Brian Rix, Baron Rix
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The Right Honourable The Lord Rix CBE DL |
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|---|---|
| Born |
Brian Norman Roger Rix 27 January 1924 Cottingham, East Riding of Yorkshire, England |
| Died | 20 August 2016 (aged 92) Northwood, London, England |
| Occupation | Actor, activist |
| Known for | Farces (particularly at the Whitehall Theatre and on the BBC) Campaigning for those with learning disabilities |
| Spouse(s) | Elspet Gray (1949–2013, her death) |
| Children | Shelley Rix (deceased) Louisa Rix Jamie Rix Jonathan Rix |
Brian Norman Roger Rix, Baron Rix, CBE, DL (27 January 1924 – 20 August 2016) was a British actor and activist. After a stage and television career spanning more than three decades, Rix became a campaigner for disability causes. He entered the House of Lords as a crossbencher in 1992 and was president of the disability charity Mencap from 1998 until his death.
Rix was born in Cottingham, East Riding of Yorkshire, the youngest of four children. His father, Herbert Rix, and Herbert's two brothers, ran the shipping (and subsequently oil) company in Hull, founded by his grandfather Robert Rix. As a Yorkshireman, Rix had an interest in cricket and only wanted to play for Yorkshire in his childhood. He did play for Hull Cricket Club when he was 16 (and after the war for the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the Stage and the Lord's Taverners). When he was being educated at Bootham School, York, his ambitions changed.
His sister Sheila became an actress during his school days, and Rix himself developed the same ambition to go on the stage. All four Rix children had become interested in the theatre because of their mother, Fanny, who ran an amateur dramatic society and was the lead soprano in the local operatic society. All her children performed in the plays and two of them, Brian and Sheila, became professional actors. Sheila Mercier, as she became known, played Annie Sugden for 25 years in the Yorkshire TV soap opera Emmerdale Farm having worked regularly with her brother in the Whitehall farces in the 1950s and 1960s.
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