Ricky Tomlinson, the actor who plays a flatulent couch-potato in the TV comedy The Royle Family, has been offered £800,000 to write his autobiography - a sum that would make his working-class character, Jim Royle, issue a trademark: '"Book advance, my arse".
Tomlinson, a Liverpudlian who takes a carrier bag of Sainsbury's mild beer to premieres, shuns hotels and appeared in a broadcast for Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party during the last election, revealed shrewd business sense in closing the deal. His partner, Rita, a social worker with no experience of publishing, sat in their flat and negotiated through a four-publisher bidding contest on the telephone.
Tomlinson emerged with a sum equal to the book deal for the life story of singer Robbie Williams, and £50,000 more than comedian Frank Skinner, who got a six-figure advance to tell of teenage drinking in Birmingham. Tomlinson is a socialist banjo virtuoso who served two years in prison for organising strike pickets - his life is a subject that his publishers, Time Warner books, believe will sell.
The firm published TV presenter Anne Robinson's tale of alcoholism and is interested in the sales potential of "hard-life" stories. Pamela Stephenson's account of Billy Connolly's child abuse by his father has sold 400,000 copies in hardback since October. Tomlinson's story is expected to do the same.
Tomlinson, a baker's son, was born in working-class Liverpool in 1939. "I'm not getting the violin out, but there were six of us in a two-bedroomed house," he told interviewers.
After turning down a football trial for Scunthorpe United, he played the banjo in pubs then became a plasterer. He and another activist, Des Warren, were jailed for conspiracy in 1973 during the builders' strike.
He served time in 14 prisons, mostly in solitary confinement, because, as he recalls: "I would not wear any clothes, and went to the toilet on the floor. I was on hunger strike for 22 days." After prison, Tomlinson was blacklisted from the building trade and set up as an entertainer. A part in Boys from the Blackstuff was followed by Brookside, success in The Royle Family, and last year's lead in the film Mike Bassett: England Manager.
"Yes it's a big sum for an autobiography," said Antonia Hodgson, Tomlinson's editor. "But he's a great raconteur, he had a difficult childhood, and he has a serious place in labour history.
"At 63, he feels ready to tell his story - not just for the money. Ordinary people are interested. As a cabbie told me on the way to a Liverpool station, 'He's pure, bottled Scouse and we love him'."
The book will be published next October. Tomlinson, who is filming the TV series, Nice Guy Eddie, recently held a party for childhood neighbours in order to mine them for anecdotes. The actor once said of sedentary Joe Royle: "About 99% of him is me."
Other generous advances
£1.4m: Murray Walker
In the biggest deal in British sports publishing, Walker last year sold his memoirs - provisionally titled Unless I'm Very Much Mistaken - to HarperCollins before he had written a word.
£750,000 Frank Skinner
Century books paid Skinner one of the highest sums for a comedian's autobiography.
£600,000 Richard and Judy
The couple are writing alternate chapters of their joint memoirs for Hodder Headline.
£400,000 Anthea Turner
Once the second highest-paid woman on British television, Anthea Turner received what was considered a "huge" advance for her tale of sham marriage and affairs.
