attacking my cat Surely his peers would wish to pay homage? Just to talk to a faithful hand that takes all the chaff and grain together, keeps whats worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blows the rest away. You can tell Ive talked to the press before, cant you? 'Thankfully Moira was very understanding. After a meal with Baxter in October 1969, Williams wrote: At one point when I said to S. I sometimes feel I am so useless I just want to die. A bit boring! 'I turned down too many parts . Changing tack, I asked if Baxter had a fan club. He probably knew the way I felt about him. Brian Beacom 2020. But it would be wrong to imagine he has found peace. At the same time, Moira's mental health deteriorated. For a journalist, it can be difficult to tell. The Real Stanley Baxter, by Brian Beacom. They were married for 46 years. As always this "diary" will be. And there he was, coming up the steps to the door. The relationship made a sort of sense, says Stanley. Developed and created Craft kits for children and teens. Baxter recalls how he would be allowed by his wife to bring men home, at a time when homosexuality was illegal in Britain. But of course I should have been stronger. Stanley was freaked out at my turning up at his house. bclc lotto app not working; signs your internship will turn into a job; mary suehr schmitz. Recluse. When he called her from the airport, on his return to the UK several weeks later, she didn't answer. Stanley was up for the challenge. We are doing this to improve the experience forour loyalreaders and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. It was real weakness on my part.. Certainly not Kenneth Williams: 'I remember sitting with him in an Italian restaurant, and telling him that I was very low. Or just give her the only thing she had ever asked for to be with him. What would the neighbours think? He is an absolute control freak, said the critic Mary Brennan. Murdaugh is heckled as he leaves court, Mom who lost both sons to fentanyl blasts laughing Biden, Moment teenager crashes into back of lorry after 100mph police race, Missing hiker buried under snow forces arm out to wave to helicopter, Family of a 10-month-old baby filmed vaping open up, Hershey's Canada releases HER for SHE bars featuring a trans activist, Ukrainian soldier takes out five tanks with Javelin missiles. In 1970, with The Stanley Baxter Show a huge BBC hit, he moved out of their house and took the apartment in Highgate Village that would be his refuge for the rest of his life. They all wanted him: Aspel, Parkinson. No. If it doesn't work out, you just get divorced and you move on. And my father replied with a very heavy voice, No, it's not as easy as that., The following Monday, the Scottish Daily Express wrote of the 'quiet' wedding. A year later, on March 5, 1952, the train sped west to Moiras parents home in Dumbarton for the ceremony. Waiting around outside the entrance to the flats where he lived was making me feel like a burglar casing the joint. For Bill this was just sexual experimentation, and he would later reject a sexual relationship with Stanley, preferring women. Another professional acquaintance was prepared to talk anonymously, but only about his retirement (Nureyev kept going until he was censured and taken apart at the seams for coming on stage when he was obviously dying. What it did entail was years of loneliness, beginning on their honeymoon night. ABBREVIATIONS; ANAGRAMS; . Yes I did, and I spoke to you through my agent. My dad said This is a very big step you're taking, Stanley. In the past, the journalists job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. FOR MANY of the details I subsequently learnt about Stanley Baxters life, I was grateful to Andy Young, a Scottish freelance writer who gained the comedians confidence about 100 years ago and is one of the few people to have interviewed him at any length. You know, the same sort of thing as Kenneth Williams. Shall we say affinity, I asked? We are no longer accepting comments on this article. And he reads the Independent. No. And so, Robertson & Baxter was formed. Home; Uncategorized; moira robertson baxter; Posted on January 19, 2023; By . 21:19 EST 30 Oct 2020 'It was then she physically attacked me. Grandmother Helen Wright, 67, carried out the crime to help pay off her son's drug debt, having recruited friend Moira Robertson, 65 - using the latter's home in Ballieston, Glasgow, as a . When he returned, he decided to seek medical treatment for his sexual urges. LWTs press officer had never even heard of him, but promised to investigate. 3mo. Faye has joined us as receptionist and front of house expert on a maternity . For decades he has hated to venture out: 'I didn't want to be seen as someone who was once Stanley Baxter,' he says. Instead, Baxter told Moira he could no longer live with her. 'Marcus took me completely by surprise. Baxter's wife Moira was troubled by mental illness. Exasperated, his ITV television bosses told him they could no longer afford his extravaganzas. Private passions are what we care about most, skeletons in the cupboard; but even knowing the colour of the upholstery will do. And he met Moira Robertson, a 22-year-old who had worked her way up from the wardrobe department to the stage. Stanley managed to survive the threat to his career just and Moira, as expected stood by her man. '. Something was happening between us but I didn't wish to acknowledge the fact. Stanley maintains incredible control, but he can also come on like the wee woman on the stairhead talking about the price of mince, said Mary Brennan, who reviews around 20 panto performances a year. 'I didn't want to bring any child into the world who suffered what I suffered. He died aged just 26 and Stanley was heartbroken. Yet he was, and is, missed: in England, as the funniest man on television; in Scotland where they take panto very seriously as the greatest dame of the century: a master of the double entendre and the quick, stunning costume-change. When co-founder Robert Thompson left to open his own business in 1860 John Baxter - a clerk within the company - became partner. ASIC Home | ASIC - Australian Securities and Investments Commission She talked of killing herself, but he was shocked when a friend called round to find the front door wide open and Moira in the bath, the water crimson with blood. There was some communication, through Andy Young, who had been authorised to tell me that Baxter was refusing all work except voice-overs and radio. Actor Stanley Baxter, 94, has bravely come out as gay and opened up about how his sexuality impacted his relationship with his wife Moira Robertson, who died in 1997. But Andy Young, who considers himself a close friend of the couple, insisted that they still lived together. Choosing to eliminate the obvious first, I checked the phone book. My names Cole Moreton, from the Independent on Sunday. He is an intelligent guy, and he likes to know who hes talking to. . It was absolutely selfish. Moira Robertson could be forced to hand over 45,000 after being jailed . I called his office, who promised to ring back with a comment, but didnt. So he must have felt a shiver when the waspish diaries of his late friend Kenneth Williams were published two years ago. Helen Wright, 67, and Moira Robertson, 65, were also snared with 51,000 in cash at a house in Baillieston. STANLEY Baxter has come out as gay, revealing for the first time that his marriage was a faade. covid vaccine causing ovarian cyst. Just to be with. Stanley Baxter delighted over 20 million viewers at a time with his television specials. And the sex was fine not rockets going off or anything.. Yes, said Young. Bringing the very best to his latest film role, Crooks Anonymous, starring alongside Julie Christie and Leslie Philips. Afterwards, I gasped, 'Have you done this before?' Other members included Kenneth Williams, with whom Baxter formed a close friendship that was troubled but life-long.It was quite a strong thing, said Young. If she did, she never let on. Can you just tell me, finally, what city he lives in? My mother didnt think any woman was good enough for me [Bessie Baxters principal purpose in life was to grow a showbiz star] but there was more to her criticism of Moira. His last was Mother Goose, at the Kings Theatre, Glasgow, in 1991. With his telephone number and address in my notebook, I could have rung Stanley Baxter or paid him a visit months ago, instead of waiting for an answer to my letter. ', This year, he changed his mind. Stanley reckoned his wife's place was in the home. No. It was partly a feeling of I'll show them, that I could be as heterosexual as the rest of them.. Readers comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. 'There are many gay people these days who are fairly comfortable with their sexuality,' he says. OK. Moira died of an overdose, aged 69. Anxious, he took a taxi to the house. It was more than weakness. He had to get on with it, focus on finishing the last 10 days of the panto season and his last 10 days at the Citz. Sometimes that provides the extra spurt of energy or imagination needed to unearth a story. Im not a personality, he once said. He is completely woven into the Scottish psyche, says Mary Brennan, a critic for the Herald. Ah-ha. It truly means nothing if our council is having to make decisions which . The STANDS4 Network. You. What about? He never appeared as himself. He had to get on with his life. Mobile home is a common catch all phrase in the US, and can apply to many different types of . I dont know if you got it? But fame made his clandestine life even more risky. But although the urgency had gone, the curiosity remained. Therapy proved useless: his psychiatrist, learning that he was married, advised him simply to return to his wife. Yes, was the terse reply. Instead of gaining the confidence to join them, he shied away, repelled by the high camp 'all chiffon hankies and make-up and flouncing about. That would seem to indicate that there might be a return at some point, even just a one-off? Thats a difficult question. Stanley Baxter. Then youve got the orchestra, and dancers. Fine, I said. Stanley asked . Jul 1988 - Present34 years 4 months. , updated Our story. The showbiz world is rife with tales of heartbreak, loneliness, wasted talent and regrets. . I was utterly overwhelmed. I thought, I really hate this. She became disruptive. A PAIR of drug dealing Glasgow grans who were caught with over 24,000 worth of cocaine have been jailed. Early on, Stanley had hinted at his preference to Moira. In a television era rich with comic talent, from Morecambe and Wise to Tommy Cooper, Dick Emery to Mike Yarwood, everyone agreed Stanley Baxter was king. Although we'd spend lots of time in each other's beds, nothing happened. Stanley Baxter and Moira Robertson were married for more than 45 years. It's that time of year again, when I choose to bore the bi-weekly pants off you all by relating my erstwhile greenhouse adventures and, more often than not, misadventures. He kept phoning all the time, telling me there was something special between us. As I approached the flats, a figure bundled up in odd layers of clothing and a heavy overcoat came towards me, and turned towards the gate. His father was a branch manager of Commercial Union while his mother would have liked to have been an actress, When the family agreed that acting was respectable his mother took him round halls where he gave renderings of Harry Lauder and . As a subscriber, you are shown 80% less display advertising when reading our articles. Gay men up and down the UK lived in constant fear of having their careers and lives wrecked. Yet, I had all sorts of excuses for developing a relationship. Newspaper interviews were very rare; he never appeared on a chat show. . Those ads you do see are predominantly from local businesses promoting local services. No other intimate had ever talked about him in public. Mildly discouraged, I tried another approach: Melvyn Bragg, who had been head of arts at LWT when Baxter was at his peak. Club gossip suggested that he preferred the bigger and busier squash changing- rooms to those by the poolside, and was a bit of a loner.) Footnote from the present day: Stanley came out of retirement the following year, returning to our screens for a short while before slipping away again. His agent advised him to engage the celebrity barrister David Jacobs, who had recently won a libel case for Liberace when a newspaper implied the flamboyant entertainer was gay. You can make a complaint by using the report this post link . His heart raced as he rushed towards her and pulled her back. WHEN DOES curiosity become intrusion? Writer and broadcaster, Interviewer of the Year for the Mail, winner of Radio Academy gold with BBC Radio 4. But had Moira truly leapt at the idea of leaving Glasgow and friends and family behind? Meanwhile, on January 15, 1951, the engagement became national news, yet this didnt really register with Stanley. Getting dark. It was the one and only time she had ever reacted in this way. View more posts, Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), It was 20 years ago todayish. Well, if I do, perhaps yours will be the one. And the decision may have played a part his wifes untimely death. In 1949, it was illegal to be gay and entrapment of homosexual men by covert police officers was common. There was nothing like his dames, who entered in outfits sumptuous enough for Danny LaRue, but who could drop into rough Glaswegian patois at a moments notice. I wondered if I could have a word? He saw Moira frequently, but the fractured marriage was always difficult. There was no biography, and no memoir; just a few intriguing references to be found in the published diaries of his close friend Kenneth Williams. The front door was open. She recovered in hospital and wrote to her husband, insisting, 'I'll never do something so foolish again.' And she never knew of the window ledge incident. . fermer et acceptez On December 23, 1950, Williams made another note in his diary: 'Stanley wrote to say he is going to marry Moira. And when Stanley decided to marry Moira Robertson, Williams was the first person he told. London. British actress Moira Robertson and her husband, British comedian and actor Stanley Baxter, at Clerkenwell Magistrates Court in London, England, 5th. There had been no mystery about the retirement, said Lennie, who talked about the physical demands of changing costumes so often. Instead, he withdrew from the showbiz world. After the war in Europe was over, in June 1945, a 19-year-old Baxter was told to report to the Seaforth Highlanders regiment. but a Yorkshire accent. To order a copy for 17.60 go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3308 9193. Chic, with hooded eyes, Moira could have been Bette Davis's younger sister. Managing a portfolio of SME clients across a range of sectors and complexities. Williams believed Stanley to be taking advantage of Moira and a traitor to the cause. Stanley Baxter is arguably the funniest man and one of the most fetching women in Britain. Baxter had married Moira Robertson, an actress at the Citizen's Theatre, in the early Fifties. For good. She punched me and my glasses flew off. 'It was partly a feeling of, 'I'll show them,' he admits. I dont think I could go on then. Rushing to the window of their second storey flat, she climbed out onto the ledge and shouted, 'If I can't have you then I won't settle for anyone else. / moira robertson baxter. They werent interested in doing another take just because Stanley felt there was a whisker of it that wasnt right. He later recalled trying to use his scripts to hide hands encrusted with coal dust, an early indication of the self- consciousness that was to become as ingrained as the coal.Invalided out of the mines with an ear problem, Baxter joined the left- wing Unity Theatre in Glasgow. Then he vanished from our lives, leaving so little trace that few people even remarked on his disappearance. As one critic wrote: The joke is not that Stanley Baxter is dressed up as a woman. Say sorry? We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com. I kept getting those sheeps eyes every time she passed me in the theatre and she appeared to be heartbroken. So, no pantos either then? He did impersonations of Laurel and Hardy, and Mae West. There, he saw a notice appealing for performers to join the Combined Services Entertainment unit [CSE]. Find him.. She was far more bohemian than me.' Mary Brennan sees nothing surprising about Baxter being so jealous of his privacy. Carrying a plastic shopping bag. Kenneth Williams was among the first to be told and he couldnt believe his ears. Lara Clark, who said she was terribly sorry, but she couldnt show me round: the RAC liked to keep a low profile. Data returned from the Piano 'meterActive/meterExpired' callback event. She would go off to our bedroom and let me take the one opposite.'. He was happy to talk about the Scottish approach to pantomime, with its emphasis on storyline and tradition, but declined to talk about Baxter as a person. Those who didnt want to be troubled with it could simply take it at face value. 'I was going to top myself,' he says. There was also a tiny quote from Baxter in the Times of November 1992, about how the role of Principal Boy should only be played by a woman: All those frills. His family remained in Glasgow during the Blitz at first, a teenage Stanley and his mother sheltering under a dining table during the bombing. As spring approached, Stanley saw even more of the woman with the hooded eyes, even taking her along to his parents home at 5 Wilton Mansions in Glasgow's Kelvinside. I contacted David White, who seemed to think that this might mean that his client would talk to me. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories. It was a dark day. Two years into the marriage, relations with Moira were "fine", but the sex was dwindling. ', Until, inevitably, it did. Would it have happened anyway? So: Mr White hadnt been having me on Baxter did live in London, then. Wait and see, was the answer. HP10 9TY. His divas and dames were so good they were beyond description. Yet there is one celebrity who has bucked the trend. A stage smile. What Williams didnt know, however, was the pressure Stanley had been under. There's no doubt about that. Moira Robertson was the wife of actor Stanley Baxter. A porter at the club confirmed that the comedian did swim in the pool most days. We hope you've really thought about how important it is., And I said nonchalantly, Oh, not nowadays. How could it happen? Perhaps that is why hardly anyone noticed when, after 1985, he left the television spotlight altogether, just as the glare was getting hotter. It was the future Carry On star Kenneth Williams, also barely out of his teens but playing an old man in a CSE production. 'She probably felt if she praised me I'd try less hard. marty odlin, running tide; jay mcgwire wife Menu Toggle. There are folk who could tell you what kind of Christmas it was by recalling that years panto. (Later in my quest, I rang the clubs charming PR woman. A visit to the local library to see the electoral register confirmed that S stood for Stanley. Its Christmas, he said. Tanned and fit-looking, straight-backed, with his broad face exactly as it was on the television years ago, eyes that were calm but curious, and slightly sparkling. Fair enough. He had moved past me to the door, and said good-bye as he shut it. I rang David White again the following morning. Alpha Events. 'I liked her,' Baxter says. He was married for 46 years, but beneath his cheerful exterior lies a man tortured by the fact he is gay. Anyone who can dress up as Judy Garland with a nose like his and get away with it, has to be a genius. Her reaction was dramatic. Stanley was bringing the values of a different time and place into a world that had changed. Auditions were in Singapore and, after arriving there in December 1946 by flying boat, he was taken under the wing of a stooped, grey-haired man with a dusty moustache and a strident, nasal voice. And if I don't have a career, what do I have?'