Donations are pouring in to help pay for Tony Slattery’s funeral – after the comedian ended his days in a modest terraced home having burned through a fortune.
Slattery, who died on Tuesday aged 65 after suffering a heart attack, had battled depression and drug addiction which led to a withdrawal from lucrative work on the UK comedy circuit – and was open about being financially ‘naive’.
The actor and comic previously told of his shame after his mother found uncashed cheques worth £100,000 ‘scrunched up’ under a sofa in his former luxury home – because he felt clueless about what to do with them.
And now friends say his longtime partner has been landed with hefty costs because the couple had no ‘plan B’ in place ahead of his unexpected passing.
An appeal has been set up on behalf of Slattery’s partner Mark Michael Hutchinson towards a fitting farewell to the funnyman famed for his appearances in 1980s and 1990s Channel 4 improvisational comedy show Whose Line is it Anyway?
At the height of his Nineties fame, Slattery had a luxury warehouse apartment beside the Thames in Wapping, east London – but in his final years was living in a suburban cul-de-sac in Edgware, north London.
That was where he suffered a heart attack last Sunday before being rushed to nearby Nortwich Park Hospital with his partner clutching his hand, friends have revealed. Slattery died at the hospital in Harrow, north-west London, on Tuesday.
So far the Crowdfunder set up in response to his loss has raised more than double the initial £8,000 target, with hundreds of online tributes to the performer flooding in – but organisers revealed they have also received some abuse from internet trolls.
Tragic comedian Tony Slattery (right) is seen with his longtime partner Mark Michael Hutchinson at their north London ‘two-up two-down’ in a 2020 BBC documentary
This purple home in Edgware, north London, was where Tony Slattery lived with his partner of almost 40 years Mark Michael Hutchinson ahead of his death aged 65 on January 14
The comedian and actor was a regular TV presence in the 1980s and 1990s – before stepping away from the spotlight in the following decades
Tony Slattery’s last public appearance was a Christmas Day message to fans on Instagram
A message posted on X, formerly Twitter, said: ‘We are overwhelmed by everyone’s support. Thank you. Few nasty comments but we just block and ignore.’
The appeal was set up by Allan Lear, who co-presented Slattery’s podcast Rambling Club which was launched last October and has released 14 episodes.
The web page describes Slattery, 65, as ‘a titan of British comedy’ and said: ‘Because Tony was only just getting back to work, and because his passing was so unexpected, there wasn’t a Plan B in place.
‘If you could give just a little towards a funeral for Tony, it would be a huge weight off Mark’s shoulders at this miserable time.’
The appeal explained: ‘Sadly, in later years mental health issues had diminished Tony’s career, but with the unwavering support of his long-term partner, Mark, he made it through the wilderness and was back touring and performing comedy.
‘Life was starting to look rosy again when, to the great shock of all who knew him, he suffered a fatal heart attack. Mark and Tony were looking forward to celebrating their fortieth anniversary this year.’
The couple lived together in a rented terraced cottage owned by a property developer in Edgware, north London, worth an estimated £500,000.
Slattery said of Mark in a 2019 Guardian interview: ‘He was there for me when my behaviour was so unreasonable that I could only think it was unconditional love.
Mark Michael Hutchinson (left) and Tony Slattery (right), seen here together in their Edgware home in a 2020 documentary, first met when both were in a West End musical in 1986
Friends from Tony Slattery’s podcast have now set up a Crowdfunder appeal to raise money for his funeral – and thanked fans for support while also saying there had been negative responses
‘He’s definitely not with me for the money – we don’t have any money. This is the secret of love.’
After years battling drug and mental health issues, Slattery was slowly trying to rebuild his career when he was struck by a fatal heart attack on Sunday.
Slattery was last seen in an Instagram post on Christmas Day where he wore a tinsel and holly scarf and fans of his podcast remarked on how well he looked.
The latest weekly episode was released last Friday, just four days before his death.
Millionaire ex-Cambridge University friend Stephen Fry, a fellow Whose Line is it Anyway? performer, had produced a promotional video for the podcast and Julian Clary was also a guest on a recent show.
Fans were encouraged to subscribe to the podcast via a Patreon site asking for donations of either £3, £5, £25 or £100 a month.
A post after his death on the Patreon site said: ‘Your support helped to make the last six months of Tony’s life some of the most happy, creative and fulfilled days he had in a long time.’
As well as the podcast he had resumed touring and amongst other gigs had a monthly residency at Fort Perch Rock venue in the Wirral., north-west England.
Tony Slattery told BBC viewers he was now living in a rented ‘two-up two-down’
The vast majority of comments have been supportive – while also condemning any critics
One reviewer, Mike Moorhouse, posted on social media about his last show on December 21, saying: ‘Smashing night out, good family fun, the whole cast were excellent.’
There have also been shows at Tank Bar in Warrington, Cheshire, and he was due to play at The Marine Theatre in Lyme Regis, Dorset, later this month.
Unlike his former Footlights colleagues such as Sir Stephen, Hugh Laurie and Dame Emma Thompson, Slattery had no big companies, few recent TV or film roles and limited royalties from his successful past.
In a bittersweet reference to this the blurb from one recent show said at The Place, Bedford, said he discussed ‘the highs and lows of his life and career’ and ‘how he nimbly dodged the global superstardom that claimed so many of his colleagues’.
Slattery previously indulged a £4,000-a-week cocaine addiction and had by his own admission gone ‘slightly barmy’ at the age of 36 and at the height of his fame.
As well as cocaine, he was drinking huge amounts of vodka and said he had been a ‘slave’ to alcohol and drugs as well as suffering from bipolar disorder.
Slattery was the son of an Irish Heinz factory worker and grew up as the youngest of five children on a council estate in Willesden, north-west London.
He impressive exam results helped him to win a scholarship to the University of Cambridge to read medieval languages – before finding TV and radio fame.
Tony Slattery (left said of his partner Mark Michael Hutchinson (right) in a 2019 interview: ‘He’s definitely not with me for the money – we don’t have any money. This is the secret of love’
But he had largely disappeared from public sight until a 2020 documentary What’s The Matter With Tony Slattery?, in which he spoke of being sexually abused by a priest when he was eight years old.
Slattery also admitted to being financially ‘naive’ and spoke of his ‘shame’ after his mother found cheques worth more than £100,000.
The performer said he had been stashing cash from his agents there because he did not know what to do with them.
After quitting his drug habit, he sent it off for toxicology report, which found he had actually been snorting 5 per cent cocaine, cut glass and – to his horror, human and animal faeces.
Talking about his experience with the drug, he said: ‘It’s not fun, I wouldn’t recommend it, the devil’s dandruff, it heightens makes you uninterruptible, irrational, disinterested.’
The comedian revealed how the battle with his demons saw him lock himself away in his Thameside apartment in Wapping – and how this dark period of his life drove him to bankruptcy and saw friends depart.
Speaking in 2019, Slattery admitted he was very saddened when famous pals and hangers on deserted him when his money dried up.
And the following year he told the Radio Times how ‘fiscal illiteracy and general innumeracy’ had contributed to his financial problems – as well as what he described as his ‘misplaced trust in people’.
Tony Slattery launched his podcast last October, co-hosted by Paul Carmichael and Allan Lear
Allan Lear set up the fundraiser to help pay fitting funeral tribute to Slattery (pictured in 2020)
When asked whether he had ever run out of money, he replied: ‘If bankruptcy counts, yes. Not many people do know. I’m telling you.”
‘Mark picked up the pieces to some extent. It was my fiscal illiteracy and general innumeracy, my waste, my misplaced trust in people, naivety, stupidity, people taking advantage.
‘One’s still in jail. And, yes, in dark moments, I remember how when the money runs out the phone stops ringing.’
By the time he helped make the 2020 documentary ,he was living with his partner and their ‘psychotic cat’ Mollie in what Slattery told viewers was a ‘two-up, two-down terraced house which is rented’.
The home, tucked away in a cul-de-sac 300km from the London Underground station terminus at one end of the Northern Line, is shown online to have last been bought in 2004 for £205,000 – but is now valued at just over £500,000.
When interviewed by one newspaper in 2019, Slattery suggested he attend the publication’s office instead of playing host himself – with the comic quoted as saying: ‘Well, I didn’t want you coming to horrible Edgware.’
His move to the north London suburbs followed his troubled stint beside the Thames in east London at the peak of its fame and then its dark aftermath.
He has told of suffering a breakdown in 1996, aged 36 – saying: ‘If you’re not born into money, you don’t know when it’s going to stop, you think it’s streak of luck.
Tony Slattery, pictured in 1990, has spoken openly about his cocaine addiction that decade
The comedian, pictured here at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum in June 2000, later revealed how his drug and drink problems drove him to bankruptcy and saw friends depart
‘I really enjoyed working but all work no play takes its toll – the overwork, no holidays, no taking a break, eventually you snap, you try to replace it with something. In my case, it was cocaine.
‘Then the booze came along, then the depression set in. I was drinking two bottles of vodka a day and doing 10 grams of coke.’
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live’s Stephen Nolan in July 2017, Slattery provided further grim details of his 1990s descent at a time he was living beside the Thames.
He recalled having thoughts of suicide in the midst of his distress, saying: ‘I took all my clothes off and hid under my car in the underground car park and I got bitten on the feet by rats.
‘I was naked under the car, in a clearly psychotic and delusional state. I saw the rats, they were biting me – I was taking drugs and probably drunk at the same time.
‘I went back to my flat, took a long look at myself in the mirror, put my clothes on and admitted myself to a psychiatric unit where I was given anti-psychotic drugs.’
Slattery laughed as he then joked: ‘Also, and this makes me – it’s not as if I’m boasting about it, I just can’t think of anyone else in showbiz who’s had this done, they tested me for plague.’
He has also described how a doctor treating him was shocked by how much cocaine the comedian was taking.
Tony Slattery told ITV’s This Morning show in May 2019 how he would spend up to £4,000 a week on cocaine as well as drinking two bottles of vodka per day
Slattery said of his cash woes and his partner (left): ‘Mark picked up the pieces to some extent. It was my fiscal illiteracy and general innumeracy, my waste, my misplaced trust in people’
Slattery admitted: ‘At the peak, I was taking 10g a day.
‘A specialist said, “You must be exaggerating, you wouldn’t have a nose left”.
‘But I think I was snorting so much, so fast, it didn’t have time to touch the sides.
‘That’s the only reason I’ve still got a septum.’
In contrast, when asked in an April 2019 interview what his immediate plans were, the comedian by then living in Edgware said: “’Buy some food, because we’ve run out.
‘But we’re waiting for money to come in from jobs and that often takes a while.
‘So just make it to the weekend.’
