Gay comedian Tony Slattery has died at the age of 65 following a heart attack after years fighting addiction to cocaine and alcohol as well as a battle with bipolar disorder and depression.
The stand up, best known as a star of Channel 4‘s Whose Line Is It Anyway?, passed away today, his bereft partner of almost 40 years, Mark Michael Hutchinson, revealed.
Slattery was last seen in an Instagram post on Christmas Day where he wore a tinsel and holly scarf and fans of his new podcast, the Rambling Club, remarked on how well he looked.
His lifelong friend Stephen Fry led tributes today, declaring he was ‘wonderful’ and ‘just about the gentlest, sweetest soul I ever knew. Not to mention a screamingly funny and deeply talented wit and clown’.
He added: ‘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. He had started live “evenings with” and his own podcast series. Lovely, at least, this past year for him to have found to his joyous surprise that he was still remembered and held in great affection’.
Slattery was the contemporary of Dame Emma Thompson, Sir Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie – where he was president of the improv group The Cambridge Footlights in the early 1980s. But he suffered a breakdown in 1996, when he was one of the most famous comedians in the UK.
Tony was last seen on TV five years ago in a documentary about the link between depression and addiction. But he had recently been touring a comedy show in England and launched a podcast, Tony Slattery’s Rambling Club, in October.
Revealing his death, his partner Mark Michael Hutchinson, who met Tony while starring in the musical Me and My Girl in the West End in 1986, said today: ‘It is with great sadness we must announce actor and comedian Tony Slattery, aged 65, has passed away today, Tuesday morning, following a heart attack on Sunday evening.’
Tony said in 2017 that he thought it was a ‘miracle’ he lived as long as he did due to his addiction but admitted his partner Mark had kept him ‘alive’ during their relationship of almost 40 years.