New movie

Bay City Rollers legend Les McKeown: I'm enjoying life.. and I want Ewan to play me in film

BAY City Rollers legend Les McKeown wants Ewan to play him in a planned upcoming biopic about his life.

McKeown, now 54, also hopes the film release will coincide with a reunion tour by the group next year.

Les has sold the film rights to his biography Shang-a-Lang. He says the film will chart his time with the Scottish band and subsequent battles with alcoholism and drug abuse.

He also wants Sir Sean Connery to come out of retirement to play sleazy Tam Paton. He was the former Bay City Rollers manager who died last year and was jailed in 1982 for gross indecency with teenage boys. Child sex abuse charges against him were dropped in 2003.

Les revealed: “In the movie, my story will be mixed with the stories of the other guys from the Bay City Rollers.

“I’d like to play me but I can’t turn the clock back. Ewan would be great for it. I’d like Sean Connery to play the evil and nasty Tam Paton. If not, we can have Philip Seymour Hoffman.”

Speaking about the 60-date Bay City Rollers reunion tour planned for next September and October, Les said: “I’m not supposed to talk about it but plans are afoot to go on tour in autumn of next year and it is going to be great. I don’t consider myself seriously fit but I’m fit enough.

“I did a 32-date tour earlier this year called Rollermania, telling the story of the Bay City Rollers, which was very successful and I am doing it again next year.”

Les, who claims he was raped by Paton as a teenager, says he has now forgiven the man he blames for years of self-loathing and an eventual nervous breakdown.

He kept the abuse by Paton a secret for decades.

He said: “It was difficult to talk about because I was in the public eye. Ask any victim that and they will tell you the same thing – the shame.

“Can you imagine a wee Bay City Roller coming out with that, considering the hold Paton had on us? No.

“Now I read the papers, look on the news and the internet and see that I am certainly not the only one. For instance, look at what is happening in the Catholic Church.

“I am just one of many people who have been abused in this way. It’s all out in the open now and I am just another ex-victim, though I choose now not to be a victim. I choose life.

“It was a long time ago. I was a teenager. Young people are very resilient and can put these things away and foolishly think they are gone. But this festered in my subconscious and contributed greatly to my breakdown.”

Having blocked out his problems with booze and cocaine, Les was eventually informed by doctors, in 2008, that he had only months to live.

He turned his life around when he went on Living TV show Rehab. As part of the healing process, he revealed he’d been having secret gay flings for 30 years.

This was something he hadn’t told his Japanese wife Peko, or son Richard, 25.

Les said: “Of course, it was difficult for them to hear me talk about it and to see the state I was in but, in a simple sense, it is better that I am here alive and changed.

“My family is back together. I have a great relationship with my wife and my son. My business is also back on track.

“I have had liver function tests almost every month. My liver is looking good and my blood-sugar level is back down.”

“I suppose it’s like being in hell one minute and heaven the next. The last two years have been brilliant. Before, I was in a very dark place, I was very, very low, full of self-loathing, self-harming and self-doubt.

“By self-harm, I mean the alcohol and drugs. The self-harm people do on the outside is one thing, but look at the harm alcohol and drugs do to your insides.

“I have done permanent damage. There are parts of my liver which won’t recover, but the rest of it has bounced back.”

Referring to Paton’s death last year from a suspected heart attack, he said: “Tam Paton affected me until I went into rehab. Most of my problems stemmed from his interaction with me and what a nasty b*****d he was.

“I’ve got over that now. I forgave him in 2008. That’s one of the ways you get out of someone having a hold over your psyche. It’s one of the therapies I went through and it has worked for me.”

In their mid-70s heydays, the Bay City Rollers consisted of singer Les, guitarists Eric Faulkner and Stuart Wood, bassist Alan Longmuir and drummer Derek Longmuir.

They topped the charts around the world with songs such as Bye Bye Baby, Give A Little Love and Saturday Night.

But the band, who sold 70 million records, failed to collect the bulk of the royalties owed to them.

This month sees the release of Rollermania, a four-CD boxset charting the band’s career.

Next up, McKeown plans to go to court with the other band members to recoup lost royalties of £100million.

Les said: “Shall we get paid? My attitude is to get on with my life and, if the money comes along, brilliant.

“The old Les McKeown was overtaken by the depressed, alcoholic, coke-taking Les McKeown. I’m glad I got rid of him.

“Part of my problem was that people were screwing my life up. Now, things have changed.”