The Real Stanley Baxter

Stanley Baxter delighted over 20 million viewers at a time with his television specials. His pantos became legendary. His divas and dames were so good they were beyond description. Baxter was a most brilliant cowboy Coward, a smouldering Dietrich. He found immense laughs as Formby and Liberace. And his sex-starved Tarzan swung in a way Hollywood could never have imagined. But who is the real Stanley Baxter? The comedy actor's talents are matched only by his past reluctance to colour in the detail of his own character. Now, the man behind the mischievous grin, the twinkling eyes and the once-Brylcreemed coiffure is revealed. In a tale of triumphs and tragedies, of giant laughs and great falls from grace, we discover that while the enigmatic entertainer could play host to hundreds of different voices, the role he found most difficult to play was that of Stanley Baxter.

Brian Beacom is a multi-award winning Arts and Entertainment writer with the Herald newspaper in Scotland. His most recent biography, The Real Mrs Brown - The Authorised Biography of Brendan O'Carroll was a Sunday Times triple best seller and sold almost 250,000 copies. The writer spent seventeen years with Stanley Baxter in creating this book and is regarded as the authority on the entertainer. Brian Beacom is currently working on a biographical play based on a single episode of Stanley's life.