Laughs and tears with the Big Yin

By AINSLEY THOMPSON

Billy Connolly used to think that if you could lie on the floor without holding on you weren't drunk.

Alcoholism is just one of the many demons the Glaswegian comedian has had to conquer.

Yesterday, Pamela Stephenson, his New Zealand-born comedian-turned-psychologist wife, told the tale of these demons as well as hilarious anecdotes at the New Zealand Herald Dymocks literary lunch at the Carlton Hotel.

Stephenson was in the country for two days to promote her book Billy, the biography she has written about her husband.

"My husband has a very unusual brain," Stephenson said. "He thinks in a different way to most people."

It is this that gives Connolly the ability to make millions laugh, but when he was a child it resulted in his being punished and beaten for doing things he could not control.

Stephenson described Connolly's early life, from being abandoned by his mother, to being sexually abused by his father.

"I don't know how he survived his childhood," she said. But he did, and that is what the book is about - survival and triumph against the odds.

Stephenson said Connolly was "thrilled" with the book. "It is very much his story the way he wanted it to be told."

The process of telling his story had been healing and had made the family closer, she said.

Most of the people at the luncheon were committed Connolly fans, but it was Stephenson they had come to see.

"I came to hear her side of the partnership, because they are such opposites," said Gail Taylor, of Howick.

Stephenson agrees she and Connolly are an odd couple.

She described a scene in their house when their daughter came into their room wearing a tartan top and multicoloured pants and asked her parents how she looked.

Connolly said it looked great and Stephenson said it was terrible.

Connolly then explained the situation to his daughter by telling her: "If you want to look sophisticated and intelligent listen to your mother, but if you want to look windswept and interesting listen to me."