In memory of Paul O'Grady... The soft-hearted dear friend of Camilla whose かみそり-tongued alter ego was so wild Mick Jagger 警告するd the Rolling 石／投石するs to keep away

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Strutting the 行う／開催する／段階 in thigh-high leather boots and a fur stole the length of an anaconda, with more hair than Marie Antoinette, the queen of drag Lily Savage was a ferocious sight.

Any member of the audience who attracted her displeasure could be 支配する to terrifying 脅しs ― ‘Don’t make me come up there and break yer 脚s. Cos I’ll 引き裂く your を回避する and. . .’

The 残り／休憩（する） is unprintable. Her fans howled with laughter and begged for more.

Yet Lily’s creator, the comedian Paul O’Grady, who died suddenly on Tuesday 老年の 67, was a helplessly soft-hearted man, a 充てるd volunteer at Battersea Dogs Home, where he was 井戸／弁護士席-known for 存在 unable to resist 可決する・採択するing 逸脱するs.

And before his showbiz career took off, he worked as a care officer for Camden social services in North London, 供給するing 一時的休止，執行延期 for families looking after people with Alzheimer’s or mental health problems.

Lily 炎d a 追跡する as a 雑談（する）-show host: before Graham Norton and Alan Carr built their careers on （軍の）野営地，陣営 badinage with celebrities, O’Grady was interrogating 星／主役にするs on a tigerskin 二塁打 bed for Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast.

Lily 炎d a 追跡する as a 雑談（する）-show host: before Graham Norton and Alan Carr built their careers on （軍の）野営地，陣営 badinage with celebrities, O’Grady was interrogating 星／主役にするs on a tigerskin 二塁打 bed for Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast

He went on to 前線 his own daytime show, after standing in for Des O’Connor ? but chucked it in, （人命などを）奪う，主張するing that he detested celebrities. Most of them, he said, were like ‘a 親族 you felt 強いるd to visit: don’t について言及する this, don’t について言及する that. 井戸／弁護士席, what are we going to talk about? The 天候?’

But he was hopelessly drawn to fame 同様に. His closest pal was Cilla 黒人／ボイコット, and his eulogy for her at her 記念の service in 2015 was both hilarious and heart-breaking.

Another の近くに friend was Queen Consort Camilla, who took his outrageous teasing in good part. At a fundraiser in 2005 for 犠牲者s of the South Asian 津波, すぐに after Charles and Camilla’s wedding, he 発表するd: ‘It’s about time he married her ? he’s been shagging her for the last 40 years.’ Luckily, neither was 現在の.

He was such a 悪名高い party fiend at A-lister 発生地s that Mick Jagger 明らかにする／漏らすd he had to 警告する the Rolling 石／投石するs lead guitarist Ronnie 支持を得ようと努めるd to stop hanging out with O’Grady. There were three things that the 石／投石するs needed to 避ける, Mick said: ‘麻薬s, booze and Lily Savage.’

Both these wildly different 味方するs to his personality stemmed from a working-class しつけ in Birkenhead after the war. The third of three children, he was born in 1955 when his mother Molly (whose maiden 指名する was Savage) was in her 40s: ‘I was 述べるd as the last kick of a dying horse.’

Another の近くに friend was Queen Consort Camilla, who took his outrageous teasing in good part

His closest pal was Cilla 黒人／ボイコット, and his eulogy for her at her 記念の service in 2015 was both hilarious and heart-breaking

His father, 米，稲 Grady, was an Irishman who moved to Liverpool in the 1930s and joined the RAF when war broke out. A （一定の）期間ing mistake with his 指名する turned him into an O’Grady, and it stuck. The family 捨てるd together enough money to send Paul to a 私的な カトリック教徒 最初の／主要な school, ‘a waste of time because it was [run by the] Christian Brothers. All they did was talk about 宗教 and 乱打する us.’

He looked 支援する on his childhood as ‘indulged and 完全に 保護するd’, and surrounded by strong women. ‘They were all funny,’ he remembered in an interview last year. ‘My Auntie Chrissie was a clippy on the buses. She was very glamorous, a big blonde.

‘They were all very resilient, that was the other thing. Auntie Chrissie left the buses and got a 職業 as a manageress of an off-licence. Two fellas （機の）カム in: “This is a stick up.” She said, “I’ll just open the 安全な for you, love,” went out the 支援する, got a 小衝突 and 乱打するd them. This is who they were.’

His life changed 老年の 12, when he saw the musical Gypsy, starring Rosalind Russell and Natalie 支持を得ようと努めるd, about the stripper Gypsy Rose 物陰／風下. The 二重の seediness and glamour of showbiz besotted him. At the same time, he discovered the buzz of 存在 able to make classmates laugh.

When he mucked around in church, pretending to flash his ankles and giggling during a funeral, the priest 解任するd him as an altar boy. The two 味方するs of his personality were already parting company.

After leaving school with poor 資格s, he tried a succession of 職業s ? taking respectable, clerical 役割s behind desks in Liverpool shipping offices, 同様に as serving drinks in disreputable pubs, such as the 耐える’s Paw, a gay 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業, and the 悪名高くも rough Yates’s ワイン 宿泊する on Moorfields.

For a few months he was a 訓練生 clerk at the 治安判事 s’ 法廷，裁判所, though his red corduroy jacket and pink tie 原因（となる）d びっくり仰天: ‘The stipendiary 治安判事 enquired sarcastically if my 職業 description had read 法廷，裁判所 clerk or 法廷，裁判所 jester.’

Serving drinks in Yates’s wasn’t so different to Number 3 法廷，裁判所, he 追加するd: ‘The same 正規の／正選手 clientele of winos and prozzies passed through its doors.’

Though he knew from his 早期に teens that he was gay, he also had a fling with an older woman, Diane, who worked in the 法廷，裁判所 collecting office.

She told him she was 妊娠している, in the same week in 1974 that both his parents 苦しむd heart attacks. His mother 生き残るd, his father died. Paul didn’t dare tell his family that he was a father until after the baby was born. He 手配中の，お尋ね者 to call the baby Gypsy. Her mother 辞退するd: ‘It sounds like a poodle’s 指名する.’

They chose Sharon instead. Agreeing to 支払う／賃金 £3 a week to support her, he moved to London, hoping to find a 職業 that paid more.

Instead, he ended up living with a gay couple, 支払う／賃金ing rent when he could and doing the 家事, 同様に as busking in drag around Camden. ‘It felt like begging to me . . . that is, until people started dropping coins in the cap. There was money in this lark!'

Lily never smiled, never laughed and had a tongue tipped with 酸性の. A 離婚, she didn’t tire of telling the audience about her useless ex-husband

O'Grady was a 充てるd volunteer at Battersea Dogs Home, where he was 井戸／弁護士席-known for 存在 unable to resist 可決する・採択するing 逸脱するs

He told the story of those years in four bestselling autobiographies, beginning with the punningly 肩書を与えるd At My Mother’s 膝. . . And Other Low 共同のs. The 調書をとる／予約するs 明らかにする／漏らす an effortless ear for 対話 ? he recreates conversations, break-ups, rants and 叫び声をあげるing matches with vivid realism.

Throwing himself into London’s gay scene before the advent of the 援助（する）s 危機, he developed his drag persona. Though he had gentle, almost pretty features, his 直面する took on the hardness of a hatchet when he became Lily Savage.

Lily never smiled, never laughed and had a tongue tipped with 酸性の. A 離婚, she didn’t tire of telling the audience about her useless ex-husband. ‘I’m sick of men,’ she’d say. ‘I don’t believe in 離婚 . . . just 殺人 the bast**ds.

‘I tell you what, I could give men up and become a lesbian. I know it’s an acquired taste but I’m sure I’d get used to it.’

As HIV spread in the 中央の-1980s, O’Grady was distraught to see friends dying ? and angry at 存在 hounded by homophobic police. One night at the 王室の Vauxhall Tavern, a gay pub, officers burst in to 行為／行う a （警察の）手入れ，急襲, wearing 厚い rubber gloves to 保護する themselves against the ウイルス. ‘Looks like we have help with the washing up,’ Lily quipped. A sergeant 需要・要求するd her 十分な 指名する. ‘Lily Veronica Mae Savage,’ （機の）カム the reply.

He 苦しむd 一区切り／（ボクシングなどの）試合s of 不景気, に引き続いて two heart attacks and the death of his long-称する，呼ぶ／期間／用語 partner and 経営者／支配人, Brendan Murphy, from brain 癌 in 2005

O'Grady had a 攻撃する，衝突する ten-season series about his work at Battersea, For The Love Of Dogs

As Cilla belted the number out, flashing hearts 炎d on her breasts and below the belt. ‘Mind you don’t singe yourself,’ Lily sneered, and Cilla 割れ目d up. ‘You said you weren’t gonna do that, Savage,’ she growled.

She and Paul were 悪名高い in the nightclubs of New York and London, where they drank シャンペン酒 by the quart and partied past 夜明け. ‘After Bobby [her husband] died, she said she’d been sent a 後見人 angel, except with two hooves and a tail. We’d go away together three times a year. I never liked Barbados, never told her that, just went to be with her,’ O’Grady once said.

After Cilla’s death, he 生き返らせるd her game show Blind Date, （人命などを）奪う，主張するing that she’d left it to him in her will. The pace of 記録，記録的な／記録するing exhausted him. ‘No wonder she was on コカイン,’ he joked.

By then, he had sent Lily into 退職 ? （人命などを）奪う，主張するing いつかs she was a 修道女 at a convent in Brittany, at others that she was working in an Amsterdam 売春宿 ‘in a 管理の capacity’.

He 苦しむd bo uts of 不景気, に引き続いて two heart attacks and the death of his long-称する，呼ぶ／期間／用語 partner and 経営者／支配人, Brendan Murphy, from brain 癌 in 2005. ‘After Murphy died, I went quieter,’ he said.

With the success of his 令状ing career and a 攻撃する，衝突する ten-season series about his work at Battersea, For The Love Of Dogs, he spent more time on his farm in Kent with his husband Andre (they married in 2017), his six pigs, three alpacas and 非常に／多数の dogs.

‘I am not bothered about sex, money or fame,’ he once （人命などを）奪う，主張するd. ‘But a wild baby mongoose took a 向こうずね to me in Namibia, and I fell in love. I just want a mongoose.’