Billy Connolly to be Accorded BAFTA Fellowship
variety.comNaman Ramachandran Comedian, actor, artist, writer, musician and presenter, Billy Connolly (“Mrs. Brown”), will be honored with the BAFTA Fellowship at this year’s Virgin Media BAFTA TV Awards.The fellowship is the highest accolade bestowed by BAFTA in recognition of an individual’s contribution to film, television or games across their career.
Previous TV honorees include Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, Jon Snow, Bruce Forsyth, Joanna Lumley, Melvyn Bragg, Michael Palin, Trevor MacDonald, David Attenborough, Julie Walters, Ray Galton, Alan Simpson, Katie Adie and Joan Bakewell.In 1995, Connolly won the BAFTA Scotland entertainment category for “Billy Connolly’s World Tour of Scotland.” He has since received five BAFTA nominations, and has been presented with a BAFTA special award in 2002 and the BAFTA Scotland outstanding contribution to television and film in 2012.
Connolly left school at 15 and began a career as a musician and also started a folk duo with Gerry Rafferty called The Humblebums.
His storytelling ability led to an appearance on Michael Parkinson’s BBC chat show “Parkinson” in 1975, where one outrageous story catapulted him to stardom.
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