Born on May 24, 1926, Baxter first performed on stage when he was just six years old in a tiny hall in the Patrick area of Glasgow. He developed his comedy skills when he joined the British Army’s Combined Services Entertainment unit. After wartime service he joined the Citizens Theatre as an assistant stage manager. His first appearance in a major production was a small part in Tyrone Guthrie’s famed 1948 Edinburgh Festival production of The Three Estates.
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Baxter made his television debut on the BBC’s Shop Window in 1952, followed by guest appearances on variety shows. His major television break came with the satirical sketch show On the Bright Side co-hosting with Betty Marsden for which he was awarded the BAFTA for Light Entertainment Performance. The Stanley Baxter show, which ran from 1963 to 1971, cemented his reputation and catapulted him to television stardom.
He was one of Scotland’s best-known pantomime stars for decades and appeared in a number of films, including Geordie, Very Important Person, Crooks Anonymous and The Fast Lady.
Baxter’s fondness for breathing life into his impersonations by dressing like his characters led one critic to daub him ”the dame of the century”. At the height of his career, more than 14 million people tuned in to watch his Christmas specials.
Baxter largely retired from regular performing work and from the Scottish panto circuit in the early 1990s.
In 1997 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the British Comedy Awards.
In 2004, Baxter returned to the radio when he starred in Stanley Baxter And Friends, a series of four comedy plays co-starring the likes of Maureen Lipman, Claire Bloom, Phyllis Logan, Lynn Ferguson, Greg Hemphill and Ford Kiernan.
In 2020, at the age of 94, Baxter lifted the lid on his personal life to reveal in an authorised biography that he spent nearly 50 years married to wife despite knowing he was gay.
His last public appearance occurred that same year when he accepted the Outstanding Contribution to Film & Television award during the virtually held BAFTA Scotland awards ceremony.
In his acceptance speech, Baxter said: “I don’t think I could have been anything else but a performer. I was so rotten at everything else I tried to do.
“Normally at school, you know you find out there what you have a talent for. It turned out I had no talent at all, but really it gave me all my interest with showbusiness. That was true all of my life.
He also credited his success to his celebrated “Parliamo Glasgow” sketches, adding: “There was always a worry that they might find it too broad, but I knew damn well that Scots are able to laugh at themselves, of course they could. And so it proved to be.”
Sir Billy Connolly paid a special video tribute, saying: “I know that you don’t like this kind of thing, but you deserve it.
“Nobody deserves it more. The work you put in in the 60s and 70s stands on its own. You’re a marvel and you’ve got beautiful legs.”
A new documentary Being Stanley Baxter, about Stanley’s extraordinary life and career will be broadcast on BBC 1 Scotland at 10pm on the 31st December and will then be available on BBC I-player. Produced by Karen Steyn at IWC Media and directed by Laura Blount, it is hoped that a network broadcast of the film will take place around what would have been Stanley’s 100th birthday in May 2026.
Stanley leaves a younger sister, Alice Warwick, along with her son Tony and daughter Zoe. His late wife Moira died in 1997, and his long-term partner Louis died in 2017.
At Stanley’s request, his funeral will be a small private ceremony in the company of family and close friends and there will be no memorial service or memorial plaques.
