37 Facts About Freddie Starr

Freddie Starr was born in Ulster Road, Liverpool, England.

One of seven children, Freddie Starr was the son of a bricklayer, who was often unemployed.

When his father, who was a bare-knuckled boxer, was drunk he repeatedly beat Freddie Starr up when he was a young child.

At the age of six, Freddie Starr stopped speaking, and was taken into care.

Freddie Starr attended Sylvester's Primary, and later Huyton Secondary Modern.

Freddie Starr's father died when Starr was in his early teens.

Freddie Starr was encouraged by his mother to perform from the age of 12 working in pubs and clubs.

In 1961, Freddie Starr joined Derry and the Seniors and spent most of his time playing in Germany.

Freddie Starr appeared as the second act on the 1970 Royal Variety Performance during which he did comedy impersonations of Cliff Richard, Tom Jones, Adam Faith, Billy Fury, Norman Wisdom and Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones.

Freddie Starr was famous for impersonating Adolf Hitler in Wellington boots.

Freddie Starr had released a number of albums in his career, one of which yielded a UK Top 10 single, "It's You", in March 1974.

Freddie Starr later starred in his own BBC series in 1976.

Freddie Starr's wit, wrote Mark Lawson, "relied on broad punchlines and silly slapstick".

For 20 years, from 1974, Freddie Starr developed an addiction to Valium.

Freddie Starr was the subject of one of the best known British tabloid newspaper headlines.

On 13 March 1986 The Sun carried as its main headline: "Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster".

Freddie Starr was claimed to have returned home from a performance at a Manchester nightclub in the early hours of the morning and demanded that La Salle make him a sandwich.

Freddie Starr gave his own account of the story in his 2001 autobiography Unwrapped, stating that the only time that he ever stayed at Vince McCaffrey's house was in 1979, and that the incident was a complete fabrication.

Freddie Starr writes in the book: "I have never eaten or even nibbled a live hamster, gerbil, guinea pig, mouse, shrew, vole or any other small mammal".

In May 2006, the BBC nominated "Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster" as one of the most familiar British newspaper headlines over the last century.

The Suns front-page headline after Starr's death was "Freddie Starr Joins His Hamster".

Freddie Starr was the owner of Miinnehoma, the winning horse in the 1994 Grand National race.

Freddie Starr was not present on the day because of television commitments elsewhere, but gave an unusual post-race interview live on television to presenter Des Lynam via a mobile phone, with the television viewers able only to hear Lynam's responses to what Starr was saying.

In March 2009, Freddie Starr appeared in Living with the Dead, a reality television show about people being haunted by ghosts.

Freddie Starr claimed his 1930s house was being haunted by an evil entity which he called George.

Freddie Starr was due to tour in 2010, but the tour was cancelled when he suffered a major heart attack in April 2010, resulting in quadruple heart bypass surgery.

Freddie Starr participated in the 2011 series of I'm a Celebrity.

Freddie Starr was a keen supporter of Everton FC, and was a vegetarian from his teenage years onwards.

Freddie Starr appeared on the lawn outside the hotel where the Everton team were staying, on the morning of the game and gave an impromptu comedy performance to the players, who watched from the windows of their rooms.

However, Coxhead was discredited in court when he was unable to state whether Freddie Starr's penis was circumcised or not.

One of his daughters, Tara Coleman-Freddie Starr was born in the late 1990s and was a child actress, portraying Claire Thompson in the BBC soap opera Doctors.

In October 2012, Freddie Starr obtained an injunction to prevent a claim from being made about his personal life.

Freddie Starr was arrested on three subsequent occasions, without any connections to Savile, the last being on 12 February 2014.

On 10 July 2015, the High Court dismissed a claim for slander and libel that Freddie Starr had brought against the woman who had made the allegations relating to his appearance on Clunk Click in 1974.

Freddie Starr was found dead at his home in Mijas, on the Costa del Sol, Spain, on 9 May 2019, aged 76.

The director of Malaga province's Institute of Legal Medicine stated that Freddie Starr's death was natural and caused by an ischemic heart disease.

At the time of his death, Freddie Starr was living in constrained financial circumstances, and his funeral costs were covered by an undertaker from Sheffield.