Merseyside Mirth Makers - Freddie Starr

Frederick Leslie Fowell, aka Freddie Starr, was born on the 9th of January 1943 at 10 Ulster Road, Old Swan, Liverpool and in 1947, the Fowells moved to Brookwood Road, Huyton, on the infamous 'Blue Bell Estate' where Freddie was educated at Huyton Secondary Modern School in Rupert Road.

Like Billy Butler, previously, Freddie has already appeared in our Merseyside Pop Music feature  -         ( http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2016/10/mersey-beat-midnighters.html )

Still relatively unknown to television audiences, Freddie Starr was "discovered" through the talent show 'Opportunity Knocks', where he appeared as part of a comedy/beat act 'Freddie Starr and the Delmonts'. At this time he was also a highly popular stand up comedian and variety act on the comedy club circuit. He appeared on the 1970 Royal Variety Performance and from 1972 was one of TV's popular performers, an impressionist in the television series 'Who Do You Do?' and also a regular on the TV panel show 'Jokers Wild'. His boyhood school friend and neighbour Tony Cartwright became his manager in 1967, signing him as an all-round entertainer, and held that a position for more than 25 years.

Freddie is arguably the most outrageous mainstream UK comedian of his generation, a unique comedy talent with enormous popularity. That popularity was to some extent down to the fact that audiences could never predict what madcap stunt he would pull off next. 'Big name stars' or the audience itself were his target as they nervously watched his mischievous grin. It was his TV exposure that meant more and more people got to know about him and this naturally lead to larger audiences buying tickets to see his variety shows. Variety was his forte because, as well as being a very good stand up comic, he was a highly accomplished singer with his 'Elvis' impressions being excellent.

By the mid 1970's Freddie had become a Superstar in the UK. His handsome good looks coupled with his amazing singing voice won him the adoration of thousands of loyal fans. His popularity acquired him a small fortune and he found himself working flat out 50 weeks of the year to sell-out audiences.
During the mid to late seventies he continued working hard, keeping to punishing and relentless performance schedules. His popularity never wavered, but his enthusiasm did. His workload had taken its toll - he wasn't used to all the fame and fortune and he quickly grew tired and fatigued. His personal life began to suffer, too, and this is when his career took a dramatic downward turn.

His appearance on 'Parkinson' with Muhamed Ali in 1981 was one of TV's funniest but soon after he seemed to have lost that sparkle. Television work started to become less frequent because his outrageous stunts concerned many television producers who thought he was just too much of a 'loose cannon' to show to a British family audience.
Luckily his popularity never dwindled on the comedy circuit and his loyal fan base continued to pack out theatres and clubs around the UK to support him despite his 'lack of of sparkle'. Plenty of 'false starts' followed until, in 1996, he was offered the chance to do "An Audience with Freddie Starr" where on the 2nd of March 1996 he produced an amazing 'tour de force' performance - 12 million viewers tuned in to watch. Critics loved it. In fact, it was so popular that ITV asked him to do another "Audience With" which he duly accepted.

'An Audience With Freddie Starr' 1996

However this second show was very poor, after halfway through the show he abandoned his script written by top comedians especially for him and just regurgitated old material he'd been doing years before. As a result the audience cringed with embarrassment. He just wasn't funny!
TV work eventually dried up which was a shame as Freddie always appeared to lose everything just when things seemed to going great.
His comic genius was brilliant but it could have been legendary, and perhaps if he had done things differently he would be remembered for his talent rather than some of the more publicised unsavoury moments.

see next :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2018/12/merseyside-mirth-makers-faith-brown.html?q=Billy+Butler