Tommy Steele
Tommy Steele ( born December 17, 1936 in London, England; actually Thomas Hicks ) is a British singer, actor and entertainer. He was the first local rock ' n' roll star in Britain.
Life
After a few years in the merchant navy Thomas Hicks founded in 1956 with Lionel Bart and Mike Pratt, the skiffle band The Cavemen. John Kennedy and Larry Parnes were aware of them and became their manager. The name was changed to Tommy Steele & The Steelmen. Steele was the first artist in the stable future of the music manager Parnes. And Parnes made him a star. The Singles Rock With The Caveman and Singing The Blues were hits.
In 1957, the movie The Tommy Steele Story was filmed. The second film, The Duke Wore Jeans, still followed in the same year, and Steele got his own TV show. Tommy Steele was omnipresent, live, on disk, on the radio, on television and in the movies. And he appeared in front of the royal family members.
1958 Steele went on an international tour that took him through Europe and to South Africa. At a gig in the UK, he was so severely wounded by fans that he had to pause. Steele then started to separate from the rock ' n ' roll image. This role was occupied by others, such as Cliff Richard and Billy Fury.
In 1963, Steel his first role in a musical, Half A Sixpence, which was then listed two years on Broadway and eventually made into a film in Hollywood, always with Tommy Steele. There were other musical films such as Walt Disney, for which he received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Young Actor The Happiest Millionaire ( The Happiest Millionaire, 1967) with Fred MacMurray, Lesley Ann Warren and Greer Garson, and the golden rainbow ( Finian 's Rainbow, 1968), with Fred Astaire, Petula Clark and Don Francks, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
In 1974, Steele autobiographical album My Life, My Song out. An Evening with Tommy Steele with 14 months of 1979-80 was one of the longest- running one-man shows ever. 1983 Steele staged the musical Singin 'in the Rain, in which he also played the lead role. In 2003, he was with the musical Scrooge on tour. Steele's name is closely connected with the London Palladium, where he is now the star with most performances. A plaque in the main foyer honors him for it. 2005/2006 he played here last in Scrooge.
Tommy Steele is also active as a painter, sculptor and author, and an excellent pantomime.
Bibliography
- Tommy Steele: Bermondsey Boy: Memories of a Forgotten World. Joseph, London 2006, ISBN 0-718-14972-6.