The Scottish comedian and impressionist Stanley Baxter, who has died aged 99, was one of the great superstars of British television in the 1970s, with a series of big-budget shows that almost matched the scale of Hollywood epics, and in which he brilliantly impersonated international celebrities of the day, often female ones.

His mastery of the nuances of dialect and the speech patterns of humbler folk was also uncanny: in one famous sketch based on BBC TV’s Nationwide, the presenter introduced newsflashes from regional studios: Leeds, Cardiff, Glasgow, Belfast and London. Each reporter spoke unintelligible gibberish, yet each was impeccably accurate phonetically.

For the BBC (1963-1972, then 1985-86) and LWT (1975-1982) Baxter created extravagant and expensive productions that, along with those of Morecambe and Wise, became staples of Christmas and New Year television, attracting huge viewing figures. In spite of this, the shows were discontinued by both broadcasters because of the vast budgets involved. His nemesis in both cases was the TV executive John Birt who, having moved between BBC and ITV, told him: “It’s not that we don’t like your work. It just all costs so much.” Baxter, always reluctant to compromise, went into semi-retirement in 1991. Even at the height of his fame he had been a curiously remote figure, seemingly awkward as “himself” in interviews, and retreating from public view once a series was over.

“All this rubbish about the man behind the mask,” he told the Scotsman in 2008. “I’ve had it again and again and again. The mask is what’s important. Everything else is not so important. The mask is the talent. That’s the work.”

As with his impressionist contemporaries Dick Emery and Mike Yarwood, Baxter’s astonishing gifts of mimicry were often ill served by cliched and derivative scripts: it was almost as if the wonderful impersonations, elaborate costumes and lavish sets were enough, and the words, reliant on easy sexual innuendo, of far less significance. This is perhaps why his work has not survived as successfully as that of subtler stars of his era. One sketch in which Baxter impersonated Clint Eastwood can be traced back through theatrical history to an ancient gag that the variety comic Billy Danvers trundled around the music halls for years.

Far better were the sketches where he engaged in “Parliamo Glasgow”, in which a well-spoken BBC host (Baxter) interpreted the language of a streetwise Glaswegian (also Baxter). “Zarrafacmac?” (are you doubting the accuracy of what I say?), “Jefancia?” (are you attracted to that young woman?) and “Sanoffy cauld day” were among the phrases translated.

Baxter’s most cherished impressions were of Noël Coward, Mae West, Dora Bryan, Bette Davis and Queen Elizabeth II (renamed Duchess of Brendagh). His female impersonation mimicked body language as well as vocal inflections.

Born in Glasgow, the son of Fred, an insurance manager, and his wife, Bessie (nee McCorkindale), Stanley was educated at the city’s Hillhead high school and also trained for the stage by his mother, who taught him to do impressions of West and Harry Lauder, even though he was not quite sure who they were. He began his career as a child actor in radio on the Scottish edition of the BBC Children’s Hour and lived with his parents until he married at 26.

After qualifying as an English teacher at Glasgow University, he honed his performing skills during national service with the Combined Services Entertainment Unit. When he was stationed in Singapore his fellow troupers included the future film director John Schlesinger, the budding dramatist Peter Nichols and the comedy actor Kenneth Williams, who remained a lifelong friend and influence.

Returning to Glasgow, he spent three years playing a variety of straight roles at the Citizens theatre, where he met his future wife, Moira Robertson, and also formed a pantomime partnership with the comedian Jimmy Logan. Having become famous in Scotland, he left in 1959 for television work in London, and a major break came the same year with the BBC TV satirical sketch show On the Bright Side, which he co-hosted with Betty Marsden and which won him that year’s Bafta for light entertainment performance. The Stanley Baxter Show (1963-71) made him a household name, and he also starred in several films: Very Important Person (1961), The Fast Lady (1962), Crooks Anonymous (1962) and Father Came Too! (1964).

In 1965 Baxter appeared in Dennis Potter’s first TV drama, The Confidence Course, a BBC Wednesday Play. In this story of swindlers running a self-assertiveness course, he played a man who imagined himself to be the essayist William Hazlitt (1778-1830).

Four series and two Christmas specials of The Stanley Baxter Show (1963-71) were followed by Time for Baxter, a New Year’s Day special from BBC Scotland in 1972, and then came the move to LWT with a series and three specials of The Stanley Baxter Picture Show (1972-75), Stanley Baxter’s Christmas Box (1976), Stanley Baxter on Television (1979), The Stanley Baxter Series (1981) and The Stanley Baxter Hour (1982).

He moved back to the BBC for Stanley Baxter’s Christmas Hamper (1985) and Stanley Baxter’s Picture Annual (1986) and then his contract was cancelled. However, he gained a new young audience when he starred in three series of Mr Majeika (1988-90), playing a wizard from another planet posing as a teacher at a small village school, based on books by Humphrey Carpenter. Baxter’s earnings from the series, plus careful investments, enabled him to go into semi-retirement.

He emerged from his self-imposed seclusion in 2006 to record 19 plays for The Stanley Baxter Playhouse on BBC Radio 4. In addition to the earlier award, he won Baftas for light entertainment performance in 1972 and 1981 and a lifetime achievement award at the British Comedy Awards in 1997. Eddie Izzard presented The Stanley Baxter Story on Radio 2 in 2009.

Baxter, so flamboyant on screen and so intensely private off, also worked on an official biography, The Real Stanley Baxter, with the author Brian Beacom, but initially declined to have it published during his lifetime.

He changed his mind in 2020 and agreed to publication, at the same time finally revealing at the age of 94 what many of his public had possibly already assumed: that he was gay. “There are many gay people these days who are fairly comfortable with their sexuality,” he told the Daily Mail. “I’m not. I never wanted to be gay. I still don’t. Anyone would be insane to choose to live such a very difficult life. The truth is, I don’t really want to be me.”

Moira died in 1997. The couple had lived apart for the last 20 years of their marriage, although he visited her daily. His longterm partner, Marcus, a German accountant whom he met in the early 70s, died in 2016. In later years he moved into the actors’ retirement home Denville Hall, in north-west London.

He is survived by a younger sister, Alice, a niece, Zoe, and a nephew, Tony.

• Stanley Livingstone Baxter, comedian and actor, born 24 May 1926; died 11 December 2025