The Scottish  Comedian and Female Impersonator Stanley Baxter, who died yesterday aged 99, was one of the biggest stars in British TV in the 1960s and 1970s and 1980’s.  And although one would have never dared say it to his face, he was also one of the country’s first real drag stars.  With his pitch-perfect impressions and parodies of HM The Queen and of the big movie stars of the day, like Julie Andrews, he probably spent more time in drag in his shows than he did in men’s clothes. 

However, despite all the stardom and the trappings that accompanied it, Baxter fastidiously avoided all publicity. Although he married in 1951, he was a closeted gay man parainod of living through an era when being gay carried profound risks — legally, professionally, and socially.

Strangely enough, that wasn’t the reason his TV career ended, but it was his insistence on making each of his shows extravagant spectacles, which, in the end, the TV Companies said they could no longer afford.  The sad part of that is that there are generations of gay men who have never heard of this talented man, whom they would have loved all his performances.

In The Real Stanley Baxter, the authorised biography released in 2020 and co-written with journalist Brian Beacom, Baxter finally revealed that he was gay. He also shared that he had told his wife, actress Moira Robertson, before they married in 1951. Their marriage endured for 46 years until her death of an overdose in 1997; it was a partnership rooted in honesty and mutual respect despite the personal complexities they navigated. However, Baxter is quoted in the book saying “My greatest regret is in marrying Moira Robertson. Who knows what her life would have been like had she married someone who could have loved her in a different way?”

Also in the book, Baxter admitted that he had once been charged with soliciting for sex in a public bathroom, which was dismissed because his lawyer proved there were no other men there.  How he kept that secret for some 40 years is a testament to his paranoia about ever being outed

“Anybody would be insane to choose to live such a very difficult life,” he said, capturing the fear, stigma, and silence that defined the time. His honesty resonates now, offering a window into what many performers of his generation endured while trying to protect their careers and loved ones.

At the peak of his fame, Baxter’s TV  Shows brought such joy to as many as 20 million people each week …… but we will never really know much happiness that gave him.