Sunday Mail  (U.K. newspaper)
August 18, 2002, Sunday
NEWS; Pg. 11
ROCKABILLIES; LEGENDS BOB, ROD AND PAUL FORM SUPERBAND FOR BIG YIN'S BIRTHDAY
Steve Mckenzie And Jim Lawson

BIRTHDAY Big Yin Billy Connolly celebrated his 60th in style last night ‑ with the world's richest rock band.

Music legends Sir Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart and Bob Geldof provided the former shipyard welder with a unique rendition of Happy Birthday.

 Lord of the manor Billy splashed out pounds 1million on the birthday bash at his Scottish estate, Candacraig. Prince Charles, his partner Camilla Parker Bowles and Prince Andrew were among the guests at the knees‑up at Strathdon in Aberdeenshire.  

The kilted heir to the throne drove himself and Camilla the 20 miles to Connolly's house from Balmoral ‑ where he had been on his summer break with the Queen and Prince Philip ‑ in a dark Vauxhall estate car.  

Connolly and his wife, comedienne Pamela Stephenson, lived it up with their royal pals and showbiz buddies.  

The Big Yin has copied another royal tradition ‑ having two birthdays. He is not actually 60 until November, but didn't let that stop him staging the ultimate bash.  

The party guests included Reservoir Dogs star Steve Buscemi, funnyman Robin Williams, Scots hunk Ewan McGregor, Monty Python men Michael Palin and Eric Idle and Patrick Stewart, who plays Star Trek's Jean‑Luc Picard.  

Also there were Billy's close friends Dame Judi Dench and comedy star Steve Martin, as well as many local people he has befriended since buying the 15‑ bedroom 17th‑century mansion for pounds 500,000 a few years ago.

The Big Yin used a menu based on his famous banana boots.

The centrepiece for the banquet table was a 5ft high ice sculpture in the shape of his three‑wheeled Harley Davidson bike, which Billy rode across Australia on his World Tour TV series.  

The meal included haggis, Loch Fyne salmon, black pudding and Cranachan ice cream and Donside Fudge.  

The whole shindig was masterminded by Pamela and has been six months in the making. Even the lads who erected the gigantic marquee on the front lawn were put up in style in posh hotels for three weeks at Billy's expense.  

And last night flags were being placed in the grounds in preparation for a mock battle to complete the celebrations.  

Tourists couldn't get a bed in Strathdon and neighbouring Royal Deeside because of the 200 party guests.  

And on Friday, two taxis were sent to the nearby Monaltrie Hotel at Ballater to pick up Thai food for Billy's pals.  

Security was tight. Kilted guards patrolled outside Candacraig. Guards were also stationed outside the Hilton Craigendarroch in Ballater, where several stars stayed.  

Sir Paul and new wife Heather met up with Bob Geldof there for a quiet drink on Friday night.

The Herald (Glasgow)
August 17, 2002
Pg. 13
Stars say cheers to the laird of comedy;Profile: Billy Connolly; From a tormented childhood, through alcoholism and depression, the entertainer has become a huge star who will today celebrate his birthday with the glitterati in his native Scotland, says Lorna MacLaren  
Lorna MacLaren

 IT'S been an unlikely journey, at one point a struggle through the mire of alcoholism, depression, and contemplation of suicide, but Billy Connolly has emerged in triumph, a millionaire entertainer with a happy family life, who is now grand enough to have, like the queen, two birthdays.  

Today the self‑proclaimed ''nutter in a castle" is hosting what will be the party of his lifetime, a lavish celebration in honour of his 60th year at the stately Highland home he owns just 16 miles from Balmoral.  

Guests ‑ including Star Wars actor Ewan McGregor and American comics Robin Williams and Steve Martin ‑ will enjoy a week of revelry in the 15‑bedroomed Candacraig House in Strathdon, culminating in the Lonach Highland Games where Connolly revels in the role of laird.  

The Prince of Wales, who along with Wills and Harry has popped in for dinner on several occasions, is also expected to make an appearance with Camilla.

With his acting career still bringing in work, his wife's book on his life, Billy, in demand, and him being the new face of the Lotto, life seems to be blossoming at 60 for the Big Yin. Each year, as the culmination of a week of house parties, the comedian once famed for his outlandish satin costumes and banjo playing, dons Highland dress to hold court at Candacraig as the March of the Clansmen, led by Major Sir Hamish Forbes, upholds its ancient right to tramp ‑ not in his big banana boots ‑ through the glens to the games, halting at the five "big hooses" on their way for a dram.  

Over the years his fame, wealth, and royal friends have drawn flak from Scots who see his showbiz life as a betrayal of his roots as an approachable Glasgow patter‑merchant. This has always infuriated him. He said of attending dinner with Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson: "Was I supposed to turn down the invite because I was working class?"  

All the pomp and circumstance of this weekend is light years away from the lowly way in which the Big Yin was introduced to the world. On November 24, 1942, he was born on the cold kitchen floor of a third‑floor tenement in Anderston, Glasgow.

This inauspicious entry was not to be his only early trauma.  

When he was three and his sister Florence was five, Mamie, their mother, abandoned them in the care of neighbours. It was wartime and their father was in Burma.  

Connolly's aunts, Margaret and Mona, reluctantly looked after the two bewildered children, passing them back and forward between them. Connolly, especially, suffered physical and verbal abuse from Mona, which only stopped after she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. He remembers vividly the blood from his nose dripping on to his feet. He was also being bullied at school and picked on by a sadistic schoolteacher who'd told him that Jesus was dead because of him.  

The cruelty did not stop after his father returned from the war. Often drunk, he would share a fold‑down bed with the boy and sexually abused him for five years. These revelations came out after his wife, the former comedian and now psychotherapist, Pamela Stephenson, wrote his life story.  

She recounted how as a boy Connolly dreamed of escaping his fearful surroundings, believing that one day he would find a better life.  

When he was 16 he saw his chance in the shape of a welding apprenticeship at Govan dockyards. The zany humour he used as a shield for his anxiety made him popular. He was trying to get started as a folk musician and gradually his act contained more funny stories and sketches than music.  

He was soon touring Britain. He looked like a medieval wizard with his wild hair and beard and delighted audiences with intelligent, irreverent comedy routines, based on his life experiences in Glasgow.  

But it was an appearance on The Parkinson Show which made him a star. He was 33 and told a near‑the‑knuckle joke about a man killing his wife, burying her face down in the driveway, and using her to park his bike. It was outrageous, but got a huge laugh. Soon everyone wanted him. Behind the scenes, however, the cracks in his psyche were deepening.

As he became more successful and famous, he was drinking more. Depression was always in the background and he got blind drunk to blot out the misery. Meanwhile, his marriage to first wife, Iris, was floundering. He had two children, Cara and Jamie, and was becoming increasingly isolated from them. Iris and he divorced in 1984, and it was in 1986 that he wed Kiwi‑born Stephenson whom he had met while doing a sketch for the comedy show, Not the Nine O'Clock News.  

The glamorous blonde, who had never heard of Connolly until they worked together, fell for what she called this "crazy, hilarious, sensitive, charismatic savage".  

During the seventies, he says, he had been out of control. He had met Jimi Hendrix and could not remember a thing about it, had got wrecked on brandy and coke with Led Zepellin's John Bonham, and he had been out drinking with Keith Moon on the night that The Who drummer died. The book Stephenson wrote about her husband documented every painful step of those desperate years, and the abusive childhood he'd suffered before then.  

She threatened to leave him in a final attempt to get him sober. Now 51 and still with her trademark blonde hair, she says of writing the book, Billy: "Of course I have a very close relationship with my husband, but I've had to sit back and try to be more objective. And it's the objective part of me that goes, 'Oh, my God, how did he do this? How could he have survived?'."  

In 1989 Connolly was invited to the US to be the replacement star of a popular comedy show on NBC, and this meant him agreeing to a four‑year contract. He was to play the immigrant teacher of a group of gifted children in Head of the Class. The move to California made his name in the US and film work started to come his way. It all began slowly before taking off in spectacular style with the British‑made Mrs Brown (Dustin Hoffman called Connolly's acting, alongside Judy Dench, "the most exciting male performance of that year"). He has gone on since then to do other critically acclaimed pieces for film and television.  

The Connolly family base remains in America. From the sun‑deck of their Hollywood home they can look down on to the back‑lot of Universal Pictures. Still together and with three daughters of their own ‑ Daisy, Amy, and Scarlett ‑ Connolly says simply: "Marriage to Pam didn't change me, it saved me."  

Today the former wild man is a non‑smoking, teetotal, vegetarian. He admits that if it hadn't been for his wife sticking by him he would not have been around to enjoy a relationship with his children and now a grandchild ‑ never mind scooting around Australia on a Harley or dyeing his beard green.  

So, as the billowing marquees are decorated with fruit and flowers, and the lawns of his sumptuous estate await the party guests, he will no doubt have a few quiet moments contemplating his rise to this point.  

He admits himself to having lived two lives, but he swears he's never forgotten his roots or lost touch with his background. "I pray that somewhere there's some wee boy whose hero I am who'll look at me and say, 'Well, Connolly did it. Left school wi' sod all, wrote plays, appeared at Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden, on the telly. It can be done'."  

He says he'll always remember something a friend once said to him that sums it all up: "Look at you, Billy . . . you're a welder who got away with it!"

The Express
August 16, 2002
NEWS; Pg. 5
THE BIG YIN GOES FOR CHEAPER ALTERNATIVE TO SCOTTISH PLAID; COMEDIAN CONNOLLY CUTS HIS TARTAN PARTY CLOTH TO SUIT HIS PURSE

CANNY comedian Billy Connolly will be pulling the wool over the eyes of stars invited to his 60th birthday Highland fling ‑ by opting for polyester tartans.

The millionaire comic plans to decorate his Aberdeenshire mansion for the party with hundreds of yards of his clan cloth.

Sunday Express
August 11, 2002
NEWS; Pg. 33
BILLY CONNOLLY IS ABOUT TO CELEBRATE HIS 60TH BIRTHDAY, A MILESTONE HIS FRIENDS ONCE THOUGHT HE WOULD NEVER REACH; THE WOMAN WHO BROUGHT THE BIG YIN TO HIS SENSES
Ruairi O'Kane  

AS Scotland's most famous funnyman hosts a star‑studded party to mark his 60th birthday, one woman must take a lot of credit for ensuring he reached the landmark.  

Comedian Billy Connolly's 60 years have seen dizzying highs and depressing lows but his wife, Pamela Stephenson, 54, has remained a calming factor in his enduring success and appeal.

The Australian‑born comic turned psychologist has helped Connolly deal with his addiction to alcohol and drugs and come to terms with the childhood sexual abuse he suffered from his father. Now the couple and their three daughters, Daisy, Amy and Scarlett share the trappings of Hollywood success and live a lavish lifestyle.

Around 200 stars of film and television are expected to descend upon the tiny rural community of Strathdon, Aberdeenshire, next weekend to honour the Big Yin's milestone.  

Among them are expected to be comedian Robin Williams and Star Wars actor Ewan McGregor.  

Connolly's birthday is not until November but he has moved his party forward to ensure it coincides with the Lonach Gathering, and invitations to stay at his Highland retreat, Candacraig House, are much sought after.  

Actress Dame Judi Dench and comics Steve Martin and Eric Idle are among those who have stayed with Connolly and Pamela at the 19th century mansion.  

Pamela's award‑winning account of her husband's life ‑ the candid biography Billy ‑ revealed how she helped him confront the demons which threatened to ruin his career and his life.  

Now teetotal and clean from drugs, Pamela said that in hisdarkest hours, her husband was a suicidal madman.  

Of his alcoholism she said: "It turned him into a mean, violent, out of control nutter, with a psychotic rage, frequent blackouts and memory loss.  

"When I saw Billy in concert, I began to realise that he was a real hero to many people, and yet what I saw of him personally, particularly in the dressing room, was that he was about to die.

"He was very suicidal."  

The pair met when Connolly was booked to appear on The Not the Nine O'Clock News show. She admitted she had never heard of him.

During the infamous programme, Billy played the Ayatollah Khomeini while Stephenson sang a love song to the Iranian leader dressed as a terrorist.  

However, as a result of the Iranian Embassy siege that same week the scene was dropped.  

Instead viewers were treated to the sight of the Scotsman being interviewed by Stephenson dressed as Janet Street‑Porter.  

According to Stephenson, she felt their first meeting had been a disaster.

She said: "I sensed that Billy had not been too impressed with me."

Years later the star admitted to his wife he thought she was out of his league and would have preferred Oxbridge guys to a former Clyde shipbuilder.

However, at the time both were still married to other people ‑ Connolly to his then wife Iris, and Stephenson to actor Nicholas Ball.

The Daily Telegraph (London)
August 19, 2002, Monday
Pg. 09
Like Oscar night with midges for the Big Yin's 60th
Auslan Cramb Scottish Correspondent  

THE Laird of Candacraig is not your average member of the Highland landed class. The Saltire at half‑mast marking the anniversary of Elvis Presley's death should have been a clue to that.

The people attending the laird's 60th birthday party at the weekend were a bit out of the ordinary too. There was Steve Martin, Robin Williams and Steve Buscemi, the guy who met a nasty end in Reservoir Dogs ‑ and some of the neighbours from a few miles down the road, at Balmoral. Then there was the musical accompaniment, provided by the Tartan Amoebas, and the tartan hangings, made of polyester.  

But then the Laird of Candacraig is Billy Connolly.  

Twelve weeks after David Beckham and his wife Victoria blew the gross national product of a small country on their decidedly B‑list celebrity bash to mark the onset of the World Cup, Connolly and his wife, Pamela Stephenson, showed them how to hold a proper "do" at their Aberdeenshire seat, Candacraig House.  

The Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles, on holiday at Balmoral, were among the guests for the event on Saturday night, as were the Duke and Duchess of York, who arrived separately.  

They were joined by Sir Paul McCartney and his wife Heather, Dame Judi Dench, Rod Stewart and Whoopi Goldberg, plus Sir Bob Geldof, Ewan McGregor, Michael Palin and Eric Idle. One resident of the village of Strathdon described it as "just like Oscar night. Except for the midges".

Of course, the truly stylish never invite the likes of Hello! into their parties, and thus the proceedings remained largely a mystery to the outside world. However, the nosey were able to glimpse the construction of a medieval jousting arena, raising the possibility of a high‑profile casualty list the following morning. Disappointingly, it was merely the venue for a display laid on for the guests.