Billy Connolly
£0.90
The inside story of the one of the most successful British stand-up comedians, as told by the person best qualified to reveal all about the man behind the comic, his wife of over 20 years – Pamela Stephenson.
Once in a lifetime, there strides upon the stage someone who can truly be called a legend. Such a person is the inimitable, timeless genius who is Billy Connolly. His effortlessly wicked whimsy has entranced, enthralled – and split the sides of – thousands upon thousands of adoring audiences.
And when he isn’t doing that…he’s turning in award-winning performances on film and television.
He’s the man who needs no introduction, and yet he is the ultimate enigma. From a troubled and desperately poor childhood in the docklands of Glasgow he is now the intimate of household names the world over.
How did this happen, who is the real Billy Connolly? Only one person can answer that question: his wife, Pamela Stephenson. Pamela’s writing combines the very personal with a frank objectivity that makes for a compelling, moving and hugely entertaining biography. This is the real Billy Connolly.
This genre-defining book is now released as an ebook for a new generation of comedy fans, with a new Foreword from the author. Pamela’s vision of Billy is as true now as it ever was – as groundbreaking, as moving and as laugh-out-loud funny – and here she brings the book fully into its context, as one of the most influential biographies ever written.
Read more
Additional information
| Publisher | HarperCollins Entertainment (7 Jun. 2012) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 12484 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Not Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 314 pages |
by Cruise Queen
I’ve read most of Billy’s other books and to be honest I felt short changed with them…. This book is written by his wife Pamela and to me it is a far better account of his life , warts and all . There are a few jokes and sketches in the book and they come across quite funny . Well worth the money .
by Tricia Gabbitas
When I first saw Billy Connolly on tv I thought “oh he swears a lot”. I wasn’t prepared for that but over the years I’ve watched him with tears streaming from laughter. Pamela Stephenson has written
a wonderful book about him full of insights and wonderfully entertaining. The number of times I’ve laughed out loud has been a joy. Thankyou!
by Lesley Maiden
Happy with the my purchase. haven’t had a chance to read it yet but item arrived promptly and as advertised.0
by L6krb
Always tended to think Billy Connolly was a tad overrated, nothing in the book changes that train of thought, though it was a interesting book and well written by his wife who has obviously analysed him very well.
by Magic Lemur
It struck me. In a Flash. Half way through these CD’s. Can you name any other wife or partner who has written a book about her husband/ boyfriend?
There are possibly some, though I’d suspect they were mostly poetry or books like
The Two of Us: My Life with John Thaw
(by Sheila Hancock) written as a eulogy.
Couple this with Dr Stephenson-Connolly’s PhD in Psychology & you have something utterly unique, which must have been hellishly difficult to write without at least one argument with the man himself.
But it is this uniqueness that gets to the heart of what makes Billy tick. A man so complex requires many years of study & is very likely a degree subject in his own right, with a unique gift for making life funny & yet underlying quirks & tensions which would send lesser men crazy.
The thing I enjoyed most about this CD is it didn’t over-bake its premise. Yes, it is very analytical, but not in a cruel, Freudian way or a doting schmaltzy way either. Primarily, it is a biography of Billy, with a lot of detail about his abusive childhood, coupled with excerpts from his modern life offering explanation for why he behaves in certain ways.
It moves through his meteoric rise from welder, to folk singer to plain stand-up comic & then goes through all the relationship difficulties & addictions he was facing at the time when he met Pamela Stephenson.
Happily, I didn’t detect any self-righteousness, condescension or bitterness throughout the whole book. From appearances, Billy & the author were a good match & I suppose any cracks in the relationship would have made a book such as this impossible.
All this said, I do find myself agreeing with tinsoldier100550’s review in criticizing the author’s writing (or rather reading) style & her Pam-ism’s. This book is hardly heavy-weight & is not really a very objective study of its subject, shying away from really thorough analysis.
Putting that aside, I think a balance is achieved between wanton Poetic fan-letter & dry psychological analysis & the book mostly steers a course down the middle, making for easy listening. It’s always fascinating to learn about someone’s rise from poverty to fame & this Biography achieves most of its aims.
Overall? Thoroughly recommended as something unusual to think about while commuting.
by lavenderbof
Fantastic page turner couldn’t put it down can’t wait to see the next one shall be looking fir it at once
by Ms Page
This was the most brilliant read. I have read previous autobiography’s on Billy Connelly but this had the added twist of being written by someone who knows him the best, his wife Pamela. Her insight into her husband’s past was very interesting and the anecdotes that Billy must have told her over the years were so funny. This is a laugh out loud book and emotional too, hearing stories from his childhood.
If you have seen Billy in concert and on TV, as I have done over the years, some of his sketches will be familiar to you but this only added to bringing back to your memory how hysterical he was performing these comedy classics. These memories will definitely stay with me. He is truly a master comedian and this book lived up to and beyond my expectations.
by welsh wizard
An enjoyable book in so much that it reveals the
inner demons and very private incidents of Britains most loved and admired comedian. However, the writing of Pamela Stephonson was more and more
frustrating as the book went on. Her references
to herself were frustrating ( who is the book about? Her or her husband? ) and the twisting of the narrative to include her professional interpratations of his mental state was uneccessary. A biography should be neutral and filled with factual information so the reader can form his own opinions, not biased by the personal views of the author. By far her most annoying limitation as an author was her recollection of past incidents which were totally out of place with the story and were purely placed in the book to ‘drop names’. For example, suddenly and with no real relation to the current narrative, there is a short paragraph where she explains how her son has never been sick, except once when he was sick on Joan Collins. There are continual examples of this throughout the book, odd little paragraphs with tenuous relevance and limited interest whose only purpose is to mention famous people they know.We know he has famous friends, he is a very popular famous man, it would be more interesting and surprising if he didn’t have any famous friends! The most nauseating by far was when she mentioned how she, Princess Di and Fergie went out on the town dressed as policewoman. I’m afraid it comes over as being very vain, insecure, shallow and totally uneccessary, it just doesn’t add anything to the book, it detracts. A real shame, as Billy Connolly is without exaggeration the closest thing I have to a hero, I truly admire and respect the man, and as such I feel he deserved a better biographer.