GOODNIGHT STARR
Who was comedian Freddie Starr and did the I’m A Celebrity star really eat a hamster?
FREDDIE Starr was found dead in his home in Spain at the age of 76 on May 9, 2019.
But who was the madcap comedian and what is the truth about him and the story he ate a live hamster? Here’s what we know.
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Did Freddie Starr really eat a hamster?
On March 13, 1986, The Sun published a front page proclaiming “Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster”.
Starr had been staying with Vince McCaffrey at his home in Cheshire.
Lea La Salle, McCaffrey’s girlfriend, alleged that Starr came home from a performance in Manchester and demanded she make him a sandwich.
When she refused, Starr went and put her pet hamster Sonic in between two slices of bread and reportedly ate it.
But in May 2019 La Salle - the stage name of former model Louise Fox - explained what really happened.
She told that Starr "got two big slices of bread, doorstop things, and buttered them and when he sat down on the settee he had the hamster between them.
"He did bite into the bread, but not the hamster.
"I was upset because the hamster was covered in butter, which took two days for it to lick off."
Despite a long and varied career full of highs and lows, Freddie was still stopped in the street more than 30 years on and asked: “Did you really eat that hamster?”
The comedian insisted the story was made up by his then-manager, notorious publicist Max Clifford.
Starr told his side of the story in his 2001 autobiography Unwrapped.
He said he stayed at McCaffrey’s house in 1979.
He wrote in the book: “I have never eaten or even nibbled a live hamster, gerbil, guinea pig, mouse, shrew, vole or any other small mammal".
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Who was Freddie Starr?
Freddie Starr was born on January 9, 1943 in Lancashire, England, as Frederick Leslie Fowell.
He was a comedian, singer and actor who was known for his wacky, wild and unpredictable behaviour.
He was found dead at his Spanish home at the age of 76, The Sun revealed.
Starr was discovered by his carer on the floor of his Costa Del Sol apartment.
An autopsy revealed the comedian died of a heart attack.
A post-mortem carried out at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Malaga confirmed the heart attack theory as his cause of death.
Police sources said he was believed to have died of natural causes. There were no suspicious circumstances.
The entertainer was one of the biggest stars of the 1970s, '80s and '90s after being discovered on Opportunity Knocks.
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What was Starr known for?
Starr was known for his wacky routines on stage.
He would sing songs sped up to make them sound like a tape being fast forwarded.
The comic impersonated Adolf Hitler playing football and doing a Nazi salute, and he also impersonated Mick Jagger in front of the Royal Family in 1970.
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READ MORE ON FREDDIE STARR
In 2011, he took part in I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here just a year after recovering from quadruple bypass surgery following a heart attack.
But he left the jungle show due to ill health and became a recluse after a comeback bid flopped.
One of Starr’s last performances was a shambling karaoke Elvis impression at a bar in Fuengirola.
Videos of a bloated Freddie in a T-shirt and shorts belting out hits with locals surfaced on Facebook.
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