
British actor and TV personality Tony Slattery, 65, died of a heart attack on Jan. 12. Slattery was a regular on the comedy improv show Whose Line Is It Anyway? (gawd how I hate improv). He met Stephen Fry at Cambridge and joined Fry’s Cambridge Footlights troupe; he and Richard Vranch formed the comedy duo Aftertaste, and hosted the quiz show The Music Game. Slattery also performed in stage plays and as a single act in clubs and theaters (sorry, “theatres!”) around the UK. He also had an impressive acting career, onscreen and TV: Peter’s Friends, The Bill, How to Get Ahead in Advertising, This is David Harper, Carry On Columbus, To Die For, Coronation Street, Cold Blood, Kingdom. “I had a very happy time until I went slightly barmy,” Slattery said of his bipolar disorder and drug and alcohol-induced breakdown in the late ‘90s. “A psychiatrist once said to me: ‘Bear in mind that some things are so deeply buried there is nothing to be gained by an archeological dig. Keep it buried,’” Slattery said. He is survived by his husband, actor Mark Michael Hutchinson (Blood Brothers, Me and My Girl).
