Billy Connolly

Sir William Connolly, CBE is a Scottish retired stand-up comedian, musician, presenter, actor, and artist. He is sometimes known, especially in his homeland, by the Scots nickname The Big Yin. Connolly announced his retirement from comedy in 2018, and in recent years he has established himself as an artist.

About Billy Connolly in brief

Summary Billy ConnollySir William Connolly, CBE is a Scottish retired stand-up comedian, musician, presenter, actor, and artist. He is sometimes known, especially in his homeland, by the Scots nickname The Big Yin. Known for his idiosyncratic and often off-the-cuff observational comedy, which frequently includes the use of profanity. Connolly announced his retirement from comedy in 2018, and in recent years he has established himself as an artist. On his 75th birthday in 2017, three portraits of Connolly were made by leading artists Jack Vettriano, John Byrne, and Rachel Maclean. These were later turned into part of Glasgow’s official mural trail. In October of the same year, he was knighted at Buckingham Palace by Prince William, for services to entertainment and charity. He has appeared in such films as Indecent Proposal, Pocahontas, Muppet Treasure Island, Mrs Brown , The Boondock Saints, The Last Samurai, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, Brave, and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. He was born in 1946, when he was four years old, in Anderston, Glasgow. His mother left her children while their father was serving as an engineer in the Royal Air Force in Burma. In 2009, he said: ‘I still have the scars of that.

I don’t an ounce of feelings that she abandoned me. It’s still a belief that I’m not quite as good as anyone else… It gets worse as you get older.. I’m a happy man now but I still have a belief I’m just a little bit less good than I used to be’ He has called his sister his ‘great defender’ and ‘Guys say, ‘God, your sister didn’t beat you up – we didn’t dare beat up your sister.’ ‘To this day, he explained in 2009, his sister has called him her great defender.’ ‘I don’t have any regrets. I’ve never felt abandoned by her,’ he said. ‘Given the choice, I think I’d have gone with him. It looks as though it might all end next Wednesday, from where you’re standing. From where I’m standing, from where I’m sitting, I don’t have any regret’ ‘I wish I was in Glasgow,’ he added. ‘I would take you there and show you but they’ve pulled the building down’ ‘They bulldozed it all to make a road,’ Connolly said in his 1983 song ‘I Wish I Was in Glasgow’ ‘Dover Street, between Breadalbane and Claremont streets, was demolished in the 1970s. Connolly refers to this in the 1983 song, with the lines: ‘They’ve pulled down the building and I’d like to go back to Glasgow. I’d love to go to Glasgow’