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Billy Connolly
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Sir Billy Connolly
CBE
Connolly in June 2012
Birth name
William Connolly
Born
(1942-11-24) 24 November 1942 (age 75)
Glasgow, Scotland
Medium
Stand-up
Television
Film
Nationality
British
Years active
1965–present
Genres
Observational
Blue
Musical comedy
Spouse
Iris Pressagh (m. 1969; div. 1985)
Pamela Stephenson (m. 1989)
Children
5
Website
billyconnolly.com
Sir William Connolly, CBE (born 24 November 1942) is a Scottish comedian, musician, presenter and actor from Glasgow. He is sometimes known, especially in his homeland, by the nickname "The Big Yin" ("The Big One").[2] His first trade, in the early 1960s, was as a welder (specifically a boilermaker) in the Glasgow shipyards, but he gave it up towards the end of the decade to pursue a career as a folk singer, firstly in the Humblebums alongside friend Gerry Rafferty until 1971, and subsequently as a solo artist. In the early 1970s, Connolly made the transition from folk-singer with a comedic persona to fully fledged comedian, for which he has received numerous awards.
Connolly is also an actor and has appeared in such films as Water (1985), Indecent Proposal (1993), Pocahontas (1995), Muppet Treasure Island (1996), Mrs. Brown (1997), The Boondock Saints (1999), The Man Who Sued God (2001), The Last Samurai (2003), Timeline (2003), Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004), Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006), Open Season (2006), The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008), Open Season 2 (2008), Brave (2012), Quartet (2012), and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014). Connolly reprised his role as Noah "Il Duce" MacManus in The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (2009).
Contents
[hide]
1 Early life
1.1 Ancestry
1.2 Childhood
2 Career
2.1 Origin of "The Big Yin"
2.2 1960s
2.3 1970s
2.4 1980s
2.5 1990s
2.6 2000s
2.7 2010s
3 Personal life
3.1 Political views
4 Controversy
5 Support for charity
6 Folk music
7 Stand-up comedy
8 Discography
8.1 VHS/DVD releases
9 Playwright
10 Filmography
10.1 Film
10.2 Television
11 Awards
12 Bibliography
13 References
14 External links
Early life[edit]
Ancestry[edit]
Connolly's paternal grandfather, whom like his paternal grandmother Connolly never met, was an Irish immigrant who left Ireland when he was ten years old.[3][4][5] His great-great-great (Charles Mills, a coast guard, 1796–1870)[6] and great-great (Bartholomew Valentine) grandfathers were from Connemara.[3]
Connolly's father was William Connolly; his mother, Mary "Mamie" McLean, was from the McLean of Duart clan from the Isle of Mull on the west coast of Scotland. Mamie's father, Neil, was a Protestant, and her mother, Flora, was a Roman Catholic who "made clandestine arrangements for the children to be baptized as Catholics", although they were "formally raised as Protestants".[3] His maternal grandparents moved inland to Finnieston Street, Glasgow in the early 1900s.[7] His maternal great-great-great-grandfather, John O'Brien, fought at the Siege of Lucknow during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. He was wounded during the long siege by a severe gunshot to the left shoulder. He married a local 13-year-old Indian girl called Matilda. They had four children and settled in Bangalore after his military service.[8][9]
Childhood[edit]
Connolly was born at 69 Dover Street,[10] "on the linoleum, three floors up"[11] at six o'clock in the evening",[10] in Anderston, Glasgow, to William and Mary "Mamie" (née McLean) Connolly. This section of Dover Street, between Breadalbane and Claremont streets, was demolished in the 1970s.[10] Connolly refers to this in his 1983 song "I Wish I Was in Glasgow" with the lines "I would take you there and show you but they've pulled the building down" and "They bulldozed it all to make a road". The flat had only two rooms: a kitchen-living room, with a recess where the children slept and another room for their parents. The family bathed in the kitchen sink, and there was no hot water.[5]
In 1946, when he was barely four years old, Connolly's mother abandoned her children while their father was serving as an engineer in the Royal Air Force in Burma.[5] "I've never felt abandoned by her", Connolly explained in 2009.[12] "My mother was a teenager. My father was in Burma, fighting a bloody war. The Germans were dropping all kinds of crap on the town. We lived at the docks, so that's where all the bombs were happening. She was a teenager with two kids in a slum. A guy comes along and says, 'I love you. Come with me.' Given the choice, I think I'd have gone with him. It looks as though it might all end next Wednesday, from where you're standing. I don't have an ounce of feelings that she abandoned me. She tried to survive."[12]
Connolly and his older sister, Florence (named for their maternal grandmother, and eighteen months his senior),[5][13] were cared for by two aunts, Margaret and Mona Connolly, his father's sisters, in their cramped tenement in Stewartville Street, Partick. "My aunts constantly told me I was stupid, which still affects me today pretty badly. It’s just a belief that I’m not quite as good as anyone else. It gets worse as you get older. I’m a happy man now but I still have the scars of that."[14] Regarding his sister, Connolly has called her his "great defender".[12] "To this day, he explained in 2009,[12] "Guys say, 'God, your sister... We didn't dare beat you up – your sister was a nightmare'. She used to get after them." In the mid-1960s, Flo was on holiday in Dunoon with her husband and two children. "My mother said, 'I saw Florence walking along, and I followed her.'"[12] "I said, 'Did you speak to her?' 'Oh, no, I didn't,' she said. I thought, 'Oh, my god. It's like being a ghost while you're still alive.' Walking behind your own child. Having a look. I couldn't bear that."[12]
The aunts resented the children for the fact that they had to sacrifice their young lives to look after them. It was Mona who was troubled the most by having to care for her niece and nephew. "It was very big of her to take on the responsibility, but having said that, I wish people wouldn't do that. I wish people wouldn't be very big for five minutes and rotten for twenty years. Just keep your 'big' and keep your 'rotten' and get out of my life, because, quite frankly, I would rather have gone to a children's home and be with a lot of other kids being treated the same. To this day, I'm still working on the things she did to me."[15]
Connolly credits one of John Bradshaw's publications with helping him deal with his past demons. "He reckons that if this trauma happened to you when you were five or six then, emotionally, that part of you remains five or six. And what you have to do is carry that five- or six-year-old around with you and try and emotionally help that other part of you. It sounds a bit airy-fairy, but I think he's something of a genius, Mr. Bradshaw."[15]
Connolly Sr returned from the war, a stranger to his children, shortly after the move to Partick. He never spoke to them about their mother's departure.[5]
Connolly's biography, Billy, written by wife Pamela Stephenson, documented years of physical and sexual abuse by his father, which began when he was ten and lasted until he was about fifteen.[16] "Sometimes, when father hit me, I flew over the settee backwards in a sitting position. It was fabulous. Just like real flying, except you didn't get a cup of tea or a safety belt or anything."[5] In 1949, Mona gave birth to a son, Michael, by a "local man". He was presented as a brother to Billy and Flo, and nobody questioned it.[5]
Connolly's bedroom had double windows, which directly faced St Peter's Primary School across the street.[15] Now defunct, it has been converted into living accommodation. "The school was very violent indeed. At first, in the infant school, the nuns were very violent. And then over here at St Peter's, they were just strapping you all the time. I had a psychopath in here, called McDonald — Miss McDonald. "Big Rosie", they called her. There was a guy with glasses in my class and she called him "four eyes", and she was a teacher!"[15][17]
At St Peter's, Connolly decided he wanted to make people laugh. "I can remember the moment in the school playground. I would have been 7 or 8. And I was sitting in a puddle and people were laughing. I had fallen in it and people found it funny. And it wasn't all that uncomfortable, so I stayed in it longer than I normally would because I really enjoyed the laughing. My life was very unhappy at the time, and laughter wasn't something I heard all the time, so it was a joy. And I realised quickly that if you can have an audience this way, life was rather pleasant."[15] While at St Peter's, Connolly joined a gang. His arch-enemy was Geordie Sinclair, who lived around the corner.[12]
Connolly was a Wolf Cub with the 141st Glasgow Scout Group. He revisits the site of one field trip, Auchengillan scout camp, during his World Tour of Scotland.[11] At age 12, Connolly decided he wanted to become a comedian but did not think that he fit the mould, feeling he needed to become more "windswept and interesting". Also at that age, he joined an organisation called The Children of Mary. The group would visit people and say the Rosary, with a statue of the Lady of Lourdes in a shoebox. "We were as welcome as hemorrhoids."[12] The group would all kneel around the statue and pray. "You could hear people hurrying prayers because there was a good television programme coming."[12]
In the 1950s, Glasgow's sandstone tenements fell out of favour with the planners, which resulted in new houses being built on the fields and farmlands in the outskirts of the city. Between the ages of fourteen and twenty, Connolly was brought up on a now-demolished council estate on Kinfauns Drive in the Drumchapel district of Glasgow, and would make the daily journey to St. Gerard's Secondary School (also now defunct) in Govan, on the southern side of the River Clyde. He rode the bus to Partick, crossed the water by ferry and walked to 80 Vicarfield Street.[2][11]
"Drumchapel is a housing estate just outside Glasgow. Well, it's in Glasgow, but just outside civilisation," he has joked.[11] "To be quite honest, I quite liked it when I lived there. When I moved to Drumchapel, I was fourteen and there was a bluebell wood there, and it was in great condition then — I don't think it's in quite so good condition now — but it was lovely then. We had rabbits and pheasants, and I really quite liked it. I just started to dislike it when I got older, into my teens and things. In my late teens, when I was stuck out there, it cost me a lot of money to go anyplace. It was a kind of cowboy town, but I liked that aspect of it, buying stuff out of vans, a ragman coming in a wee green van."[5]
Connolly revisited this tenement in Drumchapel during filming for the South Bank Show in 1992. "It eventually started to pall. This dreadful atmosphere came about the place. It's like Siberia. And once you're out here, there's no getting out of it. You have to buy your way out, or some kind of talent has to take you out, or you have to be very bright and move away to university."[15] Also at fourteen, Connolly started to become interested in music — mainly Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry. At 15, he left school with two engineering qualifications, one collected by mistake which belonged to a boy named Connell.[18]
Connolly was a year too young to work in the shipyards. Instead, he started working for John Smith's Bookshop, on St Vincent Street, delivering books on his bicycle. He became a delivery-van driver with Bilslands' Bakery until he was sixteen when he was deemed overqualified (due to his J1 and J2 certificates) to become an engineer.[18] Instead, he worked as a boilermaker[19] at Alexander Stephen and Sons shipyard in Linthouse.[18]
"What an extraordinary feeling," Connolly said, upon returning to the site of the now-demolished shipyard in 1992.[15] "I spent a great deal of my life in here. From age 16 to... well, I started at 15. I started my apprenticeship at 16 and finished when I was 21. Stayed till I was 22, and moved along. I finished welding when I was 24. When I came here, as an apprentice, there was six ships being built, right where I'm standing. It was an extraordinary place. A hive of activity. Welders, caulkers, platers, burners, joiners, engineers, electricians. I learned how men talked to one another, and how merciless Glasgow humour can be. It has made an indelible mark on me."[15] His foreman was Sammy Boyd, but the two biggest influences on him were Jimmy Lucas and Bobby Dalgleish.[citation needed]
Connolly also joined the Territorial Army Reserve unit 15th (Scottish) Battalion, the Parachute Regiment (15 PARA). He later commemorated his experiences in the song "Weekend Soldier".[18]
Career[edit]
Origin of "The Big Yin"[edit]
Connolly's The Big Yin nickname was first used during his adolescent years to differentiate between himself and his father.[2] "My father was a very strong man. Broad and strong. He had an 18½-inch neck collar. Huge, like a bull. He was "Big Billy" and I was "Wee Billy". And then I got bigger than him, and the whole thing got out of control. And then I became The Big Yin in Scotland. So, we'd go into the pub and someone would say, 'Billy Connolly was in.' 'Oh? Big Billy or Wee Billy?' 'The Big Yin.' 'Oh, Wee Billy.' If you were a stranger, you'd think, 'What are these people talking about?'"[19]
1960s[edit]
In the early 1960s, Connolly attended the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for the first time. After spending time on the city's Rose Street, patronising the various drinking establishments, he became enamoured by some long-haired musicians and decided to model himself on them.[20]
In 1965, after he had completed a five-year apprenticeship as a boilermaker, Connolly accepted a ten-week job building an oil platform in Biafra, Nigeria. Upon his return to the United Kingdom, via Jersey, he worked briefly at John Brown & Company but decided to walk out on a Fair Friday to focus on being a folk singer.
After watching The Beverly Hillbillies, he bought his first banjo at the Barrowland market.[5] He began touring with the Folkie crowd, including regular stints at The Scotia bar, on Stockwell Street, guided by folk singer Danny Kyle. "I kind of introduced Billy to the folk clubs, such as there were in those days — there were very few in the those days. We used to go to places like Saturday Late or the Montrose Street Glasgow Folk Club."[15]
Connolly formed a folk-pop duo called The Humblebums with Tam Harvey. They were joined, in 1969, by Gerry Rafferty, who had approached Connolly after a gig in Paisley. The band signed for independent label Transatlantic Records, and after recording one album (1969's First Collection of Merry Melodies), Harvey left the trio, and Connolly and Rafferty went on to release two more albums: The New Humblebums (1969) and Open up the Door (1970). Connolly's time with Rafferty possibly influenced his future comedy, because years later he would recall how Rafferty's expert prank telephone calls, made while waiting to go on stage, used to make him "scream" with laughter. The albums were not big commercial successes but enjoyed cult status and critical acclaim. Connolly's contributions were primarily straightforward pop-folk with quirky and whimsical lyrics, but he had not especially focused on comedy at this point.
In 1968,[12] a 26-year-old Connolly married Springburn native and interior designer Iris Pressagh, with whom he had two children. They initially lived on Redlands Road in Glasgow's West End, but when fans began to wait out in the street, they moved to Drymen, near the south-eastern shore of Loch Lomond.
Later that year,[12] Connolly's mother went to meet him backstage after a Humblebums gig in Dunoon, where she was working in the cafeteria at Dunoon General Hospital. It was the second and final meeting between them since she abandoned Connolly.[5] She had been living in the town with her partner, Willie Adams, with whom she had three daughters and a son.[21] "I went home to her house and stayed the night, instead of the hotel. The sadness is... She was a very nice woman, but we never got along. We both tried to like each other, and I don't think she liked me very much. I don't regret it, but I'm sad about it. I wish I'd liked her. And I wish she'd liked me."[12]
In 1971, the Humblebums broke up, with Rafferty going on to record his solo album Can I Have My Money Back? Connolly returned to being a folk singer. His live performances featured humorous introductions that became increasingly long in duration. The head of Transatlantic Records, Nat Joseph, who had signed The Humblebums and had nurtured their career, was concerned that Connolly find a way to develop a distinctive solo career just as his former bandmate, Gerry Rafferty, was doing.[citation needed] Joseph saw several of Connolly's performances and noted his comedic skills. Joseph had successfully nurtured the recording career of another Scottish folk entertainer, Hamish Imlach, and saw potential in Connolly following a similar path. He suggested to Connolly that he drop the folk-singing and focus primarily on becoming a comedian.[citation needed]
1970s[edit]
In 1972, Connolly made his theatrical debut, at the Cottage Theatre in Cumbernauld, with a revue called Connolly's Glasgow Flourish.[14] He played the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with poet Tom Buchan, with whom he had written The Great Northern Welly Boot Show, and in costumes designed by the artist and writer John Byrne.[14]
Also in 1972, Nat Joseph produced Connolly's first solo album, Billy Connolly Live!, a mixture of comedic songs and short monologues that hinted at what was to follow. In late 1973, Joseph produced the breakthrough album that propelled Connolly to British stardom. Recorded at a small venue, The Tudor Hotel in Airdrie, the record was a double album titled Solo Concert. Releasing a live double-album by a comedian who was virtually unknown (except to a cult audience in Glasgow) was an unusual gambit by Joseph but his faith in Connolly's talent was justified. Joseph and his marketing team, which included publicist Martin Lewis, successfully promoted the album to chart success on its release in 1974. It featured one of Connolly's most famous comedy routines — "The Crucifixion" — in which he likens Christ's Last Supper to a drunken night out in Glasgow. The recording was banned by many radio stations at the time. Building on his cult Scottish following, they broke Connolly throughout the UK – an unusual development for a regional comedian. Connolly employed Frank Lynch as his first manager around this time.[citation needed]
Connolly's banana boots, designed and made by Glasgow Pop Artist Edmund Smith and a regular in his act during the 1970s, are now on display in the People's Palace in Glasgow.[22]
In 1974, he sold out the Pavilion Theatre in his home town.[14] In 1975, the rapidity and extent of Connolly's breakthrough was used to secure him a booking on Britain's premier TV chat show, the BBC's Parkinson. Connolly made the most of the opportunity and, ignoring objections from his manager,[14] told a bawdy joke about a man who had murdered his wife and buried her bottom-up so he'd have somewhere to park his bike. This ribald humour was unusually forthright on a primetime Saturday night on British television in the mid-1970s, and his appearance made a great impact. He became a good friend of the host, Michael Parkinson, and now holds the record for appearances on the programme, having been a guest on fifteen occasions.[23] Referring to that debut appearance, he later said: "That programme changed my entire life." Parkinson, in the documentary Billy Connolly: Erect for 30 Years, stated that people still remember Connolly telling the punchline to the 'bike joke' three decades after that TV appearance. When asked about the material, Connolly stated, "Yes, it was incredibly edgy for its time. My manager, on the way over, warned me not to do it, but it was a great joke and the interview was going so well, I thought, 'Oh, fuck that!!' I don't know where I got the courage in those days, but Michael did put confidence in me."[23] Connolly's UK success spread to other English-speaking countries: Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. However, his broad Scottish accent and British cultural references made success in the US improbable.
His increased profile led to contact with other individuals, including musicians such as Elton John. John at that time was trying to assist British performers whom he personally liked to achieve success in the US (he had released records in the US by veteran British pop singer Cliff Richard on his own Rocket label). John tried to give Connolly a boost in America by using him as the opening act on his 1976 US tour. But the well-intentioned gesture was a failure. John's American fans had no interest in being warmed-up by an unknown comedic performer – especially a Scotsman whose accent they found incomprehensible. "In Washington, some guy threw a pipe and it hit me right between my eyes", he told Michael Parkinson two years later. "It wasn't my audience. They made me feel about as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit."[citation needed]
Connolly continued to grow in popularity in the UK. In 1975, he signed with Polydor Records. Connolly continued to release live albums and he also recorded several comedic songs that enjoyed commercial success as novelty singles including parodies of Tammy Wynette's song "D.I.V.O.R.C.E." (which he performed on Top of the Pops in December 1975) and the Village People's "In the Navy" (titled "In the Brownies"). In 1976, Connolly's first play, An' Me wi' a Bad Leg, Tae opened in Irvine and toured in London. It was there that, after consuming a sizable amount of cocaine and alcohol, he collapsed on the floor of a recording studio.[14] In 1979, Connolly met Pamela Stephenson, the New Zealand-born comedy actress, for the first time when he made a cameo appearance on the BBC sketch show Not the Nine O'Clock News, in which she was one of four regular performers.[14]
Returning to the stage, Connolly embarked on his Big Wee Tour of Britain, performing 69 dates in 84 days. While backstage in Brighton, he met Stephenson for a second time. He confided in her that he was unhappy and that his current marriage was over. Back at his hotel, where they began an affair, he reportedly drank thirty brandies. "What I saw of him – particularly in that dressing room – was that he was about to die," Stephenson said. "He was very suicidal. He was throwing everything away, desperately trying to feel no pain at all. You know how you get a sense from some people when they are very self-destructive that there is something they are trying to bury? They've got something they are trying to forget, or they are trying to drown their sorrows? He was hurting in a very deep way. I thought, 'If I leave this man, he's going to die.'"[14]
Also in 1979, Connolly was invited by producer Martin Lewis to join the cast of The Secret Policeman's Ball, the third in the series of The Secret Policeman's Balls fundraising shows for Amnesty International. Connolly was the first comedic performer in the series who was not an alumnus of the Oxbridge school of middle-class university-educated entertainers and he made the most of his appearance. Appearing in the company of long-established talents such as John Cleese and Peter Cook helped elevate the perception of Connolly as one of Britain's leading comedic talents. Lewis also teamed Connolly with Cleese and Cook to appear in the television commercial for the album.
1980s[edit]
In 1981, John Cleese and Martin Lewis invited Connolly to appear in that year's Amnesty show, The Secret Policeman's Other Ball. The commercial success of the special US version of The Secret Policeman's Other Ball film (Miramax Films, 1982) introduced Connolly to a wider American audience, who were attracted to the film because of the presence of Monty Python members. His on-screen presence alongside these performers – who were already familiar to Anglophile comedy buffs – helped lay down a marker for Connolly's eventual return to the US in his own right eight years later.
En route to begin filming Water (1985) in Saint Lucia, Connolly drank an excessive amount of alcohol on the plane. Upon arriving on the island, he had dinner with the cast and crew, including Michael Caine.
"They had a jolly evening, then travelled back by bus through a part of the island that features steep cliffs on either side of a jungle road. As they careered along, Billy thought it would be a wheeze to cover the driver's eyes with his hands. 'I'll guide you,' insisted our drunken control-freak, 'Left, right... more right.' It was a game he had apparently played with his London driver: God knows how they managed to survive. Michael Caine apprehended Billy just in time to save the bus from plunging down a St Lucian ravine."
— Excerpt from Billy by Pamela Stephenson (2001)[17]
In 1985, he divorced Iris Pressagh, his wife of sixteen years (they had separated four years earlier).[24] That same year, he performed An Audience with..., which was videotaped at the South Bank Television Centre in front of a celebrity audience for ITV. The uncut, uncensored version was subsequently released on video. In July 1985, he performed at the Wembley leg of Live Aid, immediately preceding Elton John.
On 30 December 1985, Connolly became tee-total, having been an alcoholic.[25] "I don't miss drinking. It has taken me by surprise," Connolly stated 24 years later.[12] "I miss the craic. I miss the joy of it all. The headbanging stupidity, the loveliness, the craziness of it. I miss it terribly." He recalls blackouts that he would fill in upon returning to sobriety. "Well, [the memories] stopped coming back. But when I drank, I would go, 'Oh, I remember now.'" Psychologists call it state-dependent learning.[12] "That was frightening. I remember thinking, 'Beware, Billy boy. Beware. All is not well. Do something.'" Regarding the decision he made to stay sober: "If [Pamela] goes away, I'm on my own. There's nothing. There's only me and it. So the choice becomes very apparent."[12]
In 1986, he visited Mozambique to appear in a documentary for Comic Relief. He also featured in the charity's inaugural live stage show, both as a stand-up and portraying a willing "victim" in his partner Pamela Stephenson's act of sawing a man in half to create two dwarfs.
Connolly completed his first world tour in 1987, including six nights at the Royal Albert Hall in London, which was documented in the Billy and Albert video.
When the Fox Network aired Freedomfest: Nelson Mandela's 70th Birthday Celebration in 1988, Connolly was still virtually unknown in the States, but his performance drew attention, particularly from producers, and interest in him grew.
In March 1988, Connolly's father died after a stroke, the eighth of his life.[11][17][26] His mother died five years later, in 1993, of motor neurone disease.
In October 1989, Connolly shaved off his trademark shaggy beard for a film role and he remained clean-shaven for several years.
Connolly and Stephenson married in Fiji on 20 December 1989; he had been living with her since 1981. "Marriage to Pam didn't change me; it saved me," he later said. "I was going to die. I was on a downwards spiral and enjoying every second of it. Not only was I dying, but I was looking forward to it."[14]
1990s[edit]
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Although Connolly had performed in North America as early as the 1970s and had appeared in several movies that played in American theatres, he nonetheless remained relatively unknown until 1990 when he was featured in the HBO special Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Connolly in Performance, produced by New York's Brooklyn Academy of Music. Goldberg introduced Connolly, and his performance has been cited as the moment that officially launched his career in the States. Soon after, Connolly succeeded Howard Hesseman as the star of the sitcom Head of the Class for the 1990–1991 season, but the series was cancelled during his tenure. Connolly joined Frank Bruno and Ozzy Osbourne when singing "The War Song of the Urpneys" in The Dreamstone.
The following year, Connolly and Stephenson moved to Los Angeles, and the family won green cards in the Morrison visa lottery. In 1991, Connolly received his first (and, to date, only) leading television role as the star of Billy, another sitcom and a spin-off of Head of the Class. It lasted only a half-season.[citation needed]
Connolly also bought a house in Windsor, Berkshire. "I left Scotland and came to live here, because of the break-up of my marriage," Connolly said in 1992. "I had done everything that it was possible to do [in Scotland] — well, certainly everything I wanted to do. I had filled the concert halls, I had done the television that I wanted to do, and I'd done the film that I wanted to do. And in order to grow, I had to move away. I'm still as big there as I ever was. Bigger, probably, but I don't live there anymore and don't go there as often as I used to."[15]
On 4 June 1992, Connolly performed his 25th-anniversary concert in Glasgow. Parts of the show and its build-up were documented in The South Bank Show, which aired later in the year.[15] In early January 1994, Connolly began a 40-date World Tour of Scotland, which would be broadcast by the BBC later in the year as a six-part series.[citation needed]
It was so well received that the BBC signed him up to do a similar tour two years later, this time in Australia. The eight-part series followed Connolly on his custom-made Harley Davidson trike. Also in 1995, Connolly recorded a BBC special, entitled A Scot in the Arctic, in which he spends a week by himself in the Arctic Circle. He voiced Captain John Smith's shipmate, Ben, in Disney's animated film, Pocahontas.[citation needed]
In 1996, he appeared in Muppet Treasure Island as Billy Bones. In 1997, Connolly starred with Dame Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown, in which he played John Brown, the favoured Scottish servant of Queen Victoria. He was nominated for a BAFTA Award and a BAFTA Scotland Award for Best Actor, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.[citation needed]
In 1998, Connolly's best friend, Danny Kyle, died. "He was my dearest, dearest, oldest friend", Connolly explained to an Australian audience on his Greatest Hits compilation, released in 2001. It was Kyle who helped Connolly overcome his recoiling nature at being touched by others, a remnant of the abuse he endured as a child. "Every time it happened, Danny would just collapse with hysterics," said Pamela Stephenson.[5] "'That's not normal, Billy,' Danny tried to be patient with him. 'You'll have to relax. It's touchy-feely, you know, the way we live. We like to touch each other and we kiss: we're different. You'll have to calm down or you'll always be fighting.'"[5]
He performed a cover version of the Beatles' song "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" on George Martin's 1998 album, In My Life. In November 1998, Connolly was the subject of a two-hour retrospective entitled Billy Connolly: Erect for 30 Years, which included tributes from Dench, Sir Sean Connery, Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, and Eddie Izzard. The special was released on DVD in North America in 2004.[citation needed]
In 1999, after forming Tickety-Boo management company with Malcolm Kingsnorth, his tour manager and sound engineer of 25 years, Connolly undertook a four-month, 59-date sellout tour of Australia and New Zealand. Later in the year, he completed a five-week, 25-date sellout run at London's Hammersmith Apollo. In 2000, he travelled to Canada for two weeks on a 13-date tour.[citation needed]
2000s[edit]
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In 2000, Connolly starred in Beautiful Joe alongside Sharon Stone. The following year, he completed the third in his "World Tour" BBC series, this time of England, Ireland and Wales, which began in Dublin and ended in Plymouth. It was broadcast the following year. Also in 2001, Stephenson's first biography of her husband, Billy, was published. Much of the book is about Connolly the celebrity but the account of his early years provides a context for his humour and point of view. A follow-up, Bravemouth, was published in 2003. Connolly has also written several books, including Billy Connolly (late 1970s) and Gullible's Travels (early 1980s), both based upon his stage act, as well as books based upon some of his "World Tour" television series. He has stated that his comedy does not work on the printed page.
A fourth BBC series, World Tour of New Zealand, was filmed in 2004 and aired that winter. Also in his 63rd year, Connolly performed two sold-out benefit concerts at the Oxford New Theatre in memory of Malcolm Kingsnorth. He has continued to be a much in-demand character actor, appearing in several films such as White Oleander (2002), The Last Samurai (2003), and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004). He has also played an eclectic collection of leading roles in recent years, including a lawyer who undertakes a legal case of Biblical proportions in The Man Who Sued God (2001), and a young boy's pet zombie in Fido (2006). In January 2005, Connolly came 8th in The Comedian's Comedian, a poll voted for by fellow comedians and comedy insider and embarked on a major UK tour with 15 sold-out nights in Glasgow.
Also in 2005, Connolly and Stephenson announced, after fourteen years of living in Hollywood, they were returning to live in the former's native land. They purchased a 120-foot (37 m) yacht with the profits from their house-sale and split the year between Malta and the 12-bedroom Candacraig House in Strathdon, Aberdeenshire, which they had purchased in 2008 from Dame Anita Roddick.[27][28]
Later in the year, Connolly topped an unscientific poll of "Britain's Favourite Comedian" conducted by TV network Five, placing him ahead of performers such as John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, Dawn French, and Peter Cook. In 2006, Connolly revealed that he also has a house on the island of Gozo.[29] He and his wife also have an apartment in New York City, near Union Square.[30] On 30 December 2007, Connolly escaped uninjured from a single-car accident on the A939 near Ballater, Aberdeenshire.[31]
In late February 2008, it was announced that Connolly would play ten shows in early April at the Post Street Theatre in San Francisco.[citation needed] On 10 March 2008, tickets went on sale for Connolly's Irish tour, set to take place in May, June, and July.[citation needed] He performed three shows in University Concert Hall, Limerick, ten shows at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin, five shows at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast and three shows at the Cork Opera House. They all sold out in a matter of hours. The tour also travelled to Kerry (two shows) and Mayo (two shows).[citation needed]
In October 2009, he played a tour of his homeland, and sold out everywhere, despite adding extra dates. He stated he was proud to have broken the computer system for Glasgow and Edinburgh, as they could not handle the rush for tickets. His Glasgow concerts were held at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, which was built a half mile from his Dover Street birthplace.[citation needed]
2010s[edit]
In 2011, Connolly and his wife were living full-time in New York City, while still retaining their Candacraig residence.[32]
The Connollys decided to sell Candacraig House in September 2013, with a price tag of £2.75 million.[27]
In 2012, Connolly provided the voice of King Fergus in Pixar's Scotland-set animated film Brave, alongside fellow Scottish actors Kelly Macdonald, Craig Ferguson, Robbie Coltrane, Emma Thompson, and Kevin McKidd. Connolly appeared as Wilf in Quartet, a 2012 British comedy-drama film based on the play Quartet by Ronald Harwood directed by Dustin Hoffman. In 2014, Connolly appeared in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies as Dáin II Ironfoot, a great dwarf warrior and cousin of Thorin II Oakenshield. Sir Peter Jackson stated that "We could not think of a more fitting actor to play Dain Ironfoot, the staunchest and toughest of dwarves, than Billy Connolly, the Big Yin himself. With Billy stepping into this role, the cast of The Hobbit is now complete. We can't wait to see him on the battlefield."[33]
Personal life[edit]
Connolly has been married to his second wife, comedian and psychologist Pamela Stephenson, since 1989. He is father to five children: two from his first marriage, to Iris Pressagh, and three from his second. Connolly became a grandfather in 2001, when Cara gave birth to Walter.[14]
In the book Billy, and in a December 2008 online interview, Connolly states that he was sexually abused by his father between the ages of 10 and 15. He believes this was a result of the Catholic Church not allowing his father to divorce after his mother left the family. Because of this, Connolly has a "deep distrust and dislike of the Catholic church and any other organization that brainwashes people".[34] On his religious views, Connolly called himself an atheist.[35]
In September 2013, Connolly underwent minor surgery for early-stage prostate cancer.[36] The announcement also stated that he was being treated for the initial symptoms of Parkinson's disease.[37] Connolly admitted earlier in 2013 that he had started to forget his lines during performances.[38][39]
Connolly appeared on Who Do You Think You Are? on 2 October 2014, where he discovered his Indian ancestry.[8][40]
Political views[edit]
Connolly has stated in the past that he disapproves of Scottish independence. In 1974 he made a party political television broadcast on behalf of the Labour Party, which criticised and blasted the Scottish National Party. In 1999 he blamed the SNP for a supposed increase in "anti-English racism" in Scotland, called the new Scottish Parliament a "joke", and declined to attend the opening.[41] Although he now claims to disapprove of entertainers telling people how to vote, he admitted that 2012 had been "a very interesting time for Scotland". Although he has chosen not to live in Scotland for most of his adult life, he questioned the expense of independence, and whether average Scots would benefit from another level of government. "But Scots are very capable of making up their mind without my tuppence worth."[42]
In April 2014, despite previously vowing not to step into the 'morass' of the debate over the breakup of the Union, Connolly gave the clearest indication yet of his opposition to Scottish independence. In an interview with the Radio Times, he stated, "I think it's time for people to get together, not split apart. The more people stay together, the happier they'll be." He also wrote, referring to the Darien scheme, "You must remember that the Union saved Scotland. Scotland was bankrupt and the English opened us up to their American and Canadian markets, from which we just flowered."[43]
Controversy[edit]
In October 2004, during an 18-night stint at London's Hammersmith Apollo, Connolly was criticised for making jokes about the hostage Kenneth Bigley.[44] Shortly after Connolly joked about the future killing of the hostage and touched on the subject of Bigley's young Thai wife, Bigley was beheaded in Iraq. Connolly claims he was misquoted.[45] He has declined to clarify what he actually said, claiming that the context was as important as the precise words used.[46]
Support for charity[edit]
Connolly is a patron of the National Association for Bikers with a Disability.[47] He is also a patron of Celtic F.C.'s The Celtic Foundation.[48]
Folk music[edit]
"I'll never forget. I was at a Pete Seeger concert in the early 1960s in Glasgow. I'd just bought a banjo. I'd seen him on television and I thought, 'That's what I want to do.' He was just exquisitely good. He said, 'I would like to sing a song by a new hero of mine, he's a young man – Bob Dylan.' He sang "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall". I'm almost crying at the thought. It was sensational. I became another guy: me. He sang, 'I saw a white man; he was walking a black dog,' and I thought, 'This is different.' It changed me forever, in a way I'll be eternally grateful for."[12]
In 1965, together with Tam Harvey, Connolly started a group called the Humblebums. At their first gig, Connolly reportedly introduced them both to the audience by saying, "My name's Billy Connolly, and I'm humble. This is Tam Harvey, he's a bum." The band would later include Gerry Rafferty, who saw Connolly at a charity show in Paisley.[49] "Gerry was very good for me. He taught me that I would never be a musician as long as my arse looked south. He was just so outstandingly good and getting better, and although I was getting better too, the space between us remained huge. He was a real musician, he knew and felt music, a bass player, with a lovely sense of harmony, as well as a great guitarist. I knew tunes and how to play them but that was where my musicianship ended. Unfortunately, I’m still the same to this day. I work very hard, I play every day but I’m still ordinary. I can be flashy, but it’s all tricks really. He’s a musician and I’m just not in the same league. So, I gave up these ambitions and concentrated on what I was really born to do."[49] After Harvey left the group, Connolly and Rafferty continued as a duo and the latter two of their three albums featured just that duo. Connolly sang, played five-string banjo, guitar, and autoharp, and at live shows entertained the audience with his humorous introductions to the songs.
Frank Bruno and Billy Connolly provided lead vocals on "The War Song of the Urpneys" from The Dreamstone, although the version heard in the series was largely sung by composer Mike Batt.
In his World Tour of Scotland, Connolly reveals that at a trailer show during the Edinburgh Festival, the Humblebums took to the stage just before Yehudi Menuhin.
The Humblebums broke up in 1971 and both Connolly and Rafferty went solo. Connolly's first solo album in 1972, Billy Connolly Live! on Transatlantic Records, featured him as a singer-songwriter.
His early albums were a mixture of comedy performances with comedic and serious musical interludes. Among his best-known musical performances were "The Welly Boot Song", a parody of the Scottish folk song "The Wark O' The Weavers," which became his theme song for several years; "In the Brownies", a parody of the hit Village People songs "In the Navy" and "Y.M.C.A." (for which Connolly filmed a music video); "Two Little Boys in Blue", a tongue-in-cheek indictment of police brutality done to the tune of Rolf Harris' "Two Little Boys"; and the ballad "I Wish I Was in Glasgow," which Connolly would later perform in duet with Malcolm McDowell on a guest appearance on the 1990s American sitcom Pearl (which starred Rhea Perlman). He also performed the occasional Humblebums-era song such as "Oh, No!" as well as straightforward covers such as a version of Dolly Parton's "Coat of Many Colors," both of which were included on his Get Right Intae Him! album.
In November 1975, his spoof of the Tammy Wynette song "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" was a UK No. 1 single for one week. Wynette's original was about parents spelling out words of an impending marital split to avoid traumatising their young child. Connolly's spoof of the song played on the fact that many dog owners use the same tactic when they do not wish their pet to become upset about an impending trip to the vet. Connolly's song is about a couple whose marriage is ruined by a bad vet visit (spelling out "W-O-R-M" or "Q-U-A-R-A-N-T-I-N-E", for example.) His song "No Chance" was a parody of J. J. Barrie's cover of the song "No Charge".
In 1985, he sang the theme song to Super Gran, which was released as a single and, in 1996, he performed a cover of Ralph McTell's "In the Dreamtime" as the theme to his World Tour of Australia. By the late 1980s, Connolly had all but dropped the music from his act, though he still records the occasional musical performance, such as a 1980s recording of his composition "Sergeant, Where's Mine?" with The Dubliners. In 1998, he covered The Beatles' "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" on the George Martin tribute album, In My Life. He sang a song during the film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. And in 1995 and 2005, he released two albums of instrumental performances Musical Tour of Scotland and Billy Connolly's Musical Tour of New Zealand, respectively.
Connolly is among the artists featured on Banjoman, a tribute to American folk musician Derroll Adams, released in 2002. He plays one song, "The Rock".
Stand-up comedy[edit]
It is as a stand-up comedian that Connolly is best known. His observational comedy is idiosyncratic and often off-the-cuff. He has offended certain sectors of audiences, critics and the media with his free use of the word "fuck" and he has made jokes relating to masturbation, blasphemy, defecation, flatulence, haemorrhoids, sex, his father's illness, his aunts' cruelty and, in the latter stages of his career, old age (specifically his experiences of growing old). In 2007 and again in 2010, he was voted the greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups. He once again topped the list on Channel 5's Greatest Stand-Up Comedians, broadcast on New Year's Eve 2013.
Since the 1980s, Connolly has worn a custom-made black T-shirt with a shirt-tail as part of his on-stage attire. The first one was by the now Belfast based English designer Stephen King. From around the same time, his manager has been Steve Brown.
Discography[edit]
Below is a partial list of Connolly's solo musical and comedic recordings. For his releases with the Humblebums, see here.
1972 – Billy Connolly Live
1974 – Cop Yer Whack for This
1974 – Solo Concert
1975 – Get Right Intae Him!
1975 – Words and Music
1975 – The Big Yin
1976 – Atlantic Bridge
1977 – Billy Connolly
1977 – Raw Meat for the Balcony!
1978 – Anthology
1979 – Riotous Assembly
1981 – The Pick of Billy Connolly (compilation)
1983 – A Change Is As Good As Arrest
1983 – In Concert
1984 – Big Yin Double Helping (compilation)
1985 – An Audience With Billy Connolly
1985 – Wreck on Tour
1987 – Billy & Albert
1991 – Live at the Odeon Hammersmith London
1995 – Musical Tour of Scotland
1995 – Billy Connolly – Live Down Under 1995
1996 – World Tour of Australia
1997 – Two Night Stand
1999 – Comedy and Songs (compilation)
1999 – One Night Stand Down Under
2002 – Live in Dublin 2002
2002 – The Big Yin – Billy Connolly in Concert (compilation)
2003 – Transatlantic Years (compilation of material recorded between 1969 and 1974)
2003 – Humble Beginnings: The Complete Transatlantic Recordings 1969–74
2005 – Billy Connolly's Musical Tour of New Zealand
2007 – Live in Concert
2010 – The Man Live in London, recorded January 2010
2011 – Billy Connolly's Route 66
VHS/DVD releases[edit]
Year
Title
1981 Bites Yer Bum
1982 The Pick of Billy Connolly
1985 An Audience with Billy Connolly
1987 Billy and Albert – Live at the Royal Albert Hall
1991 Live at the Odeon Hammersmith
1992 The Best of 25 Years of Billy Connolly (25BC)
1994 Live 1994
1995 Two Bites of Billy Connolly
1997 Two Night Stand – Live From London and Glasgow
1998 Erect for 30 Years
1999 Live 99 – One Night Stand Down Under and The Best of the Rest
2001 Live – The Greatest Hits
2002 Live in Dublin 2002
2005 Live in New York
2007 Was It Something I Said?
2010 Live in London 2010
2011 You Asked For It
2016 High Horse Tour Live
Playwright[edit]
Connolly has written three plays:
An' Me Wi' A Bad Leg Tae (1975)
When Hair Was Long And Time Was Short (1977)
Red Runner (1979)
Filmography[edit]
Film[edit]
Note
1978 Absolution Blakey
1983 Bullshot Hawkeye McGillicuddy
1985 Water Delgado
1989 The Return of the Musketeers Caddie
1990 The Big Man Frankie US title Crossing The Line
1993 Indecent Proposal Auction M.C.
1995 Pocahontas Ben Voice
1996 Muppet Treasure Island Billy Bones
1997 Beverly Hills Ninja Japanese Antique Shop Proprietor
1997 Deacon Brodie William Brodie
1997 Mrs Brown John Brown
1997 Paws PC Voice
1998 The Impostors Mr. Sparks, the Tennis Pro
1999 Still Crazy Hughie Case
1998 Middleton's Changeling Alibius
1999 The Debt Collector Nicky Dryden
1999 The Boondock Saints Noah MacManus / Il Duce
2000 Beautiful Joe Joe
2000 An Everlasting Piece Scalper
2001 Gabriel & Me Gabriel
2001 Who Is Cletis Tout? Dr. Mike Savian
2001 The Man Who Sued God Steve Myers
2002 White Oleander Barry Kolker
2003 Timeline Professor Johnston
2003 The Last Samurai Sergeant Zebulon Gant
2004 Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events Dr. Montgomery Montgomery
2006 Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties Lord Dargis
2006 Fido Fido
2006 Open Season McSquizzy Voice
2008 The X-Files: I Want to Believe Joseph "Father Joe" Crissman
2008 Open Season 2 McSquizzy Voice
2009 The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day Noah MacManus / Il Duce
2010 Gulliver's Travels King Theodore
2012 Brave King Fergus Voice
2012 Quartet Wilf Bond
2014 What We Did on Our Holiday Gordie McLeod
2014 The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Dáin II Ironfoot
2016 Wild Oats Lacey Chandler
Television[edit]
Year
Title
Role
Notes
1975–1976 Play for Today Jody / Paddy Just Another Saturday (1975)
The Elephants' Graveyard (1976)
1980 Worzel Gummidge Bogle McNeep
1983 Androcles and the Lion Androcles TV Movie
1985 Super Gran Angus McSporran
1984–1985 Tickle on the Tum Bobby Binns
1985 Blue Money Des TV Movie
1988 City Lights The Dosser
1988 Minder Tick Tack
1991 Screen Two Game Show Host / Busker
1990–1991 Head of the Class Billy MacGregor
1992 Billy Billy MacGregor
1993 Screen One Jo Jo Donnelly
1996 Dennis the Menace and Gnasher Captain Trout
1996–1997 Pearl William 'Billy' Pynchon
1998 Veronica's Closet Campbell
1998 Tracey Takes On... Rory Cassidy
1999 3rd Rock from the Sun Inspector Macaffery
2001 Columbo Findlay Crawford
2001 Prince Charming Hamish
2001 Gentlemen's Relish Kingdom Swann
2009 Billy Connolly: Journey to the Edge of the World Himself
2011 Billy Connolly's Route 66 Himself
2012 House Thomas Bell
2016 Billy Connolly's Tracks Across America Himself
2017 Billy Connolly & Me: A Celebration Himself
2017 Billy Connolly: Portrait of a Lifetime Himself
Awards[edit]
Connolly was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree by the University of Glasgow on 11 July 2001.[50]
In 2003, the BAFTA presented him with a Lifetime Achievement award.[51]
Connolly was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2003 Birthday Honours for services to Entertainment.[52]
On 4 July 2006, Connolly was awarded an honorary doctorate by Glasgow's Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) for his service to performing arts.[53]
On 18 March 2007 and again on 11 April 2010, Connolly was named Number One in Channel 4's "100 Greatest Stand-Ups".[54]
On 22 July 2010, Connolly was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (D.Litt) by Nottingham Trent University.[55]
On 20 August 2010, Connolly was made a Freeman of Glasgow with the award of the Freedom of the City of Glasgow.[56]
On 10 December 2012, Connolly picked up his BAFTA Scotland Award for Outstanding Achievement in Television and Film at his BAFTA A Life in Pictures interview in the Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow.[57]
In January 2016, he was presented with the Special Recognition award at the National Television Awards to honour his career.[58]
Connolly was knighted in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to Entertainment and Charity.[59]
Bibliography[edit]
Stephenson, Pamela (2003). Billy. Perennial Currents. ISBN 0-06-053731-0.
Stephenson, Pamela (2002). Billy (Audio Edition read by Pamela Stephenson). HighBridge Company. ISBN 1-56511-725-5.
Stephenson, Pamela (2003). Bravemouth: Living with Billy Connolly. Headline. ISBN 0-7553-1284-8.
References[edit]
Jump up ^ "Dave Turner : Obituary". This is Nottingham. Northcliffe Media Ltd. Retrieved 12 December 2011.
^ Jump up to: a b c Stephenson, Pamela. Billy, HarperCollins, 2001
^ Jump up to: a b c Billy Connolly's World Tour of England, Ireland and Wales, 2002.
Jump up ^ "Billy Connolly Biography". FilmReference.com. Retrieved 1 September 2011.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l Stevenson, Pamela (23 September 2001). "Billy Connolly: The early years". The Observer. London. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
Jump up ^ "Coastguards of Yesteryear"
Jump up ^ Billy Connolly: Live in London 2010
^ Jump up to: a b Jake Wallis Simons, "Who Do You Think You Are? Billy Connolly, review: 'life-affirming'", The Telegraph, 2 October 2014.
Jump up ^ https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2014/who-do-you-think-you-are/billy-connolly-197/
^ Jump up to: a b c Template:Cite "video
^ Jump up to: a b c d e World Tour of Scotland(1994), Connolly, Billy
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Shrink Rap: "Billy Connolly", 2009
Jump up ^ Live in New York DVD
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j "The story of Billy Connolly in 11 and a half chapters", heraldscotland.com, 21 September 2009.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k "''The South Bank Show'' episode guide at". Tv.com. 4 October 1992. Retrieved 1 September 2011.
Jump up ^ "Billy Connolly reveals childhood abuse", bbc.co.uk, 23 September 2001.
^ Jump up to: a b c Billy Connolly: The Glory Years, theguardian.com, 7 October 2001; accessed 21 August 2017.
^ Jump up to: a b c d Transatlantic Years liner notes
^ Jump up to: a b Billy Connolly's World Tour of Australia, 1996
Jump up ^ Billy & Albert DVD, 1987
Jump up ^ Tim Adams, "Billy Connolly: The interview – Connolly on the couch", The Observer, 23 September 2001
Jump up ^ Glasgow Museums: Highlights at People's Palace, glasgowlife.org.uk; accessed 21 August 2017.
^ Jump up to: a b Radio Times 15–21 December 2007: Goodnight... and Thank You
Jump up ^ "Billy Connolly: The Glory Years", The Guardian, 7 October 2001
Jump up ^ Parkinson (2003)
Jump up ^ "Elderly should be cared for by their children, Billy Connolly says", Daily Telegraph 14 December 2012
^ Jump up to: a b "Billy Connolly selling his £3m Scottish house", The Scotsman, 2 September 2013.
Jump up ^ "Connolly sells Hollywood home to live the good life in Scotland", The Scotsman, 6 October 2005.
Jump up ^ The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, 28 September 2006.
Jump up ^ The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, 2 November 2009.
Jump up ^ ""Billy Connolly in car accident, unhurt" – United Press International". Upi.com. Retrieved 1 September 2011.
Jump up ^ John Walsh, "Yin and Yang: How Billy Connolly calmed down (just don’t mention Piers Morgan!)" The Independent, 16 December 2012
Jump up ^ "Connolly to play Hobbit great dwarf " – Stuff.co.nz, 2 February 2012
Jump up ^ "UK | Scots 'anti-English' – survey". BBC News. 28 June 1999. Retrieved 1 September 2011.
Jump up ^ "Connolly has tackled drama before, notably in the film Mrs Brown, with Dame Judi Dench, but he's never portrayed anyone like Father Joe, who is psychic and possibly deranged. "I was brought up as a Catholic," Connolly says. "Aye, I have a cousin who is a nun and another cousin who is a missionary priest in Pakistan." He pauses and smiles. "And I am an atheist." " Elaine Lipworth interviewing Connolly, 'No laughing matter', Independent (Dublin), 1 August 2008 (accessed 1 August 2008).
Jump up ^ "Billy Connolly has cancer surgery". bbc.co.uk. 16 September 2013. Retrieved 16 September 2013.
Jump up ^ Crawley, Jennifer (28 February 2014). "Launceston surgeon Gary Fettke diagnoses Billy Connolly's Parkinson's in hotel lobby encounter". The Mercury. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
Jump up ^ "Billy Connolly Diagnosed With Parkinson's". News.sky.com. 16 September 2013. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
Jump up ^ Adam Sherwin (16 September 2013). "Billy Connolly undergoes prostate cancer surgery and is diagnosed with Parkinson's – but will keep working – News – Comedy". The Independent. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
Jump up ^ "TV review: Billy Connolly traces his exotic family tree", Herald Scotland, 2 October 2014.
Jump up ^ "Nationalists dismiss comedian's attack on them over anti-English racism as absurd and nonsense Connolly faces SNP's wrath". Herald Scotland. 28 June 1999. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
Jump up ^ Brown, Craig (12 December 2012). "Billy Connolly: My mouth's shut on Scottish independence – Celebrity". Scotsman.com. Retrieved 13 February 2013.
Jump up ^ Cramb, Auslan (29 April 2014). "Billy Connolly risks wrath of pro-independence activists as he admits he 'dislikes patriots'". The Telegraph. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
Jump up ^ "Connolly blasted over Bigley joke". BBC News. 5 October 2004. Retrieved 1 September 2011.
Jump up ^ "Episodes – 20 February 2006" – Enough Rope with Andrew Denton, 20 February 2006
Jump up ^ "Why do people tell sick jokes about tragedies? Billy Connolly: Joked about the death of British hostage Ken Bigley in Iraq". bbc.co.uk. 18 March 2011.
Jump up ^ "NABD Patrons". Nabd.org.uk. Retrieved 1 September 2011.
Jump up ^ "The Celtic Foundation Overview". celticfc.net. Retrieved 1 December 2011.
^ Jump up to: a b "Billy's Thoughts" Archived 2 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine. – Billy Connolly's official website
Jump up ^ "Billy Connolly receives arts honour" – BBC News, 11 July 2001
Jump up ^ "'30 Years of Billy Connolly'". BAFTA. Retrieved 1 September 2011.
Jump up ^ "No. 56963". The London Gazette (Supplement). 14 June 2003. p. 8.
Jump up ^ "Big Yin awarded honorary degree". BBC News. 4 July 2006. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
Jump up ^ "100 Greatest Stand-Ups". Channel 4.com. Archived from the original on 4 October 2009. Retrieved 1 September 2011.
Jump up ^ "Stars of stage and screen among honorary graduates of Nottingham Trent University". Ntu.ac.uk. Retrieved 1 September 2011.
Jump up ^ "Connolly stays away from patterns", The Calgary Sun, 20 August 2010. Retrieved 18 December 2010.
Jump up ^ "Billy Connolly: A Life In Pictures". BAFTA. Retrieved 19 December 2012.
Jump up ^ "Billy Connolly to receive Special Recognition Award at National Television Awards". Daily Telegraph. 8 January 2016. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
Jump up ^ "No. 61962". The London Gazette (Supplement). 17 June 2017. p. B2.
External links[edit]
Find more aboutBilly Connollyat Wikipedia's sister projects
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Data from Wikidata
Official website
Billy Connolly on IMDb
1989 KCRW one-hour radio interview "Bob Claster's Funny Stuff"
[hide]
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Billy Connolly
"World Tours"
World Tour of Scotland (1994)
World Tour of Australia (1996)
World Tour of England, Ireland and Wales (2002)
World Tour of New Zealand (2004)
"Musical Tours"
Musical Tour of Scotland (1995)
Musical Tour of New Zealand (2004)
Others
The Pick of Billy Connolly (compilation, 1981)
Bites Yer Bum! (2003)
Live 1991 (1991)
Live 1994
The Essential Collection (2006)
Journey to the Edge of the World (2008)
Route 66 (2011)
Related articles
The Humblebums
Authority control
WorldCat Identities
VIAF: 54345736
LCCN: n88601481
ISNI: 0000 0001 0973 3049
GND: 134349911
SUDOC: 16248447X
BNF: cb140241638 (data)
MusicBrainz: 7ffdf6af-0b1a-4ace-a067-970f0a611d93
IATH: w6s78tnv
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Bridge to Terabithia (novel)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
"Terebithia" redirects here. It is not to be confused with Terebinthia.
Bridge to Terabithia
First edition
Author
Katherine Paterson
Illustrator
Donna Diamond
Country
United States
Language
English
Series
1
Genre
Children's novel
Publisher
Crowell
Publication date
October 21, 1977
ISBN
0-690-01359-0 (hardback edition)
OCLC
2818232
LC Class
PZ7.P273 Br
Bridge to Terabithia is a work of children's literature about two lonely children who create a magical forest kingdom. It was written by Katherine Paterson and was published in 1977 by Thomas Crowell. In 1978, it won the Newbery Medal. Paterson drew inspiration for the novel from a real event that occurred in August 1974 when a friend of her son was struck by lightning.
The novel tells the story of fifth grader Jesse Aarons, who becomes friends with his new neighbor Leslie Burke after he loses a footrace to her at school. She is a smart, talented, outgoing tomboy from a wealthy family, and Jess thinks highly of her. He is an artistic boy from a poorer family who, in the beginning, is fearful, angry, and depressed. After meeting Leslie, his life is transformed. He becomes courageous and learns to let go of his frustration. They create a kingdom for themselves, which Leslie names "Terabithia." When at the end something very tragic happens to Leslie, Jess learns to overcome it and stay strong.
Its content has been the frequent target of censors and appears at number eight on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books for the decade 1990–2000.[1] It is studied in English studies classes in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
It has been adapted for the screen twice: a 1985 PBS TV movie and a 2007 Disney/Walden Media feature film.
Contents
[hide]
1 Background
2 Plot summary
3 Characters
4 Literary significance
5 Adaptations
6 References
7 External links
Background[edit]
Katherine Paterson lived for a time in Takoma Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC.[2] The novel was inspired by a tragedy of that time: on August 14, 1974, her son David's best friend, Lisa Christina Hill, died after being struck by lightning in Bethany Beach, Delaware. She was eight years old.[2][3][4] There is a tree dedicated to her in a memorial outside Takoma Park Elementary School (pre-K to second grade), which she and David attended.[4] Sligo Creek, which runs through Takoma Park, may have provided inspiration, too.[2]
The name of the imaginary kingdom is similar to that of the Narnian island Terebinthia, created by C. S. Lewis in 1951 or earlier for Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Paterson observed in 2005:
"I thought I had made it up. Then, rereading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis, I realized that I had probably gotten it from the island of Terebinthia in that book. However, Lewis probably got that name from the Terebinth tree in the Bible, so both of us pinched from somewhere else, probably unconsciously."[5]
It makes a direct reference to The Chronicles of Narnia as a set of books that Leslie lends to Jesse so he can learn to behave like a king.
Another fantasy series indirectly referenced is The Prydain Chronicles.[citation needed]
Plot summary[edit]
The book chronicles the life of an artistic young boy named Jesse Aarons and the burdens and hardships of his home life, such as his duties on his family's farm and the constant agitations and annoyances of his four sisters. Jess has straw-colored hair and long legs. Leslie Burke is an intelligent, wealthy girl who has just moved into "the old Perkins place" down the road from him. Jesse is initially cold toward Leslie. After having trained all summer to become his class's fastest runner, Jess is infuriated when Leslie outruns him in a recess footrace.
After further negative experiences with classroom tormentors or rivals, including Gary Fulcher, Jesse eagerly anticipates the arrival of music class due to his infatuation for its beautiful young teacher, Miss Edmunds. However, on the day music class begins, he discovers a fondness for Leslie, eccentric and ostracized, and they develop a friendship. He marvels at the way she genuinely likes to read and write, not just to impress the teacher, and the way she makes running look beautiful and effortless (not that he would ever actually say anything of the sort). On one sunny day, Jess and Leslie use a rope to swing over a creek, and they decide to design an imaginary sanctuary from the burdens and pains of everyday life. The pair reign as monarchs, calling their domain Terabithia and constructing a small refuge in which their imaginary escapades take place.
At school, the pair are challenged by an older bully named Janice Avery, whom they immensely detest. After Janice steals a package of Twinkies from Jesse's younger sister May Belle's lunch, they forge a romantic letter under the disguise of Willard Hughes, the object of Janice's infatuation, setting her up for misunderstanding. The plan is successful, exposing Janice to public mortification. Later, Leslie encounters a sobbing Janice in the girls' bathroom. It develops that Janice's father beats her severely, and that this explains the bully's difficulty relating to other people. Janice is upset since she had confided her troubles to her two best friends, and they have spread the rumor all throughout the school. At this, both Jesse and Leslie develop sympathy for—and Leslie even the beginnings of a friendship with Janice. In the meantime, Leslie's bond with Jesse also increases powerfully, and they continue to indulge in the pleasures derived from Terabithia, adopting a puppy named Prince Terrien, abbreviated to P.T.
On being invited to a trip to an art museum with Miss Edmunds, Jesse accepts the offer without notifying Leslie or his parents beforehand (Jesse tells his mother while she is half-asleep). He enjoys the day with Miss Edmunds, but upon returning home is horrified to learn that while he was away, Leslie attempted to visit Terabithia on her own and died of drowning when the rope swing broke. A shocked Jesse, incapable of absorbing or accepting the impact or horror of Leslie's sudden death, denies his grief and even his friend's existence. It is implied that May Belle is terrified that Leslie may be sentenced to eternal damnation due to Leslie's doubts regarding religion (revealed the previous Easter). Jesse's father reassures him that God could not possibly be so unfair. After Jesse miserably accepts the inevitability of Leslie's death, he is saddened even further by the grief exhibited by her mourning family, who have decided to return to their previous home in Pennsylvania.
Jesse decides to pay tribute to Leslie by crafting a funeral wreath, bending a pine bough into a circle. Leaving it in their special pine grove in Terabithia, Jesse discovers a terrified May Belle halfway across the creek—having attempted to follow Jesse over the fallen tree he used to get to Terabithia after the rope broke—and assists her back. The Burke family grants Jesse some lumber (from aborted renovations) they are leaving behind, which he uses to build a more permanent, though rudimentary, bridge. He chooses to fill the void left by Leslie's passing by making May Belle the princess of Terabithia and presumably the queen in future, permitting her to share his sanctuary from then onward (Terabithia had been kept as Jesse's and Leslie's secret before). Then, Jesse tells May Belle to keep her "mind wide open" and all of the inhabitants of Terabithia welcome their new princess.
Characters[edit]
Main article: List of Bridge to Terabithia characters
Jesse Aarons — In the beginning of the novel, is habitually fearful, angry and depressed. He also has a crush on his music teacher, Miss Edmunds, which plays an integral role in the final events of the story. After meeting and then ultimately losing Leslie, he is transformed, in that he becomes courageous and lets go of his anger and frustration.
Leslie Burke — An intelligent, talented, imaginative, outgoing girl, it is she who creates the imaginary kingdom of Terabithia. Her talents include gymnastics, creative writing, swimming and running. Jesse thinks highly of her, and they are loyal friends. She is a newcomer to Jesse's school, and not socially accepted by the other students. She dies when she falls into a creek and sustains a head injury that keeps her unconscious until she drowns.
Joyce Ann Aarons — Jesse's bratty baby sister. May Belle thinks she is "nothing but a baby".
May Belle Aarons — One of Jesse's younger sisters. She is described as the only one of his siblings with whom he feels comfortable. However, because she is six years to his 10, she does not fit the mold of the ideal confidante to him, leaving him still desperate for companionship. She clearly worships him from the beginning, and like him, feels that she does not have a place in the family. She is the first of his sisters to learn about Terabithia, and becomes the princess after Leslie dies.[6] She is the only one he allows to enter his world and the only one who has any sort of empathy for, or acceptance of, him in his family.
Ellie and Brenda Aarons — Jesse's two older sisters. They primarily exist as secondary static characters, or ones who do not grow or change as a result of the events of a story. They are never mentioned separately within the novel and are never portrayed in a positive light. From the beginning of the story, they continually ask for favors from their mother, and pocket money which she cannot afford to give them. With sufficient whining, they know how to get their way with their parents, such as asking for five dollars to pay for school supplies from their mother by saying that their father promised that they could have the money. Being the elder of the two and the eldest child in the family, Ellie develops their ideas. Both have an incredible desire not to have anything to do with Jesse specifically, but with all of their younger siblings more broadly. At the climax of the story, when Jesse learns of Leslie's death, Brenda is the one who tells him of it. The fact that she is the one who breaks the news to him in the novel only serves to increase the shock.
Janice Avery — The school bully at Lark Creek. She is very overweight and tends to become very offended when people tease her for being so. She has a crush on Willard Hughes, which Jesse uses to trick her. Her father beats her and she secretly smokes. Also, her face is used on the giant troll living in Terabithia for the 2007 movie.
Miss Edmunds — The somewhat unconventional and controversial music teacher, whom Jesse greatly admires. She invites him to go to the Smithsonian Museum, which leads Leslie to go to Terabithia by herself. As a result, she is alone when she falls from the rope.
Prince Terrien — A puppy that Jesse gave Leslie as a Christmas present. He is the guardian and court jester of Terabithia. In the book, he is referred to as P.T.
Gary Fulcher — He and Jesse both hope to be the fastest kid in the fifth grade; he serves as another bully in the story, but he is not quite as mean as Janice Avery.
Mrs. Myers — Jesse and Leslie's teacher, given the nickname "Monster Mouth Myers." She favors Leslie, and tells Jesse after Leslie's death that she was the best student she had ever had. Her husband had also died.
Bill and Judy Burke — Leslie's parents, novelists who come to the story's location for their work. Mom — book writer, Dad — political writer. Unlike most of the locals, they do not watch television.
Literary significance[edit]
The novel's content has been the frequent target of censors. It ranks number 8 on the American Library Association list of most commonly challenged books in the United States for 1990–1999.[1] On the ALA list for 2000–2009 it ranks #28.[7] The challenges stem from death being a part of the plot;[8][9] Jesse's frequent use of the word "lord" outside of prayer;[10] allegations that the book promotes secular humanism, New Age religion, occultism, and Satanism;[11] and for use of offensive language.[12]
The book is often featured in English studies classes in Ireland, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Canada,[13] Philippines, Ecuador, the United Kingdom,[14] Costa Rica, Panama, South Africa and the United States.
In 2012 Bridge to Terabithia was ranked number ten among all-time best children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal, a monthly with primarily U.S. audience. Two other books by Paterson made the top 100.[15]
Adaptations[edit]
Two films have been made based on the book, both with the original title. One was a PBS TV movie made in 1985, starring Annette O'Toole, Julian Coutts, and Julie Beaulieu. The second was a theatrical film released on February 16, 2007, starring Josh Hutcherson, AnnaSophia Robb, Robert Patrick, Bailee Madison, and Zooey Deschanel; the adaptation was done in part by David Paterson himself.
A musical stage adaptation ("supported by a lyrical score") entitled The Bridge to Terabithia is listed for sale by Stageplays.com, credited to Paterson and Stephanie S. Tolan, another children's writer,.[16] It was cataloged by the Library of Congress in 1993, with primary credit to Steve Liebman for the music, as Bridge to Terabithia: a play with music (New York: S. French, c1992).[17]
References[edit]
^ Jump up to: a b "100 most frequently challenged books: 1990–1999". Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association (ALA.org). 2001. Retrieved 2015-01-14.
^ Jump up to: a b c Kohn, Diana (2004). "Lisa Hill and the Bridge to Terabithia". Takoma-Silver Spring Voice. Archived from the original on June 14, 2009. Retrieved 2007-02-14.
Jump up ^ "Questions". Katherine Paterson (terabithia.com). Retrieved 2007-02-08.
^ Jump up to: a b "Local Connection". The Washington Post. February 15, 2007. Retrieved 2010-03-01. After you have read or seen Bridge to Terabithia, visit Takoma Park Elementary, the school David Paterson and Lisa Hill—the inspirations for Jess and Leslie—attended in the 1970s. (subscription required)
Jump up ^ "Questions for Katherine Paterson". Bridge to Terabithia, 2005 Harper Trophy edition.
Jump up ^ Paterson, Katherine; Diamond, Donna. Bridge to Terabithia Movie Tie-in Edition. HarperEntertainment. ISBN 0-06-122728-5. The last sentence of the novel, "Shhh, yes. There's a rumor going around that the beautiful girl arriving today might be the queen they've been waiting for."
Jump up ^ "Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009". American Library Association. Retrieved 2015-01-14.
Jump up ^ The National Council of English Teachers curriculum report including section "Why Bridge To Terabithia Should Not Be Banned" which discusses the death issue. Archived Archived January 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine. 2007-01-27. Retrieved 2007-02-08.
Jump up ^ "Opinion: What Have Other People Thought About Bridge to Terabithia?" Archived December 29, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.. Scholastic Kids (scholastic.com/kids). Retrieved 2007-02-08.
Jump up ^ "Connecticut Residents Seek to Ban Two Newbery Medal Winners from School" Archived February 21, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.. American Booksellers Association. Retrieved 2007-02-08.
Jump up ^ Annotated list from "Ten Most Challenged Books of 2003" Archived September 1, 2009, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2009-09-07
Jump up ^ Annotated list from "Ten Most Challenged Books of 2002" Archived 2010-10-26 at the Wayback Machine.. ALA. Retrieved 2009-09-07.
Jump up ^ Grade 5 Reading List. British Columbia Ministry of Education. Retrieved 2007-02-08.
Jump up ^ "Year 9 curriculum" Archived September 26, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.. National Strategy Literacy and Learning in Religious Education. Retrieved 2007-02-08.
Jump up ^ Bird, Elizabeth (July 7, 2012). "Top 100 Chapter Book Poll Results". A Fuse #8 Production. Blog. School Library Journal (blog.schoollibraryjournal.com). Retrieved 2015-10-30.
Jump up ^ "The Bridge to Terabithia: Katherine Paterson & Stephanie S. Tolan". Distributor product display. Stageplays.com: Largest Collection of Plays and Musicals in the World. Retrieved 2014-08-16.
Jump up ^ Subject (LCSH) "Musicals—Librettos". "Bridge to Terabithia: a play with music"[permanent dead link]. Library of Congress Online Catalog. LCCN Permalink (lccn.loc.gov). Retrieved 2015-10-31.
Bridge to Terabithia, Hardcover edition (ISBN 0-690-01359-0)
External links[edit]
Children's literature portal
Study guide created by the author (PDF)
"Lisa Hill and the Bridge to Terabithia" by Diana Kohn (PDF)
Awards
Preceded by
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Newbery Medal recipient
1978 Succeeded by
The Westing Game
[show]
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Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Bridge to Terabithia (1977 novel)
1985 TV movie
2007 film
Film soundtrack
Characters
Creatures
[show]
v
t
e
Novels by Katherine Paterson
The Sign of the Chrysanthemum (1973)
Of Nightingales That Weep (1974)
The Master Puppeteer (1975)
Bridge to Terabithia (1977)
The Great Gilly Hopkins (1978)
Jacob Have I Loved (1980)
Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom (1983)
Come Sing, Jimmy Jo (1985)
Park's Quest (1988)
Lyddie (1991)
Flip-Flop Girl (1994)
Jip, His Story (1996)
Parzival: The Quest of the Grail Knight (1998)
Preacher’s Boy (1999)
The Same Stuff as Stars (2002)
Bread and Roses, Too (2006)
The Day of the Pelican (2009)
Authority control
WorldCat Identities
VIAF: 183040424
GND: 4668513-3
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bridge_to_Terabithia_(novel)&oldid=807140953"
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values: List of most commonly challenged books in the United States

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values: جسر إلى تيرابيثيا (كتاب) – Arabic

values: Un puente hacia Terabithia (novela) – Spanish

values: 비밀의 숲 테라비시아 – Korean

values: Un ponte per Terabithia (romanzo) – Italian

values: ממלכת טרביתיה (ספר) – Hebrew

values: Híd Terabithia földjére (regény) – Hungarian

values: テラビシアにかける橋 – Japanese

values: Bridge to Terabithia (livro) – Portuguese

values: Мост в Терабитию (повесть) – Russian

values: Bridge to Terabithia (novel) – Simple English

values: Міст до Терабітії (роман) – Ukrainian

values: 通往泰瑞比西亞的橋 – Chinese

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