He was a unique showman. Cheeky!
This is showbiz at its very, very, very, best.
He'd make a better woman than a man, cos he had fantastic legs.
(SCOTTISH ACCENT)
He was a huge star. He was the star that everybody wanted.
Nobody could do what he did as well as he did. He was a one-off.
Hush up, here she comes now.
He could conjure 100 characters and voices
and play them all in the same scene.
I like a man that grows his own lunch.
He was the man and the woman
who made the most extravagant shows on British television.
And they kept saying, "He's our flagship, economise somewhere else."
Good night, folks.
Would I like to see The Stanley Baxter Big Picture Show
tomorrow night, a new one?
You bet I would, I'd cancel anything. He's a genius.
These are The Many Faces Of Stanley Baxter.
At their peak in the 1980s, Stanley Baxter's television epics
were eagerly anticipated by millions.
His jaw-dropping shows escalated in style, aspirations and cost.
His mother coached him to be an entertainer.
She likely dreamt of young Stanley realising her own
ambitions for the stage, although not literally as a woman.
# Life's a treat and Joy's complete in a state of grace
# I'm setting the pace With my dancing feet... #
Stanley Baxter was born in Glasgow in 1926.
Called for National Service, Stanley Baxter joined the army's
Combined Services Entertainment Unit
and met Kenneth Williams in Singapore.
Stanley, like a lot of comedians
of his generation, had been through the war and has served as a soldier.
And there was this tradition of entertainment for the troops,
and troops entertaining themselves.
And Stanley, like Spike Milligan, Eric Sykes and Peter Sellers
and Tony Hancock, were all part of that tradition.
And Stanley was in Combined Services Entertainment with
Kenneth Williams and Peter Nichols.
Stanley would have fun with his impersonations of Kenneth Williams
for years to come.
Good evening and welcome to another edition of International Camparet.
'What looked like a boy of 15 with whitened hair
'and a white moustache, made his way through.
'I said, "What's going on here?" Ha-ha-ha.
'Of course, it turned out to be Kenneth Williams.'
They would be lifelong friends but Stanley continued
his induction into show business back on the stages of Glasgow.
On his first day at the Citizens Theatre,
Stanley found himself in the company of a man
who would in future years be a crucial link
in his television career.
We were both at the same stage in our careers,
as far as coming into the theatre was concerned.
I got the job as assistant stage manager the same time as he did.
But he didn't stay that for very long, they saw what a good actor
he was and he was a very funny comedy actor, as well.
Stanley's breakthrough moment came when a Christmas show,
written by the theatre founder, James Bridie, failed to entertain.
They were sensible enough to realise that Stanley,
who had a considerable experience in revue type material,
was the perfect person to come and pull the whole show together.
Stanley's success in the Tintock Cup led to bigger parts and through the
1950s he became a familiar face on the stages of Glasgow and Edinburgh.
He was an all-round entertainer in constantly changing revue shows
and long-running pantomimes.
All provide a welcome to Five Past Eight.
# Turn us loose, set us free
# We've no use for reason or rhyme
# My slacks are slappy So what do we care?
# Just relax I will have a good time. #
But the characters go from, oh, from old men to young lasses,
from young men to middle-aged men, and even an American.
Got a fag?
'Five Past Eight and that all sort of thing, these were big deals.'
This is showbiz at its very, very, very best.
So if you went to see a panto with Stanley in it,
it was going to be spectacular. Yeah, it would be funny and all the
rest of it and all the daft things that you'd expect,
but there was spectacle.
Stanley quickly became a star of the stage.
Between pantomime seasons there were the Half Past Eight
and Five Past Eight theatre revues -
lavish variety shows that would be the testing ground and template
for his own brand of television entertainment in years to come.
He played the magnificent Howard and Wyndham chain of theatres,
the best Scotland could offer.
But Stanley had ambition.
I was getting fed up with Howard and Wyndham.
They had run into financial trouble. They'd sold the Alhambra,
one of the best theatres in Britain, the Alhambra.
I got really angry and I thought "I'm going to end up
"playing number two theatres."
Which is fine for a lot of people
but I was used to the number ones, to be a wee bit snobby.
So I decided to head south.
And Stewart Cruickshank at that time was a honcho, the chief honcho
at Howard and Wyndham, said, "You're planning to go south?
"Anything planned?"
I said, "No, I'm just going south and trying, really."
"Well, I can't promise they'll be any work for you when you come back."
Well, I'd been starring for him for ages - not a very kind remark.
But it made me all the more determined to go south
and make a go of it if I could.
And so I went south and...
..who did I get a phone call from?
Jimmy Gilbert,
who said, "Is it true? You're coming south with no work?"
I said, "Absolutely true."
"Well, I've had an idea of doing Intimate Revue."
Now that's always been a rather chichi kind of specialised thing
at the Royal Court and stuff like that.
But I thought it could be adapted,
if it were broadened a bit, for television.
He wasn't a well-known name down in England at all.
And we got Betty Marsden to join him as his leading lady
and, well, we made a television version of revue.
We didn't try and just photograph a West End revue.
I was obviously very excited to have this chance to get on television
because I knew that the audience was a lot bigger than anything
I could have played to in pantomime or in Five Past Eight shows.
But then, when I started with BBC and there was no ITV at all,
so it was a fairly small audience.
But when I didn't work in dialect, quite deliberately,
the Scottish press were not best pleased.
And they tended to be a bit snide about, "What's the matter with you?
"Given up doing your native accent?"
I thought, "I haven't forgotten it,
"I just choose to show that I can do, that I've got a wider range."
In case there should be any confusion,
since we rarely see Stanley Baxter as himself, this is Stanley Baxter.
And this is the Television Guild Producers Award, which he received
a month or two ago as the best light entertainment artist of the year.
We only did two series, we were the first BBC light entertainment show
to win what was the equivalent of a BAFTA.
It was a CEFTA, and Stanley was exceedingly well-received.
He's a good-looking guy and he was versatile, talented,
he could do all this stuff and he just suddenly, you know, to spring
out from Glasgow, whereas a lot of the other Glasgow comedians were
so obviously Scottish, but Stanley had the Hollywood flavour.
Stanley was a rising star.
He was cast in a succession of cinema features with
Julie Christie, James Robertson Justice and Leslie Phillips.
I've got a feeling it's going to be just what they want, you know.
One of the bosses of Independent Artists had seen me a lot
and had met a fan that wanted me to be signed up for Independent Artists.
And the first thing they wanted me
to do was something to be called Very Important Person, in which
James Robertson Justice was playing this boffin
who was landed and had to be kept.
Everybody in the hut that he was sent to be in,
mustn't let the Jerrys know that he is this boffin.
Right.
Back to your bunks.
'The director, I met the director'
and he said something that interested me enormously, he said,
"Now, the part we want you to play is this Scots boy
"who is obsessed about digging his way out."
That was his way of escaping. I said, "Sounds good."
Wavy Navy, eh? Oh, if I'm not mistaken,
the boys in dark blue are partial to a wee bit of gardening.
I cordially detest gardening.
You've done a wee bit of digging in your time. Certainly not.
Pity.
He said, "This Scots boy has to impersonate
"the German Kommandant later on in the film."
I had one idea, we just had the idea maybe it would be good to have
the Scots boy not only play the Scots boy
but play the German for real.
I said, and this is really cheeky, because I'd never made a movie,
I said, "Oh, I'd consider taking this film on
"if I got the German, as well." Cheeky!
'So they said, "All right."
'But for the first three days, they had me as that German.'
Just so they could look at the rush and say, "Dosnae work."
Or, "It's working."
It's me.
Well, obviously, they said, "It's working,"
because I went on to do that.
This is as far as I go.
No doubt I'll be accused of striking a German officer this morning
and be shot at dawn this afternoon.
Nonsense, Everett, you've done very well.
Don't spoil it all by getting caught now.
Come on.
And I got rave notices and that was my favourite film, really.
Because in all the others I was playing a juvenile.
CAR HORN
'Scots juvenile was dyed here.'
Get an ambulance!
They made money,
The Fast Lady made a hell of a lot of money for the studio.
The film producers had Stanley play the stereotypical Scot.
# The Highland hills They're not my land's hills
# And fair as these green foreign hills may be
# They are not the hills of old... #
In Fast Lady, his charm wins the girl in the end
against the smarmy English cad, Leslie Phillips.
Why don't you turn that game in?
I refuse to be driven off the road by you motorists!
Buy yourself a decent car, get yourself a girl,
this one's for sale!
Possibly a bit on the fast side, but she's on very modern lines.
Smashing upholstery. She's a real bargain.
What a suggestion!
Other sales points include, an ample rear boot...
loose covers...
and an automatic clutch,
leaving plenty of room for fancy knee work.
Dirty beast!
Stanley, I believe you like to be known as a character actor,
rather than a personality actor?
I think that's because I don't have any choice,
I think I am a character actor, rather than a personality actor.
Certainly in all the films I've done, except for The Fast Lady,
I've been doing character stuff.
Stanley's story as a screen idol didn't have a happy ending.
After just six titles, the failure of the studio
brought his big screen career to a shuddering halt.
Something's gone wrong! You've run out of petrol.
Oh, blast!
The people I was working for, Independent Artists, closed down,
due to the illness of one of the partners.
And so, as I hadn't had an offer from MGM or RKO,
20th Century Fox, I just had to wait,
like most actors have to do, wait till you're asked to do something.
Stanley's Hollywood dreams were on hold.
But he did still have the patronage of the BBC at least for a while.
Once we won the first BAFTA for On The Bright Side,
that was one thing, and I went on,
under the aegis of Jimmy Gilbert, doing other shows like that.
Oh, he did impersonations,
we did a lot of that, we didn't have the same...
technical help that you would get nowadays,
it all had to be shot on film.
But, those were the most successful stand-up equivalents,
stand-ups that Stanley did in On The Bright Side.
They were very funny.
And here at last, the lovely pair...
Stanley enjoyed filming in the studio
and on location as was done for cinema.
Sketches looked better than if they had been confined to a stage
and live audience.
But they were more expensive to produce.
What they did at Ealing in the way of filming
was outrageous financially.
Any time we went for a cup of tea, everybody shut down,
but it costs money to do that.
Whereas we all went away to the canteen,
then back - "Oh, lunch!" -
we're on our way back to the canteen again...
Well, in the end it was astronomic.
And the powers that be said to Jimmy Gilbert, "I'm sorry.
"You may think that he's very happy doing it,
"but we can't afford it."
So, that's the first time, but not the last
that I was fired from television.
Stanley retreated to Scotland.
He still had a profile as an award-winning comic actor
and his friendship with Kenneth Williams
almost saw Stanley's career take a dramatic twist.
I got us a half invitation from Kenneth Williams.
IMPERSONATES KENNETH WILLIAMS: "Yes, would you like to do a Carry On?"
I said, "No way." I was very snobby about it at that time.
I still look at them and think, "Oh, my God, that is broad."
These surgeons or all right for a quick slash and a fast grope round,
but when it comes to cleaning up the mess,
it's a doctor that's needed.
I said, "No, I didn't want to do it."
But, of course, he loved doing it because there wasn't
a lot of work for him and it was like a great gang, his favourite people.
Hattie Jakes, someone he loved.
Stanley Baxter had been a stage sensation.
He'd won awards for his first ever TV show,
he'd starred in movies, but now, his career had reached a hiatus.
Then, in 1966, he met a young, Scottish director, David Bell.
It was a landmark, the start of a partnership that would ultimately
see Stanley Baxter make some of Britain's
most elaborate entertainment shows.
He was spotted by a very brilliant,
brilliant television director/producer, David Bell.
And it was David who created the format in Scotland,
the embryonic Stanley Baxter Big Picture Show.
The Baxter and Bell partnership was perfect, but Glasgow seemed to
lack the available studio facilities Stanley had enjoyed in London.
I said, "I do miss all that kind of stuff I used to do at Ealing."
"I've so many more ideas but we haven't got the facilities here."
He said, "I've got news for you, dear, we have in a way."
I said, "How do you mean?"
"Well, the place the BBC were working from has now been vacated."
"All the rigging is up there for the lighting,"
"we could go in there and create our own MGM."
The Stanley Baxter Show, scene one, take one.
Very revolutionary.
Over the shoulder and using him as all the characters,
a blue screen and all that.
But Stanley used it for humour as the first person to do it.
Stanley's TV shows from Glasgow developed
and showcased his talents but he remained a regional act,
on the periphery of the BBC network's vision.
When David Bell left Scotland to join London Weekend in 1970,
it looked like Stanley might be left on the shelf.
But fate was to hand him a golden opportunity.
He said, "I think you should go to LWT, they're interested there."
"I'd like you to meet the boss, Cyril Bennett."
I said, "OK, that would be fine."
"You think he would be really interested?"
"Yes, yes, he's very interested in you."
It was Stanley's good fortune that David Bell moved
to London Weekend and persuaded them to bring Stanley with them.
Then money was no object by that point and so the shows got
bigger and bigger, which was exactly what Stanley needed.
A bigger canvas.
I don't think the influence of David Bell can be underestimated
and also David Bell's willingness to stretch budgets.
David Bell's catchphrase was, "It's not your money, dear."
If only accountants came and said,
"Isn't this going a bit over budget,
"isn't this getting a bit expensive?"
He'd say, "It's not your money, dear."
There was nothing to stop the BBC doing what London Weekend did
with Stanley. I don't think they understood what they had.
They couldn't see it.
It was some regional token programme that came down from Scotland
and was played at 10:30 at night.
He wasn't loved and appreciated,
where as Stanley was a big star at London Weekend
and was given the star treatment.
Stanley's career took off. ITV provided a star billing and money.
Over the next 16 years,
the appearance of a Stanley Baxter show
could empty the streets.
So what made Stanley Baxter special?
It was the range of vivid characters,
starting with well observed ordinary people and escalating to
celebrity impersonations in elaborate parodies.
Stanley had an appeal for everybody.
In every one of his shows
you will find some very low musical humour,
you'll find some very camp humour,
you'll find some very sophisticated, witty humour.
He worked on many, many, many levels.
You started by being amazed at him playing all the different characters
and how it was put together,
but you soon forgot that because it didn't rely on that.
The humour was just so funny - the parodies, the silly sketches.
Stanley was a talented mimic from an early age.
I've always been terribly interested in dialect of all kinds.
I think we went to Blackpool once
and I started doing broader and broader.
My mother, who was a bit ancient,
was on to the fact that I could do this Lancashire accent.
LANCASHIRE ACCENT: There's a famous seaside place called Blackpool
that's noted for fresh air and fun.
She said, "That's quite good."
That was one thing I did, then I went for a holiday...
The family went on holiday to Portrush in Northern Ireland.
That accent so fascinated me, I started doing it in life all the time
until even my mother, who adored me doing any kind of performance...
"Oh, give over that. We're getting a bit fed up with that." I said,
NORTHERN IRISH ACCENT: "I love doing it, because it's so different from anything."
"Just forget it for a wee bit."
But I've gone back to it in television.
NORTHERN IRISH ACCENT: Are you waiting for the American plane too? No, Sydney.
Oh, my daughter's called Nora. She'll be through any minute now.
She's been in the States for four months.
Oh here, listen, you'll die laughing.
She sent me a wee box of six rejuvenating pills.
I took one and you know, I think it did make a difference.
Mother. Darling. You look marvellous.
Well I took one of your rejuvenating pills.
Don't tell me you've had a baby.
No, that's your father, he took the other five.
Stanley had always been most playful
when sending up his own accent, Scots.
When did you discover you had this great gift of languages?
SCOTTISH ACCENT: I have knew it for many a year.
As a diminutive wee'un, I was speaking French.
I remember sucking a piece of fruit and saying to my parents,
"Mere, Pere," which of course, as you know,
is French for mother and father.
So as I growed up, I felt it was incompetent upon me
to make myself multi-bilingual.
Parliamo Glasgow started as a germ of an idea in the '50s
and became a cult classic when LWT gave it a peak time audience.
Parliamo Glasgow
was a tremendous success.
Parliamo Glasgow took the form of a lecture by this don
about Glasgow habits and dialects.
Aye! Rat fat rats as blin' as a bloody bat!
It is time, now, to examine some of the words and phrases used by
the young lady and her fiance as they enjoy themselves at the football.
As soon as the game commences,
the young gentleman calls encouragement to the team he favours.
He gives voice to a word borrowed from the aboriginal
dwellers in New Zealand...
But I thought I'd be limited to Glaswegians. Quite wrong.
All of Scotland loved it
because Glaswegian is really the lingua franca.
The lingua franca of Scottish comedy.
So we have...
It's like turning
a magnifying glass
on something that you deal with every day of your life,
that you walk past, you've not noticed before.
And suddenly, you know, it becomes something. That's the genius of it.
I think it should be up there with all of the Mr Previews
and the Four Candles and all of those sketches,
because it's an incredibly clever setup.
It takes a Scottish in-joke
and makes it accessible to the whole nation.
The young gentleman does not relish having his singing interrupted
and addresses his companion with the Spanish sounding word...
Now, that does sound like a foreign language, doesn't it?
It is one on the gob you need.
It's a threat.
You know, it's one on the gob you need, my man.
That sounds vaguely Indian, doesn't it, some of these?
With the suffix rem, we have the inspiring cry...
That was the whole point of it, that he took something really,
really ordinary and cranked it up.
Parliamo Glasgow opened the door for comedy
and Glasgow dialect for years to come.
Oh, you know what, Rab?
You're beginning to speak my language. Is he?
Rab's with me.
When you come fae Govan, you speak straight fae the heart.
The reason we were able to take that where we took it
wasn't part of what had gone before.
If it hadn't been for the Parliamos and Stanley,
if it hadn't been for the Billy Connollys,
then we wouldn't have been able to
inhabit that territory that we did inhabit.
Hey, you're nothing but a waste of ozone!
Leave me alone! It's only me, it's only me.
Don't cough your lungs up onto the pavement, either.
You know when one of your sort of boyhood heroes turns up on a set
and essentially your set and you think, "Oh, God,
"we better get it right this week," you know what I mean?
Well, if you'll excuse me, some of us have some living to do.
Taxi!
It was great fun. Great fun.
Stanley's Scotsman was compelling much earlier.
In 1971, when The Goodies needed a stereotypical Scotsman
for their hunt for the Loch Ness monster,
Stanley was perfectly over the top.
We had the three of us
and then we would have a guest star
and Stanley was...
..guess what, he was a Scotsman.
Good morning.
It's a braw brich moonlich nich tonich.
'I don't know how,'
there must have been a gap in my schedule.
I've seen him quoted since as saying, you know,
he had no idea what it was and hadn't seen it, you know?
I still sense, slightly begrudgingly,
he said he enjoyed it.
# Oh, when the sun sinks in the west
# That's the time that I love best
# When the moon's a-roaming in the gloaming
# McHoots! #
You must be English tourists. That's right.
And you'll be after the monster, eh? Yeah.
Well, you've come to the right place and at just the right time.
The monster season's just opened again. Oh, yes?
Uh-huh. Now, you'll be needing your monster fishing permits.
That will be five pounds for the week in advance, if you didnae mind?
Thank you.
# If I ruled the world...
Stanley's career was flying.
Whilst he was a master of dialects
and audiences always loved his mimes of celebrities,
at LWT the shows got bigger.
The production team would match the characterisations with
elaborate costume, make up, sets and props.
# If I ruled the world
# Every head would be...
Seems to me that Harry has been singing those beautiful
and inspiring words since time began.
For all eternity, in fact,
and that, I think, is where we ought to send him.
# ..rule the...
EXPLOSION
# World. #
Stanley would play real people, you know.
He'd suddenly be Fred Astaire and also play Ginger Rogers.
And he had the voices and the mannerisms of these people.
The observation of the man, oh boy.
Didn't they?
AUDIENCE: Do well!
I'm not very well.
One of those winter colds, you know? All snuffly.
Just this morning, I woke up early, turned to Anthea and said,
"Don't you hate that stuffed up feeling in the morning?"
She said, "I rather like it."
# Christmas comes but once a year
# And that is once too much, I fear
# For someone who deplores The festive season... #
COMPERE: Nana Missouri.
APPLAUSE
LAUGHTER
You can link him to Ronnie Barker in the way that Stanley Baxter
would change his appearance.
You couldn't believe you were looking at him.
And, you know, people go, "Oh, he was in drag."
Yes, he did brilliant drag,
but you'd see him play a load of other parts.
It was all frightening. You thought, "How was he doing that?"
I loved doing Arthur Negus.
I thought it would be an idea if somebody brought in a human being
and he examined them.
Oh, you never knew you were worth so much, did you?
Oh, my word, now.
Isn't that a beauty, and aren't you a lucky lady there?
I'd make a guess that it's a maiden aunt.
Yes and I'm its niece.
And Arthur Negus dutifully
went round examining this postmistress,
making all the kind of comments he made about
a Chipperfield or something.
Someone's gone to a lot of trouble to preserve this one.
I like it because it's so simple.
It just oozes simplicity, this thing.
You know, at one time,
you'd probably find it behind the counter.
I'd say that it was a village postmistress.
Just look at those beady eyes
and that mean little mouth.
It's got "position closed" written all over it.
Now, everybody, funnily enough,
remembers that aunt with those great earphones
who didn't say anything.
She just stood there and glowered.
And they keep remembering that
where as I remembered the Arthur Negus.
It was one of the best impressions that I ever did of anybody.
And if we're very lucky,
we might be able to find a pair of old drawers in here.
No.
It was very well written by Ken Hoare.
Any idea how much it's worth?
Well, we're talking about a living, breathing antique.
I think that it could be worth about £700.
A most excellent postmistress.
HE KNOCKS ON WOOD Oh dear. Oh, what a shame.
I'm afraid it's absolutely valueless.
This rather crude bit of restoration
has totally ruined it.
This isn't the original leg.
It's a wooden one.
LAUGHTER
Nice bit of English oak, but oh dear, what a shame.
No, I'm afraid if you wanted to raise money on this,
you'd have very little to fall back on.
Stanley targeted the celebrities of the day,
but would never take off anyone he didn't like.
In 1972, the Queen took a direct hit.
I'm very big at the Palace, love.
So am I.
Yes, I got the idea that it would be wonderful to play
the Queen for the first time on television.
And we were all very, very nervous about it.
And we decided that perhaps the first outing for it
should be a royal film show.
It was the Odeon in Holloway Road.
They realised something was going to happen and a crowd had gathered.
David Bell, brilliant as he was,
he turned to them and said,
"Stanley Baxter's coming down that hill in a coach as the Queen
"and we don't mind you standing there as long as you don't shout out,
" 'Hello, Stanley!' or anything like that.
"If you behave exactly as the public would,
"then you can stay."
LAUGHTER
The red carpet will have to follow too.
50 extras for nothing.
And so that went very, very well and became the talk of the town.
And now, yes, the moment we've all been waiting for.
Her Grace, the Duchess of Brenda has come out onto the balcony.
One of the first people to impersonate
the Queen in a comedy sketch on television.
Sellers had done it on radio,
but Stanley did it slightly in disguise.
It wasn't stated as "The Queen".
It was "The Duchess of Brenda"
and of course, Brenda was the below-stairs nickname
for the Queen at Buckingham Palace,
which Private Eye caught up on as well
but that was a knowing little nod there.
Now she appears to be holding the end of a rope.
She is, of course, a keen sailor
and perhaps we're going to get a demonstration of her sailing skills.
Well, this is truly remarkable.
The human face of royalty.
And though this is her special day, her ruby wedding,
the Duchess has remembered that today is also Monday.
I was getting one or two rather rude letters
from Tunbridge Wells, and places like that.
"How dare you do our monarch! You ought to be horsewhipped!"
And that went on and on
until Barbra Streisand had a royal show herself in Leicester Square.
And they decided to have a line-up of some other personalities,
and I was chosen, which must have been approved by Her Majesty,
to be in the line-up,
and when they saw this, all the horsewhippers thought,
"She must have heard he's all right, or she didn't take exception to it."
Having done royalty, the Mafia and the Pope seemed fair game.
Godfather, this is the Holy Father.
Ah-bless you, my son.
Atchoo!
Bless you.
Ladies and gentlemen, Gilbert And.
Stanley's audiences had always been fascinated
by his seeming unlimited ability to gently mock celebrities.
But it's one reason his shows are rarely repeated.
It's only impressive if you know who they are.
# Watching Hughie Green on the TV screen, he committed suicide... #
That's why Stanley's sadly
one of the forgotten greats of British comedy,
simply because his comedy doesn't transcend to the modern era.
Stanley had a chameleon-like ability to mimic accents
and impersonate celebrities.
But throughout his career, his most exotic impersonations were of women.
But ladies and men are built differently, Tarzan.
Jane's chest has to stay covered up
because my chest is so much bigger than Tarz...
Oh, I don't know, though.
Well, Zsa Zsa, it's lovely to have you back in this country.
I suppose as always, when you're visiting Europe,
you'll be doing quite a lot of hobnobbing with royalty.
My momma always says to me,
"Zsa Zsa, when you're in Europe, try to make every second count.
"And every third or fourth viscount."
Well, you start in pantomime with male characters
and then you sort of are promoted to drag.
I mean, I began for Howard and Wyndham doing Aladdin, Wishy-Washy,
and Buttons, and then they gave you a chance at doing dame,
and of course, dame is the best part
and so once you succeed at that,
you're stuck with it, I'm afraid!
He took the tradition of pantomime dame to the extreme.
# Miss Measles is a dotty cute confection
# If I spot you You should go to bed with me
# I don't mean to sound erotic
# But my hot spot's so exotic... #
Never think that you're playing a woman.
No matter how good the legs were, no matter...
It was always Stanley,
and it was always a man, obviously a man sending it up.
But I think also, that comes through
from the Combined Services Entertainment days,
where it was a necessity, because they had no women,
so they had to play the Betty Grables
and the Hedy Lamarrs and whatever,
so I think that's something that Stanley carried through.
And he's one of the very few people who can do the full drag
and if anything, convince you
that he'd make a better woman than a man because he had fantastic legs.
But people think I have feminine legs. I haven't.
I've got the legs of a footballer, covered in hair.
But the cycling that I did
when I was evacuated to Millport in the Firth of Clyde
made the legs like an athlete's.
Now, if you have an athlete's leg...
..and you put on one thing to cover hair and everything,
and then the silk stockings,
you end up with pins that people say, "Oh! What pins!"
But it's an illusion, like everything we do.
# If patients holler for a bedpan
# I just keep my head
# And I ask them, kinda deadpan
# Why cook in bed?
# And at six the matron knocks off
# That is when I get my rocks off
# And I go lie down
# With some new discovery
# Speeding his recovery
# I'm the hottest nurse in town! #
I always preferred doing those male characters to the female,
contrary to what many people think.
Well, the verisimilitude was greater. I'm five foot ten and a half.
Any woman I've played had to be a bit daft and strictly for comedy.
Stanley Baxter's growing catalogue of faces captivated audiences.
ITV was hungry for more shows
but the preparation and production time involved
in taking on so many characters and situations
was almost overwhelming.
The solution from his producer
opened the door to a whole new chapter in Stanley's screen career.
David Bell said, "Now, what are you willing to do?
"They're desperate for you to go on doing these shows."
I said, "Well, the four I did were all right
"but I didn't think they were ambitious enough."
He said, "They went very well." I said, "I know they went very well,
"but I think I'd like to do... I don't know."
"Well, they want six or more." I said, "No, impossible."
Because just to do costume fittings alone for six shows
with 12 characters in each one, I'd be hours just doing costume fittings
and anyway, I can't dream up that number
and then he said the thing that changed my life.
"Supposing we just did one hour with you,
"in which you did all the parts
"with just dancers and singers behind you?"
Hey, hi there. I'm your producer, Stu Bundy. Now, Mr Lobb...
Actually, it's The Very Reverend C Lobb.
Ready to go as soon as Quentin GETS HERE! I'm trying to be patient.
Hello! Quentin?
God almighty, you've been putting them away, haven't you?
In 1974, the Stanley Baxter Moving Picture Show won a BAFTA.
Stanley played all the parts but let his producer David Bell collect it.
Playing more than one part had been part of Stanley's television shows
since the early '60s.
What started as a sequence of edits
that allowed him to play more than one part in a scene
evolved into early visual effects
where layers of Stanleys would populate a picture.
If you look at something like Mike Yarwood's show,
Yarwood would do two characters at the same time.
Maybe he'd do Harold and Albert Steptoe.
And the way Yarwood would do it was,
he'd put on a trilby hat for Old Man Steptoe
and then a peak cap for Harold
and he'd just swap the hats and go into the different characters.
Stanley would take something like Upstairs Downstairs
and he would play every single character.
Potage a la bonne femme, le fruit de mer...
What? Fruits of the sea. Whatever's that?
Oh, scallops to you!
And you and all, Mrs Bridges.
He used trick photography in a time when that was very innovative.
It was the combination of Stanley's brilliance as a performer
and his good sense of material
and David's technical genius about making things possible
and pushing him all the time,
you know, "Darling, you could play six parts in this,
"you could play eight parts."
And Stanley's, "What about playing ten?" "Yes, we can do it,"
and using the medium before special effects and digital and all that.
Yes, sir. May I help you?
# Silver bells... #
In 1977, ITV joined with the American broadcaster CBS
for a very special Christmas special.
Stanley portrayed all the characters in Upstairs Downstairs
as they welcomed Hollywood legend Bing Crosby.
300 million Americans tuned in
to what was Bing's last television appearance.
This is Mrs Bridges, our esteemed cook.
And this is Rose, our house parlour maid.
She'll be in charge of all your personal needs,
including your laundry, so if you have any special instructions,
please let her know. Not too much starch in the sweat socks.
Oh! Bear that in mind, Rose.
And say hello to...
Oh, I know who this is, Mr 'udson.
What a thrill to meet one of Paul Whiteman's rhythm boys in the flesh.
If you'll excuse the word.
My auntie used to collect all of your gramophone records.
Or was it Mr Sinatra?
It was probably Frank. He was wild about my Whiteman period.
Being part of the Bing Crosby Christmas Special
was a huge accolade, and still the Stanley Baxter shows got bigger.
He had started with traditional music hall entertainment.
He played with accents
and brought celebrities into sketches through impersonations.
He was even a convincing woman.
He didn't need anyone.
He could play all the parts.
# Side by side
# By side
# By side by side by side by side by side! #
I find it all...
all so incredible.
All jungle is same.
Is not incredible.
It is in the middle of Wiltshire.
But there was one final crucial element
in the construction of a Stanley Baxter Show -
the set.
It's a disgrace.
They come over here and carry on like they own the place.
The physical staging had to grow to accommodate Stanley's ambitions.
An eager crew of designers and craftsmen
gave Stanley backgrounds of Hollywood proportions.
I fear our brave boys will be pulling out of Atlanta before nightfall.
I declare I'm sick and tired of this silly war. Why don't we leave Tara?
Leave the plantation, Scarlett?
Never. Land worth fighting for, worth dying for!
Tara will be here long after you are lying under the sod.
Which reminds me, I haven't seen Rhett Butler in days.
Rhett Butler, take your hands off me! Go to your white trash!
Cousin Lulabelle is waiting for you.
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
You know what I'm going to do, Scarlett? Tear off that fancy dress
and smother you all over with custard, sponge cakes and sherry.
No, I won't be trifled with!
He was a huge star. He was the star that everybody wanted.
He actually said himself, I believe,
that he didn't actually want to build some of the lavish sets.
When he did Brideshead Revisited, he asked for a corridor.
They built him an entire set.
# What was the strange attraction I cannot comprehend
# A woeful lack of action for weeks and weeks on end... #
They threw huge pots of money at him
and Stanley basically said,
"OK, if you're going to give me this, I'll use it,"
but in many respects, that was perhaps part of his downfall.
Well, you'd have to go back and ask them how much it all cost
and what they did, but I know that when I turned up,
it was as I had dreamt it up.
There was the big building,
there were the ladies loos, one of which I was coming out of.
AMERICAN ACCENT: Oh, my God! I'm locked in the john!
Don't panic, ladies!
I'm going to try and ease my door open!
It was brilliant, brilliant stuff,
brilliant combination of technical wizardry and artistry.
And there was a sense in some ways
that in the end, it just got a little bit too big.
Help!
Harry, you are not going to believe this.
We got a fire going up here!
Like it's escalating to danger level! You know what I mean?
Here's what you do.
Get yourself a heavy object and break the door down.
No, of course I won't go away.
Something tells me that I'll never go very far away from you after today.
There's something about you, Carol. I like your style.
Hell, we've never even met, but I'd say that you were a warm person.
Yes, that's because my dress is on fire.
At his peak in the 1980s,
Stanley Baxter's television shows were nothing short of epic.
They delivered huge audiences, but they were expensive.
Throughout his career, nobody questioned his talent.
Everybody worried about paying for it.
# Legs over the saddle
# Thighs properly spread
# I love to be mounted on some thoroughbred... #
And of course, every time he did a show, Stanley,
the bench got higher and higher
because he had to top what he'd done last time,
but we were...I was always happy to sign the cheques
because he always delivered, you weren't wasting the money.
# Some say my way looks a bit of a stunt
# Legs over the saddle
# Riding's the life for me. #
And to give somebody that amount of money to make a show wasn't...
Stanley was, you know...
He charged a fee, but I mean, he was in it...
He was a professional and needed to be paid,
but that wasn't the problem.
The problem was the ambitions had got greater and greater,
which they needed to do,
and in hard times, you know, you have to make cuts,
but I certainly didn't cut Stanley.
Whatever he wanted to do...
If Stanley wanted to make a show, I was ready to sign the cheques.
Miss Jones, has my 12 o'clock appointment arrived yet?
'Waiting in reception, sir.'
Do you think she suspects anything?
Yes, as long as I had Michael Grade on my side...
..the shows went on
and they kept saying, "He's our flagship! Economise somewhere else."
MISS PIGGY VOICE: Let's discuss my television spectacular, shall we?
I want the full star treatment.
The dressing room I'm in now is a pigsty.
But in 1981, Michael Grade left ITV for projects in America.
The following executive, John Birt, was under more financial pressure.
Budgets were re-evaluated
and Stanley's epic spectaculars were cut from the ITV schedules in 1983.
In the '80s, when he left London Weekend to go to the BBC,
there was a sense that television was getting smaller.
London Weekend, to fill its quota, was doing lots of people shows,
things like Game For A Laugh,
and doing lots of game shows like Punchlines with Lennie Bennett.
Stanley never got sacked, really.
He just wouldn't compromise his vision. You know, Stanley...
TV got smaller. Stanley stayed the same... Stayed the same.
But just a year later, in 1984,
the television executive merry-go-round spun again.
Suddenly, we got Michael Grade back from America, who phoned me up
and said, "Is this true that you're not doing any more LWT?"
I said, "No, I was fired."
"Well," he said, "I've been invited to take over at BBC.
"Would you come over and do them for me?"
I said, "Will I ever! Of course I will."
How do you do? Geoffrey Bainbridge.
It's terribly naughty of me to come popping in like this,
but I couldn't face cleaning up the West until I had a very dry martini.
So I went and did two very successful ones.
They also cost quite a lot of money, but they were very successful.
This here's your ticket to paradise, Sheriff! Ain't you going to draw?
When you say that, smile.
Is that a threat?
No, a compliment. You have lovely teeth.
Have a care, Sheriff. This guy's robbed 22 stages.
Even more than Peter Hall.
Tomorrow I'll meet you at the railroad depot
for a shootout at high noon.
Impossible. I'm never up till one.
And then what happened?
John Birt left LWT to take over,
senior this time, to Michael Grade.
And he told the authorities
that they had to lose £19 million in the coming year.
And I was told very apologetically...
"Well, there's no doubt that most of the money in light entertainment
"went to your show, so I'm afraid we're going to have to let you go."
I said, "Oh, third time! There's no surprise to me,
"being fired all the time, costing too much."
They had been an eagerly anticipated treat on our screens for 25 years.
Now it was the final curtain for the Stanley Baxter shows.
His spectaculars were luxuries
British television just couldn't afford.
But with so much talent and such a huge following,
surely there was still a place for Stanley on our screens?
Once you hit the heights that Stanley hit
and when you look back at those shows
and you see the scale of the ambition,
the brilliance of the implementation and the realisation
and the stunning crits, the great ratings,
I mean, it was just amazing.
That was his stock, that's what he did for a living,
it was to do those big shows, playing all those parts,
and once the money wasn't there to do it,
what else would he want to do?
He couldn't go back and do a sort of cheap sketch show.
Everybody would have been so disappointed, so I think he made...
The decision was made for him, but I think he was wise
not to come back in a sort of bargain-basement-level type show.
I think it would have been horrible.
I thought when I was fired for the third time
that really I should try and jack all this in.
I said, "I just need to make a wee bit more money
"before I can afford to get...
"Afford a private pension."
And again, fate intervened,
and I got the offer of a very well-paid series
of Mr Majeika, a children's programme.
And that went on for three or four seasons.
It was a completely new thing for me, to be honest,
but I did think of one idea, that is that every time he did magic,
he'd have a little tuft of hair that would wiggle.
# A chest of drawers
# A carpet, sofa, clock... #
And that went down very well.
Bats, boils...
Ah! Boxes.
It's time to get moving, Majeika.
And that went on for three or four seasons
and so the money...
Because one fee for television,
although the thing was glamorous, was not a lot of money,
and so at last, I was getting a great wad of money,
and so now I said, "If I just do one pantomime
"and get a percentage of the box and that does well,
"I think I will be able to retire!"
"Urgent! Exit visa!"
Oh, you couldn't possibly beam me up right now, sir?
Majeika worked his magic on Stanley's pension fund,
and Stanley was able to retire from mainstream television in 1990.
I think Stanley showed immense dignity in retiring
because there's nothing worse than someone who can't or won't let go.
He realised...
"This isn't the business that I started in."
Sometimes people ask me why I didn't compromise more
and it was simply that I was too anxious
to get into an area that I wasn't completely familiar with.
When people said, "Wouldn't you consider doing a sitcom?"
I said, "Oh, no. All those lines to learn
"and I hadn't dreamt it up myself
"and I'd depend on a writer that I may not trust,"
and I was just over-anxious.
APPLAUSE
In 1997, Stanley's contribution to comedy was marked
with a lifetime achievement award.
A lifetime achievement award. I feel I'm much too young for this.
LAUGHTER
Thank you very much, judges. It's so much appreciated.
Stanley's reign as master of extravagant light entertainment
had lasted for a generation of television.
From the '60s through to the '80s, he starred in unique spectacles,
the likes of which British television might never see again.
I mean, take this hebburn here. Look at it.
Eh? Old shovel-arse here.
Scotland's finest.
But there is only one Stanley Baxter, and there is really
only one person who's done the sort of shows that he did.
BIG BAND MUSIC
Would I like to see the Stanley Baxter Big Picture Show tomorrow night, a new one?
You bet I would. I'd cancel anything. He is a genius.
It was showbiz, and he does showbiz very, very well.
# With our dancing feet! #
But you know, when I look at those shows now, I'm still quite proud.
They hold up, and they're still glamorous, which is what matters.
APPLAUSE
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd