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June 17, 2018 by Alexander Meldrum
The Big Yin Billy Conelly
Sir William Connolly, CBE (born 24 November 1942), known as Billy Connolly, is a Scottish comedian, musician, presenter and actor from Glasgow.
He is sometimes known, es...The Big Yin Billy Conelly
Sir William Connolly, CBE (born 24 November 1942), known as Billy Connolly, is a Scottish comedian, musician, presenter and actor from Glasgow.
He is sometimes known, especially in his homeland, by the nickname "The Big Yin" ("The Big One").
His first trade, in the early 1960s, was as a welder (specifically a boilermaker) in the Glasgow shipyards, but he gave it up towards the end of the decade to pursue a career as a folk singer,
firstly in the Humblebums alongside friend Gerry Rafferty and Tam Harvey until 1971, and subsequently as a solo artist.
In the early 1970s, Connolly made the transition from folk-singer with a comedic persona to fully fledged comedian, for which he has received numerous awards.
Connolly is also an actor and has appeared in such films as Water (1985), Indecent Proposal (1993), Pocahontas (1995), Muppet Treasure Island (1996), Mrs. Brown (1997), The Boondock Saints (1999),
The Man Who Sued God (2001), The Last Samurai (2003), Timeline (2003), Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004), Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006), Open Season (2006), The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008),
Open Season 2 (2008), Brave (2012), Quartet (2012), and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014). Connolly reprised his role as Noah "Il Duce" MacManus in The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (2009).
Ancestry
Connolly's paternal grandfather, whom — like his paternal grandmother — Connolly never met, was an Irish immigrant who left Ireland when he was ten years old.
His great-great-great grandfather (Charles Mills, a coast guard, 1796–1870) and great-great grandfather (Bartholomew Valentine Connolly) were from Connemara.
Connolly's father was William Connolly; his mother, Mary "Mamie" McLean, was from the Clan Maclean of Duart Castle on the Isle of Mull on the west coast of Scotland. Mamie's father, Neil, was a Protestant, and her mother,
Flora, was a Roman Catholic who "made clandestine arrangements for the children to be baptized as Catholics", although they were "formally raised as Protestants".
His maternal grandparents moved inland to Finnieston Street, Glasgow, in the early 1900s.
His maternal great-great-great-grandfather, John O'Brien, fought at the Siege of Lucknow during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
He was wounded during the long siege by a severe gunshot to the left shoulder. He married a local 13-year-old Indian girl called Matilda. They had four children and settled in Bangalore after his military service.
Origin of "The Big Yin"
Connolly's The Big Yin nickname was first used during his adolescent years to differentiate between himself and his father.
My father was a very strong man. Broad and strong. He had an 18½-inch neck collar. Huge, like a bull. He was "Big Billy" and I was "Wee Billy".
And then I got bigger than him, and the whole thing got out of control. And then I became The Big Yin in Scotland.
So, we'd go into the pub and someone would say, 'Billy Connolly was in.' 'Oh? Big Billy or Wee Billy?' 'The Big Yin.' 'Oh, Wee Billy.' If you were a stranger, you'd think, 'What are these people talking about?'"
Connolly's observational comedy is idiosyncratic and often off-the-cuff. He has offended certain sectors of audiences,
critics and the media with his free use of the word "fuck" and he has made jokes relating to masturbation, blasphemy, defecation, flatulence, haemorrhoids, sex, his father's illness,
his aunts' cruelty and, in the latter stages of his career, old age (specifically his experiences of growing old).
In 2007 and again in 2010, he was voted the greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups. He once again topped the list on Channel 5's Greatest Stand-Up Comedians, broadcast on New Year's Eve 2013.
Since the 1980s, Connolly has worn a custom-made black T-shirt with a shirt-tail as part of his on-stage attire. The first one was by the now Belfast based English designer Stephen King.
From around the same time, his manager has been Steve Brown.
go to wikipedia for full life history
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