Anthony Declan James Slattery (born 9 November 1959) is an English actor and comedian.

Early Life

Slattery was born in Stonebridge, London, to Irish Catholic immigrant parents. In his youth, he represented England at under-15 judo. He was educated at Gunnersbury Boy's Grammar School in West London, and later studied Mediaeval and Modern Languages, specifically French and Spanish, at the University of Cambridge (Trinity Hall), where he also became a member of the Cambridge Footlights. Like his contemporaries Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, he became a staple of the British television comedy circuit.

Television Career

Slattery first broke into television as a regular performer on Chris Tarrant's follow up to "O.T.T.", "Saturday Stayback". He was a regular on Whose Line Is It Anyway?, starred in his own improvisational comedy series S&M alongside Mike McShane, and has appeared on other panel quizzes such as Have I Got News For You. He was a regular on the TV version of the quiz show Just a Minute and was also on the radio version several times, including the Live version held at the Edinburgh Festival.

As a serious actor he has appeared in The Crying Game, To Die For, Peter's Friends, and The Wedding Tackle. He appeared on the London stage in the musicals Me and My Girl and Radio Times and in the play Neville's Island.

At the end of the 1980s, he became a film critic, presenting his own show on British television, Saturday Night at the Movies. He also appeared in the ITV sitcom That's Love with Jimmy Mulville. Other TV appearances include The Music Game alongside good friend Richard Vranch, Just a Gigolo, and as a regular guest with both Ruby Wax and Clive Anderson.

He has also been a regular guest with The Comedy Store Players, both at The Comedy Store in London and on tour.

Early in the 1990s he became over-exposed as a celebrity, to the extent that he was a target of satire. For example, the Have I Got News For You 1991 annual showed images of the game from around the world, and each local variant featured Slattery as a guest. Spitting Image showed a sketch where an anthropomorphised BBC2 logo refused to have blue paint splattered on it and Slattery intervened for the sake of publicity. The satirical magazine Private Eye once published a memorable cartoon depicting Tony's answering machine with the outgoing message "Yes, I'll do it!".

In 1992 he appeared in the film Carry On Columbus. Also in the same year, he appeared in the series "Dead Ringer" filmed for the observation round in The Krypton Factor.

In 1998 he was elected as Rector of the University of Dundee.

In the mid-1990s, after leaving Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Slattery suffered what he described as a 'mid-life crisis', culminating in 1996 with a six-month period of reclusiveness, during which he did not answer his door or telephone, "or open bills, or wash," he says; "I just sat." Eventually, one of his friends broke down the door of his flat and convinced him to go to hospital. He was diagnosed as suffering from a bipolar condition. He discussed this period and his subsequent living with bipolar disorder in a documentary made by Stephen Fry, "The Secret Life Of The Manic Depressive", in 2006; Slattery claimed that he spent time living on a house-boat and "throwing [his] furniture into the Thames".

Now recovered, he has returned to presenting on British cable television. In January 2005 he appeared in the TV movie Ahead of the Class with Julie Walters. In December 2005 he joined the long-running drama Coronation Street as Eric Talford and in April 2006 he appeared in Grumpy Old Men on BBC Two. In 2007 he appeared as a regular cast member in the ITV series Kingdom, playing the eccentric Sidney Snell.

Trivia

• Tony Slattery once spent three months with Navajo Native Americans while researching a documentary, and learned a little of their language by reading the Navajo newspaper Adahooniłigii.

Preceded by Hugh Laurie	Footlights President 1981–1982	Succeeded by Neil Mullarkey
Academic offices
Preceded by Stephen Fry	Rector of the University of Dundee 1998–2001	Succeeded by Fred MacAulay

External links

• Tony Slattery at the Internet Movie Database
• Guardian story containing a quote about his breakdown as "...a pool of despair and mania."