Tragic Tony Slattery’s battle to beat booze & drug demons saw him living in warehouse and throwing furniture into Thames
COMEDIAN Tony Slattery’s “dazzling talent” delighted fans for more than 40 years – but behind the humour he was deeply troubled by depression and addiction.
At the height of his career, the stand-out star of Channel 4 improv show Whose Line Is It Anyway? — who died today after a heart attack aged 65 — disappeared from public life after suffering a breakdown at the age of 36.
Tony later referred to the episode as a six-month period of torture in which he spent time living in a warehouse and “throwing (his) furniture into the Thames”.
He added: “I had a very happy time until I went slightly barmy.”
Tony, who also appeared in films including How To Get Ahead In Advertising, The Crying Game and Peter’s Friends, was among a group of comics who emerged from the Footlights student comedy troupe at Cambridge University in the 1980s.
Close friend and fellow ex-Footlights star Sir Stephen Fry led tributes to Tony, calling him “the gentlest, sweetest soul”, adding: “Not to mention screamingly funny and a deeply talented wit and clown.”
And comic Al Murray wrote: “Really sad news about Tony Slattery. Such a dazzling talent.”
Tony was a familiar face and voice on TV and radio in the late ’80s and ’90s, in comedy shows such as Radio 4’s Just A Minute and Have I Got News For You on BBC One.
Then in 2020 he appeared in a BBC documentary, What’s The Matter With Tony Slattery?, in which he revealed he had been sexually abused by a priest when he was eight years old.
As an adult plagued with demons, he turned to booze and drugs.
He said he never knew how much he spent on cocaine but “would not be surprised” if media reports were true that he splashed out £4,000 a week on the drug, consuming 10g of coke and two bottles of vodka a day.
Tony was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and after the documentary he went into therapy.
Later he said he had cut down his drinking “by about a quarter — and that’s a start”.
Despite his traumas, his popularity remained undimmed, with adult comic Viz dedicating a one-off comic strip to him called Tony Slattery & His Phoney Cattery.
But most will remember him for his hilarious skits on Whose Line Is It Anyway?, alongside fellow panellists such as Paul Merton, Josie Lawrence, Sandi Toksvig and Rory Bremner. It ran for 48 episodes between 1988 and 1995.
In his tribute to Tony, Stephen Fry said it was a “cruel irony that fate should snatch him from us just as he had really begun to emerge from his lifelong battle with so many dark demons”.
Born in Stonebridge, North London into a working-class Irish family, Tony was the youngest of five children. A sporty lad, he gained a black belt in judo and represented the England under-15s internationally.
After secondary school in West London, he won a scholarship to read languages at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
Dark demons
He then met Stephen, who became a close friend and invited Tony to join Footlights, where he met contemporaries such as Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Sandi Toksvig and discovered a love of theatre.
Tony’s first TV break came on Chris Tarrant’s show Saturday Stayback in 1983. In 1988, he made his debut in Whose Line Is It Anyway? and was soon appearing regularly.
In 1995, he was nominated for an Olivier Award for best comedy performance in the Tim Firth stage play Neville’s Island.
As his career developed, Tony managed to keep on the straight and narrow in terms of mental health, and for that he credited his partner, actor Mark Michael Hutchinson, who he met while performing in the West End musical Me And My Girl in the mid-80s.
Tony, who lived with Mark in a flat in Edgware, North London, once said of his partner: “He’s kept with me when my behaviour has been so unreasonable and I can only think it’s unconditional love.
“He’s certainly not with me for my money — we don’t have any.”
During Tony’s TV documentary about his mental health, Mark described how he could see the comedian’s “vulnerability, his feelings of being lost and alone”.
He echoed the sentiments of Tony’s many fans when he added: “He makes me laugh, he makes me cry, no matter what.”