Freddie Starr (born Frederick Leslie Fowell on 9 January, 1943) is an English comedian who shot to fame in the early 1970s. He is also a veteran impressionist and singer, with a chart album (After The Laughter) and UK top 10 single (It's You in March 1974) to his credit. ^[1]

[edit] Early career

In the early 1960s, Starr was the lead singer of the Merseybeat pop group The Midniters. The group was promoted by the manager of the Beatles, Brian Epstein, and was recorded on the Decca label by Joe Meek, the producer of the single "Telstar". During this period Starr performed in nightclubs in Hamburg and was an acquaintance of the Beatles.

Still relatively unknown to television audiences, Starr was "discovered" through the talent show, Opportunity Knocks.^[2] He appeared on the 1970 Royal Variety Performance. From 1972, he was one of the main performers in the television series Who Do You Do.^[3] and also a regular in Jokers Wild. He went on to star in his own series.

[edit] Freddie Starr "ate my hamster"

The headline as it appeared in The Sun.

Freddie Starr was the subject of one of the most famous British tabloid newspaper headlines. On 13 March 1986 The Sun carried as its main headline: FREDDIE STARR ATE MY HAMSTER. According to the text of the story, Starr had been staying at the home of Vince McCaffrey and his 23-year-old girlfriend Lea La Salle in Birchwood, Cheshire when the incident took place. Starr was claimed to have returned home from a performance at a Manchester nightclub in the early hours of the morning and demanded that Lea La Salle make him a sandwich. When she refused, he went into the kitchen and put her pet hamster Supersonic between two slices of bread and proceeded to eat it.

Freddie Starr gives his side of the story in his 2001 autobiography Unwrapped. He says that the only time that he ever stayed at Vince McCaffrey's house was in 1979 and that the incident was a complete fabrication. Starr writes in the book: "I have never eaten or even nibbled a live hamster, gerbil, guinea pig, mouse, shrew, vole or any other small mammal". The man behind the hamster story was the British publicist Max Clifford. When asked in a television interview with Esther Rantzen some years later whether Starr really had eaten a hamster, his reply was "Of course not". Clifford was unapologetic, insisting that the story had given a huge boost to Starr's career. In May 2006 the BBC nominated "FREDDIE STARR ATE MY HAMSTER" as one of the top British newspaper headlines of all time. ^[4] Starr's frustration at being linked perpetually to the hamster story was expressed in a newspaper interview:

Starr says that the story came about after he made an offhand joke about eating a hamster in a sandwich.^[5]

[edit] Later career

Freddie Starr discusses the hamster story and other aspects of his career in his 2001 autobiography Unwrapped.

In 1994 Freddie Starr was again the subject of tabloid newspaper attention in Britain. Thousands of pounds worth of jewellery went missing from Starr's home where a man named Robin Coxhead worked as a gardener and Coxhead was suspected of stealing it. When questioned by the police, Coxhead claimed to have given oral sex to Starr over a period of five years, and that the jewellery had been given to him as a reward. The case went to court and Coxhead was discredited when he was unable to state whether Starr's penis was circumcised or uncircumcised. Coxhead was found guilty and sentenced to 15 months in prison in 1995.^[6]

Apart from the occasional guest appearance, Starr has not been seen regularly on British television since the late 1990s. ITV's The Freddie Starr Show, broadcast between 1996 and 1998, was his last major work for the medium. ^[7] His appearances on LWT's An Audience with Freddie Starr in 1996 and Another Audience with Freddie Starr in 1997 were critically acclaimed, although Starr admits in his autobiography that his television appearances often failed to capture the chaotic atmosphere of his live performances.

In 1994 he was the owner of Minnehoma, the winning horse in the Grand National race. ^[8][9]

In 2004 he appeared on television as one of the celebrities in the second series of the ITV1 reality show, Celebrity Fit Club, where he was made team captain, but was demoted three weeks later for not taking the role seriously.

Freddie Starr gave an interview to the Herald Express, the local newspaper for Torbay in Devon which was published on July 20, 2007. In it he says that his father was violent and broke both his legs, a claim which does not appear in his 2001 autobiography Unwrapped. He says that he was taken away from home for two years at the age of six after his father beat him up. In Unwrapped, Starr gives speech problems as the reason why he spent two years away from home as a child. ^[10]

In January 2008, Starr and his wife Donna took part in Celebrity Wife Swap, exchanging with Samantha Fox and her partner Myra. ^[11]

[edit] Stand Up Comedy Show Videos

• Live (1993)
• Live And Dangerous...And Very, Very Rude! (1994)
• Live And Devilish (1995)
• The Legend Is Back (1997)

[edit] See also

• Rock Star Ate My Hamster

[edit] Further reading

Unwrapped - My Autobiography by Freddie Starr with Alan Wightman ISBN 1-85227-961-3

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Freddie Starr's official website
• Freddie Starr's entry in IMDb