Lord Brian Rix

Brian Rix – Lord Rix – was born in Yorkshire, the son of a Hull ship-owner. Before serving in the RAF during World War II, he became an actor and on demobilisation in 1947 formed his own theatre company.

For thirty years he was an actor-manager, presenting hugely popular farces on stage, as well as over seventy on BBC television and twelve on film.

Lord Rix’s involvement with the Royal Mencap Society (as it is now) began in the late 1950s. In 1980 he retired from the theatre and became Mencap’s Secretary-General, in 1988 Mencap’s Chairman and in 1998 the Society’s President.

Brian married actress Elspet Gray in 1949 and they had four children, the eldest of whom had Down’s syndrome and died in 2005 aged 53.