He also reveals his late wife would let him bring home men for sex while they were married.
Donald PadgettScottish actor, comedian, and performer Stanley Baxter came out as gay in a new authorized biography and revealed that his wife let him bring home men for sex while they were married. According to the Daily Mail, the 94-year-old legend tells biographer Brian Beacom in The Real Stanley Baxter of the inner struggles with his sexuality that haunted him throughout his life, and the heartbreaking relationship he had with his wife of 46 years, Moira.
“She was very good about letting them go to bed with me,” Baxter said in the book. “She would go off to our bedroom and let me take the one opposite.”
At the time, homosexuality was illegal in the country. Alan Turing, famed British codebreaker and the subject of the movie The Imitation Game was prosecuted, imprisoned, and chemically castrated for homosexual acts in 1951.
Baxter was arrested in 1961 for allegedly soliciting sex from undercover police officers in a public bathroom. Thoughts of suicide danced in his head and he thought his career was over.
“I was going to top myself,” Baxter revealed. “I thought, ‘My career will never survive this. And if I don't have a career, what do I have?’”
Friends initially shunned him, but the charges were dropped and his career resumed, taking off to new heights.
To the outside world, he was the most successful British entertainer of his generation. In addition to his multiple television and radio programs on the BBC, he also played Dr. Prentice in the original stage performance of Joe Orton’s classic What the Butler Saw in 1969.
With him nearly throughout his career was his wife, Moira, a fellow thespian from his early days in theatre following World War II. The pair had grown close, but he broke off the relationship when the topic of marriage was raised. He eventually revealed to her he was gay and could not marry, but she refused to accept no for an answer and the pair eventually tied the knot. Her behavior became erratic and she struggled with mental illness. The pair eventually separated but remained in daily contact. She died of an apparent overdose in 2008.
Baxter made the decision to come out publiclynow in part to be true to himself while he can, but he still does not appear entirely comfortable with his sexuality.
“The truth is,” he said. “I don't really want to be me.”
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