Many people have retained a picture from the Key West Film Festival in November 2025. Billy Connolly, 82 at the time, dressed in blue tailored trousers and a black blazer, standing with a walking stick as his old friend Steve Buscemi handed him an award for artistic excellence. He looked a little thinner than the banjo-wielding, banana-booted force of nature who once brought down the house on Parkinson fifteen times. But the voice was still his. Still unmistakably, defiantly his. “I walk with a stick because I suffer from a horrible illness,” he told the crowd. “It’s a joy to live among you, and it’s a joy to be among you tonight.”
That sentence alone tells you something important about how Billy Connolly has chosen to face the last decade of his life.
He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2013, a progressive neurological condition that disrupts movement, balance, and coordination, becoming more severe over time. The timing of the diagnosis was, by any measure, brutal. The same week he received his Parkinson’s results, he was also told he had prostate cancer. He described it with characteristic dark humour: on Monday, hearing aids; on Tuesday, heartburn medication; on Wednesday, a phone call from his doctor telling him about the cancer and the Parkinson’s both at once. “On Wednesday, I got news that I had prostate cancer and Parkinson’s,” he recalled to The Mirror. He received the all-clear for the cancer following treatment. Parkinson’s, however, was not going anywhere.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Sir William Connolly CBE |
| Date of Birth | 24 November 1942 |
| Age | 83 |
| Birthplace | Anderston, Glasgow, Scotland |
| Nickname | The Big Yin |
| Profession | Comedian, Actor, Musician, Artist |
| Active Years | 1965–2018 (stand-up); continued in arts |
| Diagnosis | Parkinson’s disease (2013), Prostate cancer (2013, cleared) |
| Current Residence | Key West, Florida, USA |
| Spouse | Pamela Stephenson (married 1989) |
| Notable Works | Mrs Brown, Brave, The Last Samurai, BBC’s In My Own Words |
| Awards | BAFTA Fellowship (2022), Knighthood (2017) |
| Reference Website | 1965–2018 (stand-up); continued in the arts |
The life that had been based solely on physical presence, improvisation, and the capacity to fill a large space was gradually renegotiated. In 2018, he announced his retirement from live stand-up, a decision that had been building for some time but still felt momentous. It had become a formality that Connolly was consistently ranked as Britain’s best stand-up comedian. It was difficult to accept that the stage would always be empty. He had started forgetting lines during performances earlier in 2013, the first outward sign that something was changing.
On medical advice, he relocated from New York to Florida, first to Key West, as the warmer climate would be better for his condition. The move made practical sense, but it also meant leaving behind the life and city he had built with his wife, psychologist Pamela Stephenson, to whom he has been married since 1989. It’s important to note that over the years, Connolly has spoken almost reverently about that marriage, stating at one point that it had saved him rather than just changed him. By all accounts, Pamela continues to play a crucial role in his day-to-day Parkinson’s disease management.
By 2023, he was candidly discussing how the illness was getting worse. Falls had grown to be a major issue. His balance had deteriorated, and he mentioned the return of tremors, a difficulty getting out of certain chairs, and the loss of something that had once given him quiet pleasure — the ability to write letters by hand. It is a strange and specific grief, that last one. For a man who spent decades filling theatres with pure language, losing the physical act of writing carries a particular weight.
And yet. There is a version of Billy Connolly’s illness story that would fit neatly into tragedy. Progressive disease, retirement, exile from the country he loved, the slow erosion of capabilities. It appears that he is not choosing to tell that version. When asked in 2024 how he felt about nearing the end of his life, he replied that he did not feel near death. Parkinson’s disease, according to him, is “a strange animal” that just sits next to him; rather than being an overwhelming force, it is an unwelcome companion that he has come to terms with. In a recent interview with BBC Maestro, he discussed laughter as a real coping strategy, saying, “I suffer from Parkinson’s disease, and comedy has helped me to deal with it.”
Since quitting stand-up, Connolly has published eleven collections of his fine art paintings and drawings, seemingly with genuine dedication. His approach, which involves allowing the hand to move without a set intention, is similar to automatism. He has also continued to appear in television documentaries, including the BBC special In My Own Words, where he discussed his life, career, and illness with the candour that has always been his signature.
It’s hard not to notice, watching all of this unfold over the years, that the central quality Connolly has always possessed — the ability to find something useful, even funny, in the worst material life throws at you — turns out to be precisely what Parkinson’s cannot take from him. The body is altered. The mind stays sharp, the wit remains intact, the laughter continues. When Peter Kay spoke publicly about his close friend’s health in December 2025, the tone was sorrowful, the words of a man watching someone he loves navigate something genuinely difficult. But Connolly himself keeps returning to the same essential position: he is still here, still fishing in Florida, still drawing, still cracking jokes about his own gravestone.
He has told Pamela he wants it to read, in tiny writing, something appropriately irreverent. She wasn’t certain. It seems that they made a compromise. That negotiation, conducted between a man living with a serious illness and the woman who has loved him through it, seems more telling than almost anything else. He continues to haggle. They’re still fighting. He was still himself.
