Britain's Got Talent judge Michael McIntyre is tormented by the sudden death of his beloved dad... the man who inspired him to become a comic.
TV writer and producer Ray Cameron dropped dead of a heart attack one Christmas when Michael, now 35, was just 17. The popular comedian still struggles to cope with the loss.
At the time of his death Ray, who had been a big success as a TV comedy writer and producer, had fallen on hard times and was struggling financially.
He had moved to the USA seven years earlier and started a new family after splitting with Kati, Michael’s glamorous Hungarian mother.
On December 27, 1993 Michael and his younger sister Lucy were told their dad had been found dying at the side of the road at the age of just 53.
The thought of him losing his life on the other side of the world, with no loved ones to help him, is still hugely upsetting for multi-millionaire Michael.
Michael, talking about his father’s death, has said: “He died on Boxing Day. I was 17 and I remember that I had just learned to drive and he was really upset that he couldn’t afford to buy me my first car. He bought me a book about cars instead, which made me feel quite tearful. I went to bed that night feeling pretty good about it and then, the next day, we got a call to say he’d died of a heart attack.”
And in his autobiography he added: “It destroyed me to think of him on his own, strangers trying to help him. The sudden nature of his death was shocking and especially hard to deal with. One day I was chatting to him on the phone the next he was gone.”
When Ray left Britain he was still wealthy after co-writing The Kenny Everett Show and producing Clive Dunn’s 1970 No 1 hit record Grandad.
He bought a sprawling Spanish-style mansion in the Hollywood Hills, now worth £2.5 million. But work dried up and by the last year of his life he’d had to move to a much smaller place in a cheaper suburb. He also spent a lot of his time in a borrowed flat in London desperately looking for writing jobs.
Michael, who has become an instant favourite in his new role as a BGT judge, last saw his dad that November on a visit to London. He said: “Lucy and I said goodbye to him on the steps of the flat. We weren’t upset, as he was coming back soon after Christmas.”
But that visit never came and Michael couldn’t say goodbye. “I lost a future with my dad,” Michael has said. “I felt that our relationship had been dominated by circumstance and distance, but that we were cut from the same cloth and we would become closer and I would learn from him. But that was not to be.”
One thing that helped Michael was a letter from his father which arrived weeks after he died. Ray had been on a turbulent plane journey and the pilot had told all the passengers to get into the brace position. Thinking he was going to die, he wrote a letter to his son there and then, saying, “I believe in you, Michael, always be the best you can be. I’ll love you always”. Michael still keeps it in his desk drawer.
Ray had two children in America with new wife Holly McIntyre. Georgina Rose, 18, lives with her mum and Billy, 24, plays guitar in a rock band and lives in Hollywood. His life is a world away from that of his half-brother Michael, who has earned £10 million in the last few years after a meteoric rise to fame. Michael shares his £3.7million home in well-heeled Hampstead with wife Kitty, daughter of actor Simon Ward, and their children – Lucas, five, and Oscar, two.
Stepmother Holly, who now works on a farm in the US, said her family were close to the comic. “Me, Georgina and Billy were just in England visiting Michael. We had a wonderful time. We are very proud of him and everything he has achieved. He is incredibly talented but has also worked very hard to be where he is today. I love his humour - it is not crude at all but witty and observational. My son Billy is also funny, but more interested in music.”
Michael has said he regrets the fact Ray split from his mum when he was so young, but it did mean he has a large extended family on both sides of the Atlantic. His mum Kati married a painter and decorator called Steve and they had three children. Kati and Steve now run a property business in France.
MICHAEL McIntyre: Life and Laughing is published by Penguin Books – £20 in bookshops now.
