Product Description

Whatever your opinion of Billy Connolly, his life has been an epic tale of controversy and hilarity, tragedy and comedy. From his working class roots in Glasgow he has worked his way to the top, and now enjoys huge worldwide acclaim and lives a dream lifestyle. From welding to folk singing to comedy to writing to acting, Billy has proved beyond doubt his versatility and sheer determination. And if anyone knows that better than him, it's his wife, Pamela, who will give us an insiders view of this hugely talented musician, singer, tv presenter, comdedian and actor. We will hear about the highs and the lows, the good times and the bad and she will take us behind-the-scenes of the films and tv shows he has been in and the sell-out tours that are so unmissable so that we get to see something of the real Billy Connolly.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #216644 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Billy Connolly is loud, hilarious and contradictory. His biography, written by his wife, former comedian and practising psychotherapist Pamela Stephenson, is pretty much the same. Over the years Connolly has grown from Glasgow shipyard welder to folk-singing beardy hard man (yes there is such a thing) to darling of the good and great (or at least famous) around the world. That he is so many things to so many people while in no way compromising his core self can only be good. It would be no mean feat for Stephenson, then, to pen a history to that would satisfy Connolly audiences of fans and contemporaries from all periods of his life's journey. In most places, but in truth, not all, the author manages to do this well.

The first half of the biography is somewhat anthropological in tone. Not surprisingly, a post-war Glasgow upbringing is somewhat alien to the antipodean author and Stephenson errs towards Angela's Ashes intonation as she describes her husband's tenement childhood (Scots readers may also find her regular translation of seemingly self-explanatory Scots phrases--which Connolly would use--obtuse). In contrast her examination of her experience of living with the comedian and his life from that point on is much better. Anecdotes which Connolly uses in his live shows pepper the text and laughs are raised as he tells of the time he was mistaken as a drug dealer on Speyside, of his cheeky friendships with cinema's elite and even through the more difficult times; the difficulty of balancing an almost manic humour with a troubled life. Pages turn quickly as we grow to understand more of what makes the man tick.

Certainly fans of Billy Connolly will enjoy this book. It is not perfect but it is certainly entertaining and should fill a gap in the market until Billy--with his half-remembered stories and off-centre view of the world--decides to let us into his head as well as his history. There's surely one ideal way to do this and that's by writing his story himself. --Helen Lamont

Review
"Billy Connolly is quite simply the most successful popular British stand-up comedian of modern times" The Guardian

We all know Billy Connolly from his years at the top of the comedy food chain and his legendary TV appearances on the likes of Parkinson. Few, however, can claim to know him as well as Pamela Stephenson, Connolly's wife, the erstwhile Antipodean comedienne and practising clinical psychologist who puts it all down on paper in this enjoyable although often harrowing biography. Conditions ranged from bleak to brutal in the reeking Glaswegian tenements where Connolly spent his childhood; his father was away at war when his mother left him and his sister Florence to be looked after by his two aunts. School memories are peppered with examples of the cruel corporal punishment that anyone educated in less liberal times can remember with a wince, and home life fared little better for the 'Big Yin'. The mental and physical violence meted out by his unhinged aunt was eventually replaced by his father's sexual abuse which he endured for five years from the age of ten. Salvation came at the hands of rock 'n' roll, and he went to work in the shipyards of the River Clyde. The merciless ribbing of his fellow shipyard workers was the perfect place for Connolly to sharpen his legendary wit, and coincided with the developing social conscience that would inform his comedy over the years. A gallery of great photographs enhance the text in this award-winning biography, ranging from the fuzzy images of the 1940s through some unfortunate '70s sartorial errors to a clearly delighted Connolly opening the new Glasgow Celtic grandstand in 1999. A bit wearing on the occasions when Stephenson forgets to remove her psychologist's hat, it's nonetheless the compelling story of a survivor, a true hero for many, who went from welder to world-renowned entertainer without ever forgetting where he came from. (Kirkus UK)

Clinical psychologist and former comedian Stephenson balances wifely affection with professional analysis in her biography of Billy Connolly, who survived abandonment as well as physical and sexual abuse to become a noted musician, comedian, and actor. The narrative alternates between the couple's current life in Los Angeles and Billy's early years in Glasgow, where he was born in 1942 as his father was about to leave for the battlefields of Burma. The Connollys were Catholics who had left Ireland to make a better life in Scotland, but they still could only afford a squalid tenement apartment with two rooms and a communal washroom. When Billy was three and older sister Florence not yet five, their mother walked out, leaving the kids alone in a cold apartment without food. His father's two unmarried sisters eventually took them in, but one of the aunts regularly beat and belittled Billy. Things only got worse when his father came back from the war and began sexually abusing the boy. School was no better; teachers were free with physical punishment and verbal abuse. In his teens, Billy began playing the banjo and singing and eventually left his job as a welder at the Clyde shipyards. He overcame a horrendous childhood to become famous, first in Scotland as a musician and comic, then in London, and now in the US. As Stephenson notes, "Billy's real story is an utterly triumphant one." Known for his outrageous wit and costumes, he initially had difficulty coping with fame. His first marriage failed, he took drugs and drank heavily. Stephenson, who met him while she was acting on British TV, details all the low moments as well as the highs: his doctorate from Glasgow University in 2001, his acclaimed role in the movie Mrs. Brown, and his friendships with stars like Judi Dench, Michael Caine, and Dustin Hoffman. A loving case study, meticulously researched, best on the early years before the accolades began to accumulate. (Kirkus Reviews)

About the Author
An Australian born in New Zealand, Pamela Stephenson is famous for her starring role in "Not the Nine O'Clock News" and other TV and film work. She and Billy live and work in Los angeles, where she now practises as a clinical psychologist.

Customer Reviews

Not the Connolly Biography
I grew up in the same Glasgow tenements as Billy Connolly, jumped the same dykes and scurried to the same outside toilets on a dark night. I bought his records in the 70s, his videos in the 90s and saw him once live. I'm a fan and glad he's doing well.

I approached this biography with an open mind - keen to learn more about a great entertainer and a bit of a hero of mine. I have to say, I was left feeling somewhat cheated.

The book is structured chronologically and each chapter deals with a sizeable chunk of the Big Yin's life. The chapters are titled with Connollyesque catch-phrases ("Cop yer whack!" etc.) but, most irritatingly, introduced by contemporary vignettes of Connolly's current lîfe. Since the book was published in late 2001, most of these are very recent and recount events like Hollywood parties and Connolly's Glasgow University graduation. For someone reading the book within months of publication they serve to highlight its freshness but as time rolls on, the effect will stagnate and, five years from now, they will make this book seem past its sell-by date.

Other reviewers have commented on the relentless name-dropping with which Stephenson peppers the text and it is in these chapter intros that the celebs crowd - Steve Martin, Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman and so on. Seriously, how well do any of these people really know Billy Connelly? So is their opinion important to our understanding of the man? Or does Stephenson think that celebrity brings with it a gift of character judgement that lesser mortals lack?

In the earlier chapters, when recounting Connolly's childhood, apprenticeship and early career, the book is interesting. It was pleasing to read about Glasgow of the fifties and its whacky inhabitants and of Connolly's early involvement with folk music and his collaborations with, inter alia, Gerry Rafferty and Ralph McTell. Although there is one howler I must report: when describing a shipyard scene in 1962, Stephenson describes the workers as "tradespeople"... As much a PC-Pam may dislike it, it is a historical fact that every single human being working at a trade in a Glasgow Shipyard in the 60s was of the masculine persuasion and was never referred to as anything other than a tradesman.

The sections that deal with Connolly's troubled childhood - abandonment by his mother, mental and physical abuse by his aunt and sexual abuse by his father are revealing and I would not criticise Stephenson, as others have done, for commenting professionally on the effect these trauma have had on Connolly's mind. It was here, in fact, that I found her most illuminating.

As we read on into the mid-80s and our writer's fateful meeting with her subject, the focus begins to waver. Their early courtship seems to have inspired the script for "Notting Hill" with them dodging the media among flats and hotels in trendy London. From then on, we can never forget who he ended up with.

So what is missing from this book?

I was left wondering how much research had been done for this book and how much of it Stephenson had written off the top of her head. For a biography it is very thin on quotations and most of those are inconsequential flattery from mega-stars. What about Connolly's shipyard mates? His sister? Any old schoolpals? Iris, his ex-wife? Jamie and Cara, their children? The opinion of these vital personalities is absent or coloured by a third-person reportage after censoring by Stephenson.

I think she did speak to Gerry Rafferty, at least on the phone, and maybe Ralph McTell too. I did doubt even if Michael Parkinson was contacted - in fact, I had the uneasy feeling that he and Stephenson do not get on, such was the brevity with which she discussed his opinion on Connolly's drying out.

For a book about a comedian, jokes were thin on the ground too. There is a way to tell jokes on stage and Connolly has it; there is a way to tell jokes in a book and Stephenson does not have it.

When we turn to Connolly's film career, the narration tends to the hagiographic. Personally, I can remember Connolly starring in the excellent "Mrs. Brown" and in a handful of TV plays in the UK. Add in a couple of cameo appearances ("Indecent Proposal") and some American sitcoms and that's about it - a reasonable character actor. However, here Stephenson lists reams of movies which a film buff like me has never heard of and which turn out to have been critical and box-office flops. I'm sure Connolly is a good actor and I hope to see a lot more of him on the big screen in future (his appearance in the recent "Everlasting Piece" is superb) but some objectivity would have been prudent.

One final shot - where did she get the picture of Connolly for the cover? At a guess, I would date it to around 1985 which hardly concurs with the up-to-the minute breathlessness which pervades the rest of the book.

Seriously let down by his wife.
Billy Connolly has led an amazing life but the book fails to add the insight I was expecting from a therapist who knows him so intimately. I could have lived with this if the book had been funnier, but ended up ploughing my way through it in the belief that it just had to get better. It didn't. What a wasted opportunity.

Inside the mind of the Big Yin
It turns out that he's infinately more complex than we ever thought. His ability to laugh in the face of adversity comes to the fore especially taking into account his revelations about his relationship with his father. With all the cards stacked against him he chose the stage as a career. I can't praise this book enough. Stephenson is a competent writer, slowly she extracts ever more revealing insights into the big man.