YAY! Nodeshell rescue.
A pseudo-famous British entertainer and 'TV personality' who seems to have more lives than a skip full of cats.
He was born Michael Kieran Parker, but changed his name to that of his childhood heroes Lionel and John Barrymore. He left home and 15 and made his name as a Butlin's Redcoat (those with a sick mind or a degree in Freudianism may spot the 'butt' suggestion implicit in the name...), singing and dancing to entertain holidaygoers. He worked his way up the entertainment tree, moving on to become an entertainer in working man's clubs and pubs, where he met the woman he was to marry, Cheryl, who was working as a dancer.
She became his manager and helped him to make his way onto TV, where he spent a few years working as a warm-up comedian. In time, he found his way into the limelight in his own right, becoming known for hosting Saturday evening TV. His catchphrase was 'awight?'
Although he was married, Barrymore had started by this time to look elsewhere, frequenting a known gay club called the White Swan. Although he took pains to wear a baseball cap pulled down low over his face, his fame and 6'3" stature identified him, and the News of the World went to town.
Rather than deny an obvious fact, he embraced his homosexuality, becoming, rather than an outed has-been, a gay icon, in the manner of Sir Ian McKellen and Chris Smith. He married his lover Shaun Davis in Hawaii in 1999, however, the two separated in early 2001 after Barrymore received a drugs caution follwing rape allegations brought against him by a prostitute.
On Saturday 31st. March, 2001, the British television and radio news reported that a man had been found dead that morning, wearing just a pair of grey boxer shorts, in Michael Barrymore's pool. This became front-page the news in the Sunday newspapers, and articles continued to appear in the newspapers for some time. When later questioned by the police Michael Barrymore said that he did not know who the man was. It transpired that the man was 31-year-old Stuart Lubbock, a wholesale butchers' supervisor from Harlow, Essex. He had apparently met Michael Barrymore at the Millennium Club in Harlow, and had afterwards gone to the entertainer's home in Roydon, near Harlow, Essex where an impromptu party took place. Stuart Lubbock told people at the party that he was going to the pool for a swim. He was later found floating motionless in the pool. Police and ambulance crews were called to the home and Stuart Lubbock was found to be unconscious just before 6 am and taken to hospital where he was declared dead at 8.30 am. Stuart Lubbock had recently split up with his long-term girlfriend and had two daughters, one five years old and one three months old. Later that day Michael Barrymore travelled the hundred miles to check into the Marchwood Priory, a psychiatric hospital near Southampton, Hampshire, where he had been treated before in 1993 and 1996.
Mr Lubbock is believed to have had intercourse with three men in the time immediately preceding his death.