Comedy icon Freddie Starr, once one of Britain’s biggest stars, was laid to rest in the UK after a total stranger stepped in to cover the costs of his funeral after he died without a penny to his name. The funnyman, who raked in millions at the height of his fame in the 1970s and 80s and fronted his own BBC show, died from a heart attack in 2019 at the age of 76. At the time of his death, Starr was living in a modest one-bed townhouse on Spain’s Costa del Sol and was said to be on the brink of homelessness.

Fears quickly grew that the eccentric comic would face a pauper’s burial in Spain, a far cry from his wish to be laid to rest back on British soil. His Bulgarian carer, Nelly Georgieva, who discovered his body, revealed she had not heard from his relatives for years.

“Freddie had bad feelings about back home, he felt the British people had deserted him,” she said at the time. “It would be terrible if Freddie ends up being buried in a pauper’s grave. I don’t want to see that happen but I’m worried if I tried to do something about it his relatives would object.”

Starr, who had six children, three ex-wives and a widow left behind nothing but unpaid bills, with no clear plans for his funeral.

That’s when Sheffield funeral director Michael Fogg, who had never met the entertainer, decided to act. He paid for Starr’s repatriation and funeral out of his own pocket.

Explaining his decision, Mr Fogg said: “Anyone who can make a funeral director laugh must be a bloody good comedian. And Freddie Starr could make me laugh. He shouldn’t be buried in foreign land, he should be brought back to be in his own country.”

Thanks to Fogg’s generosity, Starr was finally brought home to Britain – ensuring the comic who once had the nation in stitches avoided the indignity of a lonely pauper’s grave abroad.

“For those asking why I am paying, well it is my money, it is my business and that is what I want to spend my money on. He should be reunited with the people he loved and his family. He shouldn’t be buried in foreign land, he should be brought back to be in his own country.”