Billy T: The Life and Times of Billy T James (Large Print 16pt) - Tapa blanda

Billy T James was a larger-than-life comedian who gave us some of our best belly laughs, creating enduring characters as he poked the borax at race relations in New Zealand. His characters were Kiwi through and through and we loved him for it. When he died in his early forties, of complications following a heart transplant, we were shocked - first by his premature death, and then by one of the first highly publicised interracial body-snatching incidents. His widow, Lynn Matthews, and a number of Billy?s closest friends who have kept their silence until now, have cooperated with author Matt Elliott to tell the story behind the cheeky grin. What emerges is the shy, self-doubting man the public never saw, and the death threats and exploitation of his generous nature that placed intolerable strain on the man who only ever wanted to make us laugh. The result is perceptive, poignant, funny and endearing - just like Billy T.

Matt Elliott is a full-time writer specialising in non-fiction. He is the author of BILLY T, described as biography of the year by North and South magazine, and DAVE GALLAHER, about the 1905 All Black captain. NICE DAY FOR A WAR (in collaboration with illustrator Chris Slane), about his grandfather s experience in the First World War, was the 2012 New Zealand Post Children s Book of the Year.