SIR Billy Connolly and Elaine C Smith were among the stars to pay tribute to legendary Glasgow entertainer Stanley Baxter during last night's BAFTA Scotland awards. 

Baxter was called a "marvel" and the "best in the business" as he made a rare public appearance to collect his Outstanding Contribution to Film & Television 2020 gong in his London home. 

The 94-year-old spent decades in the limelight and was a frequent fixture on TV sketch shows and in yearly pantomime displays. He bowed out in the 1990s. 

In his video tribute to Baxter, Sir Billy said: “I know that you don’t like this kind of thing, but you deserve it.

"Nobody deserves it more. The work you put in in the 60’s and 70’s stands on its own. You’re a marvel and you’ve got beautiful legs.”

Baxter said: “I don’t think I could have been anything else but a performer. I was so rotten at everything else I tried to do.

“Normally at school, you know you find out there what you have a talent for. It turned out I had no talent at all, but really it gave me all my interest with showbusiness. That was true all of my life.

The Herald:

“But it all started really with my mother dragging me round church halls. I was a child doing sophisticated gags that I didn’t even know the meaning of.”

In his acceptance speech, Baxter credited his success to his celebrated “Parliamo Glasgow” sketches.

He added: “There was always a worry that they might find it too broad, but I knew damn well that Scots are able to laugh at themselves, of course they could. And so it proved to be.

"Thank you, BAFTA Scotland, for this honour I’m very, very pleased. Thanks a lot.”

Alan Cumming and Ford Kiernan were also among those to pay tribute to Baxter, with the latter saying: "I don’t think there’s anybody in the comedy business in television who hasn’t been influenced in some way by Stanley’s work.”