1908 - 1975

He was known as Sexy Lexy and his unique brand of earthy, topical humour tickled Scottish audiences for almost 30 years. Derek Green looks at the career of "Scotland's King Of Comedy".

Alexander McLean Cameron (Lex McLean) 1908 - 1975 was almost certainly the last of the great music hall comedians. From the late 1950's to the early 1970's he packed Glasgow's famous Pavilion Theatre with record 24 week seasons, and his shows played twice nightly at 6.25 and 8.35 with a regular change of programme.

At the beginning, like many of our well known and much loved comedians, Lex had to start somewhere. When he was a boy his parents sent him for piano lessons and at an early age Lex decided he was going to be a musician. When he entered his teens he could play piano and accordion and various other instruments and joined the local band which played weekly in the town hall.

When Lex was 16 he started in show business as pianist to the "Girvan Entertainers" summer show, the show did not go well and Lex felt he would need to move on to secure work for himself. This he did and travelled to Belfast where he secured regular work as a street entertainer. Back in his home town of Clydebank, when any of his mothers friends asked "How's Lex?", his mother would say "he's travelling". Unfortunately Lex's mother did not look on show business favourably.

When Lex returned to Scotland he joined the "Imperial Scots" all tartan concert party and after a year with them he decided to form his own concert party and called it "The Meltonians" which he toured with for around four years.

During the Second World War he was in charge of the first ENSA Company and he visited Army units all over Scotland. After the war Lex has his big break as Comedian at Glasgow's Empress Theatre and it was here that he became a huge success. In the late 1950's when Comedian Tommy Morgan retired, the Pavilion offered Lex a contract for the summer show and Lex remained there as "Scotland's King Of Comedy" till ill health forced him to retire in the early 1970's.

Lex's brand of humour was very special to Glasgow audiences, he wasn't blue, but was a master at standing on stage, with a smirk and a look, suggest a comedy situation which was sure to have a double meaning and then snap out at the audience "Keep It Bright, Keep It Bright". One of his favourite gags was "Laugh and the world laughs with you. Quarrel with the wife and you sleep alone!"

Lex McLean died on March 23, 1975, and the theatre world of Scotland went into mourning. A close friend of Lex's at the time said, "More than any other man of his generation, he brought joy and laughter to the lives of his fellow Scots. Scotland has lost one of her sons who made the country a better place in which to live."

As we now enter a new Century and Millennium "Scotland's King Of Comedy" the great Lex McLean is still very much remembered and in today's variety shows Johnny Beattie, Billy Jeffrey and Derek Green all pay a lovely tribute to the man who was "The Master Of The Belly Laugh".

Special thanks to Iain Gordon, Manager of the Glasgow Pavilion Theatre, for permission to use images from www.paviliontheatre.co.uk

Contributed by Derek Green, May 2000