Pamela Stephenson Connolly: The Graduate

Published on Wednesday 15 July 2009 19:37

FOR SERVICES to sex …everyone, of course, falls about at the very thought. Admittedly that's paraphrasing somewhat the citation accompanying the honorary degree presented to Pamela Stephenson Connolly by Aberdeen's Robert Gordon University yesterday, but the comedienne who became a clinical psychologist and therapist and author, as well as wife of one of the world's funniest men, is utterly straight-faced when it comes to sex.

Correctly phrased, the honorary degree of doctor of science was awarded to Stephenson Connolly for "her achievement in the field of human sexuality where she has made a marked, sustained and international contribution". The woman who, in her own words grew up in Sydney as "a serious, nerdy little girl" and went on to become a spectacularly provocative presence on Not the Nine O'Clock News, asked David Blunkett about his sex education and once enlivened Parkinson by wrapping her legs around a newscaster's neck, takes sex and gender issues very seriously indeed.

In her present role as a psychologist and therapist, Dr Stephenson specialises in sexuality, and teaches "advanced human sexuality" and sex therapy in her role as an adjunct professor at the California Graduate Institute. She is also founder and president of the Los Angeles Sexuality Center, where she deals with sexual disorders and gender issues. The petite, buxom blonde who defies all such clichs also practises as a hypnotherapist in areas such as such as smoking, appetite control, trauma recovery and self- esteem issues and has written mental health self-help books, and in 2003 gave a keynote lecture to the Addictions Faculty of the British Psychological Society, University College London. In recent years her Sexual Healing column in the Guardian deals with everything from limp libidos and hysterectomies to cross-dressing and webcams in Amsterdam.

It's fair to argue, however, that her best-known case study has been her marriage to Billy Connolly, whose manic wit she tends to attribute to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

The New Zealand-born, Australia-raised Stephenson, now 59, enjoyed a successful acting career in Australia before she arrived in London in 1976 and made her name as an incisively funny TV comedienne, on Not the Nine O'Clock News with the likes of Rowan Atkinson and Griff Rhys Jones in the 1980s. A merciless line in impersonations, ironically enough, included Janet Street-Porter interviewing Billy Connolly. Stephenson met the real Connolly, and the pair married in Fiji in 1989 and have three daughters, Daisy, Amy and Scarlett.

Stephenson took her first steps to an alternative career in psychology when she and Connolly moved to the United States in the early 1990s, after Billy landed a contract for the TV show Head of the Class and then his own show, Billy. She studied psychology at Antioch University before graduating with a PhD in clinical psychology from the California Graduate Institute (CGI) in 1996. Now licensed as a clinical psychologist, she has talked in the past about her conflicting public and personal personas. "The most difficult thing," she said, "was that doing comedy was so much at odds with my serious nature, so it was always a problem when people expected me to be funny offstage.

"Then, on top of that, I was seen as glamorous, which wasn't my view of myself either."

She regards the area of human sexuality as one of the least explored in the field of psychology. As she argues on her website (www.casproduction.com), "We still do not fully understand the mechanisms involved in the psychological formation of gender … To me, the field seems fresh and alive."

For anyone interested in human behaviour, one can imagine the Big Yin offering a veritable thesis, and Stephenson Connolly has, accordingly, written two books about her world-renowned husband, first the best selling Billy, in 2001, which she explored his Glasgow childhood, when Connolly suffered sexual and physical abuse, and his alcoholism – which caused the pair to part company for a year, early in their relationship. She followed that up with Bravemouth, about her life with Connolly, the nature of fame and what makes the Big Yin tick.

The response to Billy was extraordinary, as she wrote in the introduction to a later book, Head Case: Treat Yourself to Better Mental Health: "After millions read the account of the childhood abuse and continuing struggles of my husband, there was an overwhelming outpouring from readers who had suffered similar difficulties, or were challenged by mental illness, substance abuse or past trauma." Extolling the merits of therapy, two years ago she told a Scotsman interviewer that there was still too much fear, ignorance and lack of support for the mentally ill: "sometimes unwillingness to seek treatment is based on a sense of shame. yet more than a third of the British public will undergo psychological difficulties at some point in their lives. "

The clinical psychologist and the TV personality merged with the 2007 series Shrink Wrap for BBC's More4 channel, in which she put fellow-celebrities as diverse as Sarah Ferguson, Sharon Osborne, David Blunkett and Stephen Fry on the psychotherapist's couch. Revelations included the Duchess of York admitting she wanted to be a child again, while Fry confessed to waking up every day wishing he was dead. Her explorations aren't confined to the human psyche, however. In 2004, perhaps not wishing to be outdone by her husband's televised global peregrinations, she embarked on a year-long Pacific cruise, following the route taken in the 19th century by Robert Louis Stevenson and his American wife, Fanny, and which she chronicled in another book, Treasure Islands.

Not too many clinical psychologists can boast Stephenson's profile, but the honour hasn't been given with celebrity status in mind, stresses Professor Terry Healey, head of Robert Gordon's School of Pharmacy and Life Sciences, which proffered the honorary degree.

"We're acknowledging her career in TV, film and literature, but, because we're a science faculty, specifically her work in the field of human sexuality. It's not a field of intense study at Robert Gordon, but we are a faculty of health and social care, so there is a broad connection.

"She has done some good work in that field. As a clinical psychologist in California, she has transferred that into some fairly unique work in looking at helping people with sexual disorders, looking at what happens to them in childhood and how that may affect what happens in adult life."

And, he adds, the university does like to acknowledge local connections, and the Connollys, of course, when not in the United States, are lairds of Candacraig in Strathdon in Aberdeenshire. It's a long way from Beverley Hills, where she dispenses mental health care and advice, or for that matter the Los Angeles Sexuality Center she founded in 2003, and where she counsels those with sexual disorders and gender issues.

One is tempted to imagine the new doctorate hanging above the baronial fireplace at Candacraig House alongside the honorary doctorate which Billy received a few years ago from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow for his own inimitable services to the performing arts.

Clearly Stephenson's approach to human sexuality differs from that of her husband, who famously once remarked: "Apparently, women need to feel loved to have sex. Men need to have sex to feel loved. How do we ever get started?"

Alternative occupations

Daryl Hannah

The star of Blade Runner, Wall Street and the Kill Bill series is an environmental activist who has been arrested a few times for the cause – in 2006 while demonstrating with urban farmers facing bulldozers, and earlier this year, along with Nasa climate scientist James Hansen, in a protest against the removal of a mountaintop in West Virginia. Hannah runs her environmentally-friendly house on solar power and her car on biodiesel.

Bruce Dickinson

The singer with the heavy metal band Iron Maiden is a fully qualified airline pilot with more than 50,0000 miles to his credit, who flies Boeing 757 jets for the UK charter airline Astraeus. He has also competed in fencing at international level, and founded a fencing equipment company called Duellist.

Paul Newman

The lately departed actor was also a successful racing driver, winning several American national championships. As a major philanthropist, he also co-founded the food company Newman's Own, producing a range of salad dressings, pasta sauces and wine, and raising more than $250 million for charity in post-tax profits.

Leonard Nimoy

The actor famous for playing the pointy-eared Mr Spock in Star Trek declared in 2003 that he was retiring from acting to concentrate on photography, although he has appeared in commercials with his fellow Star Trek co-star William Shatner.

Nimoy has been acclaimed for his figurative photography, with a dance piece being based on his female nude series, Shekhina.

Brian May

The guitarist with the rock band Queen can boast a PhD in astrophysics, appears on The Sky at Night, and has co-written a book, Bang! – The Complete History of the Universe with the programme's long-standing presenter Sir Patrick Moore.

At Moore's suggestion, in June of last year he had an asteroid named after him, Asteroid 52665 Brianmay, and is also chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University, replacing Cherie Blair.