Talk:Stanley Baxter

Marriage

Removed the reference that Stanley Baxter was unmarried. He had been married for 46 years when his wife died in 1997.--Stevouk 12:18, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

"Legal action" over Kenneth Williams diaries

The entry contains the following statement: "Baxter sought to maintain the secrecy around his sexual orientation, with his biography describing how he had taken legal action over the posthumous publication of Kenneth Williams' diaries".

Whatever Stanley Baxter may have told his authorised biographer, he never took any legal action against the Kenneth Williams diaries. At the time of their publication Baxter, who was maintaining his public stance of heterosexuality, was EXTREMELY anxious that he might be outed by them. But while the manuscript diaries include a number of stories that make Baxter's sexuality very clear, their editor Russell Davies – who was well aware of Baxter's fears – made the kindly decision not to include them in the published version. There was therefore no occasion for legal action of any kind. (Besides which, Baxter would have known all too well that any legal challenge could only have ended disastrously for him.) ~2025-40251-52 (talk) 10:21, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

• The legal action might have been legal threats such as getting a solicitor to put pressure on the publisher. Anyway, there's some good details of their close relationship at the Herald. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:54, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

  There's a detailed article at Scotland on Air which says

  The decision by the publisher HarperCollins to publish Kenneth Williams' Diaries in 1993 deeply worried Baxter because of what they would reveal about his own private life. He called his solicitors who, on his behalf, argued that much of what Williams wrote was embellished or made up. As a result, the 28 volumes of diaries were condensed into one book with any potentially defamatory or damaging material removed.

  However, on 7 May 2001, the Daily Record revealed the contents of letters Baxter had written to Williams in which he gave details of relationships with male partners dating back to the 1960s and 70s. Despite Baxter's attempts to lay claim to the letters, they were sold at Christie's and their content leaked to the newspaper. Baxter called his lawyers and demanded a retraction, arguing that he had copyright over the letters while he was alive under privacy laws. The newspaper's lawyers apologised and the story was wiped from its website.

  Andrew🐉(talk) 17:06, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

  (I should mention that I was closely involved in the publication of the Kenneth Williams diaries.)

  I can say with absolute certainty that HarperCollins never received any correspondence whatsoever from any legal representative of Stanley Baxter. He did, however, write one letter himself, along the lines of – I'm quoting from memory here, and it was many years ago – "Kenneth often used to amuse my wife and myself with salacious stories about people in the public eye who were not in fact gay, but who he suggested were. You should treat any such anecdotes in the diaries with caution." Note the casual reference to his wife.

  And there was never any intention to publish the millions of words of Williams' diaries in their entirety. From the outset, it was always going to be a single-volume selection. ~2025-40251-52 (talk) 22:21, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks for your input. I'm not sure what Baxter's biography says about this but it's a weak source as it's personally biased. If there wasn't actually a court case then then we might just say that Baxter "made representations" rather than "legal action". Andrew🐉(talk) 22:40, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

  It’s a very small point, about which no one now living cares either way. But because I was personally involved, I felt impelled to stick my oar in! ~2025-40569-73 (talk) 23:52, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Excessive praise from AI-written expansion

This major expansion by Goodreg3 shows evidence of AI-generated puffery. If Baxter was truly "regarded as one of the most influential figures in British and Scottish comedy", then something remotely like that should be found in the cited sources. The two cited sources at the end of that paragraph are silent on the topic of Baxter's influence.

Certainly BBC can be cited saying Baxter influenced Rory Bremner and Victoria Wood, but this minor influence should not be blown out of proportion by computer hallucinations.

We should reduce the AI slop that says that Baxter was an expert in British dialects. That's giving far too much credence to a comic who was great at impressions rather than a scholar versed in linguistics. The Guardian wrote that, "His mastery of the nuances of dialect and the speech patterns of humbler folk was also uncanny", which is a fine quote. This other online source praises his skill at impressions, writing, "His powers of imitation showed no bounds". We should be quoting sources like these, not fabricating something larger.

I propose rolling back the linked expansion effort to start fresh. Binksternet (talk) 03:45, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

@Binksternet: Thanks for picking this up. I support the removal of the AI slop. While updating the article I had initially had a focus on the unsourced parts, only later noticing that the sourcing of that specific content was attributed to an aggregator site, hence putting in links to reliable sources. Drchriswilliams (talk) 09:12, 21 December 2025 (UTC)