• Actress
• Agatha Christie
• Album
• Alhambra Theatre
• Allan Warren
• Angela Lansbury
• Australia
• Basil Dean
• Batley Variety Club
• BBC
• Box office
• Bruce Forsythe
• Capri
• Cervical cancer
• Christmas Day
• Comedienne
• Cotton mill
• David Bret
• Drama (art form)
• Eartha Kitt
• Elizabeth Taylor
• England
• ENSA
• Festival of Britain
• Film
• Film director
• Fish and chips
• France
• Freedom of the City
• Gerald Du Maurier
• Gracie Fields
• Gracie!
• Greta Garbo
• Harold Fielding
• Honeymoon
• Irving Fields
• Isle of Capri (song)
• Italy
• ITV
• Jane Horrocks
• Jess Yates
• Jessica Tandy
• Jinx Falkenburg
• Keep Smiling (film)
• Lancashire
• Life (magazine)
• Little Donkey
• London Palladium
• Look Up and Laugh
• Margaret Rutherford
• Max Bygraves
• Miss Marple
• Molly and Me
• Monologue
• Monty Banks
• Monty Python
• Music hall
• New Guinea
• North America
• Northern England
• Now Is the Hour
• Noël Coward
• Oldham Loop Line
• Orient Express
• Oswald Stoll
• Pneumonia
• Portal Biography
• Rapport
• Richard Burton
• Rochdale
• Rochdale F.C.
• Roger Moore
• Romania
• Rome
• Royal Air Force
• Sally in Our Alley
• Santa Monica
• Shipyard Sally
• Sing As We Go
• Singing
• Single (music)
• Sit on My Face
• Songs of Praise
• Stage Door Canteen
• Stanley Holloway
• Stars on Sunday
• The Mercury (Hobart)
• The Show Goes On
• The Twelfth of Never
• This Week of Grace
• Tom Hollander
• Tommy Steele
• UK Albums Chart
• UK Singles Chart
• United States
• Val Parnell
• Variety show
• West End theatre
• Wikipedia Persondata
• Winston Churchill
• Working class
• World War II
• 
  

• 
  Australia
  Australia ( /əˈstreɪljə/), officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent as well as the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area. Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea to the north; the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east.
  For at least 40,000 years before European settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who belonged to one or more of roughly 250 language groups. After discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades; the continent was explored and an additional five self-governing Crown Colonies were established.
  
  wn.com/Australia
• 
  Capri
  Capri (/kəˈpriː/; Italian pronunciation: [ˈkaːpri]) is an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples in the Campania region of Italy. The main town on the island shares the name. It has been a resort since the time of the Roman Republic.
  Features of the island are the Marina Piccola (the little harbour), the Belvedere of Tragara (a high panoramic promenade lined with villas), the limestone crags called sea stacks that project above the sea (the Faraglioni), the town of Anacapri, the Blue Grotto (Grotta Azzurra), and the ruins of the Imperial Roman villas.
  Capri is part of the region of Campania, Province of Naples. The town of Capri is the island's main population centre. The island has two harbours, Marina Piccola and Marina Grande (the main port of the island). The separate comune of Anacapri is located high on the hills to the west.
  The etymology of the name Capri is unclear; it might either be traced back to the Ancient Greeks (Ancient Greek kapros meaning "wild boar"), the first recorded colonists to populate the island. But it could also derive from Latin capreae (goats). Fossils of wild boars have been discovered, lending credence to the "kapros" etymology, but on the other hand the Romans called Capri "goat island". Finally, there is also the possibility the name derives from an Etruscan word for "rocky", though any historical Etruscan rule of the island is disputed.
  
  wn.com/Capri
• 
  England
  England ⁱ/ˈɪŋɡlənd/ is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, while the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separate it from continental Europe. Most of England comprises the central and southern part of the island of Great Britain in the North Atlantic. The country also includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.
  The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Palaeolithic period, but it takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in AD 927, and since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world. The English language, the Anglican Church, and English law—the basis for the common law legal systems of many other countries around the world—developed in England, and the country's parliamentary system of government has been widely adopted by other nations. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. England's Royal Society laid the foundations of modern experimental science.
  
  wn.com/England
• 
  France
  France (English ⁱ/ˈfræns/ FRANSS or /ˈfrɑːns/ FRAHNSS; French: [fʁɑ̃s] ( listen)), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as l’Hexagone ("The Hexagon") because of the geometric shape of its territory. It is the largest western European country and it possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, covering 11,035,000 km² (4,260,000 sq mi), just behind that of the United States (11,351,000 km² / 4,383,000 sq mi).
  Over the past 500 years, France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and around the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America and Southeast Asia; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second largest colonial empire of the time, including large portions of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.
  
  wn.com/France
• 
  Italy
  Italy ⁱ/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in south-central Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea–and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km² (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.
  Rome, the capital of Italy, was for centuries a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later, Italy became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance, an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.
  
  wn.com/Italy
• 
  Lancashire
  Lancashire ( /ˈlæŋkəʃər/ or, less commonly, /ˈlæŋkəʃɪər/) is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston. Lancashire is sometimes referred to by the abbreviation Lancs, as originally used by the Royal Mail. The population of the county is 1,449,700. People from the county are known as Lancastrians.
  The history of Lancashire is thought to have begun with its founding in the 12th century. In the Domesday Book (1086), some of its lands had been treated as part of Yorkshire. The land that lay Inter Ripam et Mersam, "between the Ribble and Mersey", formed part of the returns for Cheshire. Once its initial boundaries were established, it bordered Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire and Cheshire.
  Lancashire emerged during the Industrial Revolution as a major commercial and industrial region. The county encompassed several hundred mill towns and collieries. By the 1830s, approximately 85% of all cotton manufactured worldwide was processed in Lancashire.Preston, Accrington, Blackburn, Bolton, Rochdale, Oldham, Chorley, Darwen, Nelson, Colne and Burnley were major cotton mill towns during this time. Blackpool was a major centre for tourism for the inhabitants of Lancashire's mill towns, particularly during wakes week.
  
  wn.com/Lancashire
• 
  Northern England
  Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North or the North Country, is a cultural region of England. It is not an official government region, but rather an informal amalgamation of counties. The southern extent of the region is roughly the River Trent, while the North is bordered by Scotland.
  Northern England comprises three regions of England - the North East, North West and Yorkshire and the Humber. The counties of Northern England combined have a population of around 14.5 million covering an area of 37,331 km² (14,414 sq mi).
  During antiquity most of the area was part of Brigantia — homeland of the Brigantes and the largest Brythonic kingdom of Great Britain. After the Roman conquest of Britain the city of York became capital of the area, called Britannia Inferior then Britannia Secunda. In Sub-Roman Britain new Brythonic kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd emerged. The Angle settlers created Bernicia and Deira from which came Northumbria and a Golden Age in cultural, scholarly and monastic activity, centred around Lindisfarne and aided by Irish monks.Norse and Gaelic Viking raiders gained control of much of the area, creating the Danelaw. During this time there were close relations with Mann and the Isles, Dublin and Norway. Northumbria was unified with the rest of England under Eadred around 952.
  
  wn.com/Northern_England
• 
  Romania
  Romania (ⁱ/roʊˈmeɪniə/ roh-MAY-nee-ə; dated: Roumania; or Rumania;Romanian: România [romɨˈni.a] ( listen)) is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Romania shares a border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine and Moldova to the northeast and east, and Bulgaria to the south.
  At 238,400 square kilometers (92,000 sq mi), Romania is the ninth largest country of the European Union by area, and has the seventh largest population of the European Union with over 19 million people. Its capital and largest city is Bucharest, the tenth largest city in the EU with about two million people.
  The Kingdom of Romania emerged when the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia were united under Prince Alexander Ioan Cuza in 1859. Independence from the Ottoman Empire was declared on 9 May 1877, and was internationally recognized the following year. At the end of World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the Kingdom of Romania. Greater Romania emerged into an era of progression and prosperity that would continue until World War II. By the end of the War, many north-eastern areas of Romania's territories were occupied by the Soviet Union, and Romania forcibly became a socialist republic and a member of the Warsaw Pact.
  
  wn.com/Romania
• 
  Rome
  Rome (/ˈroʊm/; Italian: Roma pronounced [ˈroːma] ( listen); Latin: Rōma) is a city and special comune ("Roma Capitale") in Italy. Rome is the capital of Italy and the capital of Lazio (Latin: Latium). With 2.8 million residents in 1,285.3 km² (496.3 sq mi), it is also the country's largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. Between 3.2 and 3.7 million people live in the Rome metropolitan area. The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.
  Rome's history spans two and a half thousand years. It was the capital city of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, which was the dominant power in Western Europe and the lands bordering the Mediterranean for over seven hundred years from the 1st century BC until the 7th century AD and the city is regarded as one of the birthplaces of western civilization. Since the 1st century AD Rome has been the seat of the Papacy and, after the end of Byzantine domination, in the 8th century it became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870. In 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic.
  
  wn.com/Rome
• 
  United States
  The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
  At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.
  
  wn.com/United_States
• 
  West End theatre
  West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. Seeing a West End show is a common tourist activity in London.
  Total attendances first surpassed 12 million in 2002 and 13 million in 2007, setting a new record for the West End. Since the late 1990s there has been an increase in the number of famous screen actors on the London stage.
  The Theatre in London flourished after the English Reformation. The first permanent public playhouse, known simply as The Theatre, was constructed in 1576 in Shoreditch by James Burbage. It was soon joined by The Curtain. Both are known to have been used by William Shakespeare's company. In 1599, the timber from The Theatre was moved to Southwark, where it was used in building the Globe Theatre in a new theatre district formed, beyond the controls of the City corporation. These theatres were closed in 1642 during the interregnum.
  
  wn.com/West_End_theatre

• 
  Agatha Christie
  Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and more than 15 short story collections (especially those featuring Hercule Poirot or Miss Jane Marple), and her successful West End plays.
  According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly four billion copies, and her estate claims that her works rank third, after those of William Shakespeare and the Bible, as the most widely published books. According to Index Translationum, Christie is the most translated individual author, with only the collective corporate works of Walt Disney Productions surpassing her. Her books have been translated into at least 103 languages.
  Agatha Christie published two autobiographies: a posthumous one covering childhood to old age; and another chronicling several seasons of archaeological excavation in Syria and Iraq with her second husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan. The latter was published in 1946 with the title, Come, Tell Me How You Live.
  
  wn.com/Agatha_Christie
• 
  Allan Warren
  Michael Allan Warren (born 26 October 1948 in Wimbledon, London) is an English society-photographer, writer and former actor. His work encompasses works of many celebrities during the late 1960s, 70s and into the 80s, such as members of the British Royal Family, influential politicians and artists in both music and literature as well as some of the most important people in Hollywood at their time.
  After growing up in post-war London, Warren attended Terry's Juveniles, a stage school based in the Drury Lane Theatre. It was during this time that he attended auditions through which he received several assignments. One such piece of work was as a child presenter in "The Five O'clock Club", which afforded him the opportunity to associate with a variety of people, including a young Marc Bolan (then performing as "Toby Tyler") who would later employ Warren as his first manager.
  Warren started his photographic career at the age of 17 when he was acting in Alan Bennett's play Forty Years On with John Gielgud in the West End at the Apollo Theatre. Around this time Warren bought his first second-hand camera and started to take photographs of his fellow actors. His first major assignment was when his friend Mickey Deans asked him to cover his wedding to Judy Garland, which marked the beginning of Warren's work as a professional photographer. Upon travelling to New York for personal reasons, he attended an audition for the Broadway production of Minnie's Boys. However, he later declined the role offered to him in favour of returning to London and pursuing photography as his vocation.
  
  wn.com/Allan_Warren
• 
  Basil Dean
  Basil Herbert Dean CBE (27 September 1888 – 22 April 1978) was an English actor, writer, film producer/film director and theatrical producer/director.
  Born in Croydon, Surrey, Dean started his career in showbusiness in London as a West End stage actor, and then later became a theatrical producer. He later moved into the film industry and in the early 1930s founded Associated Talking Pictures, which later became Ealing Studios. He publicised and worked alongside Gracie Fields and George Formby, among other entertainers. When the war started he left the film industry and became the head of ENSA, the government-sponsored body responsible for bringing live performances to the armed services. He was awarded the CBE for his work with ENSA.
  His wives included Lady Mercy Greville and Esther Van Gruisen. From August 1934 until 1939 he was married to British stage and film actress, Victoria Hopper. Dean had a relationship with one of his theatre and film stars Meggie Albanesi and after her death in 1923 continued to be obsessed with her.
  
  wn.com/Basil_Dean
• 
  David Bret
  David Bret (born 8 November 1954 in Paris) is a French-born British author of showbiz biographies. He chiefly writes on the private life of movie stars and singers in a somewhat sensationalist style.
  Born in Paris, France in 1954, David Bret was adopted by an English couple and raised in Wath-on-Dearne, South Yorkshire. He worked for several years in the retail trade, then as an administrator with the NHS, and as a singer in working men's clubs. He then began writing the biographies for which he is best known. He married Jeanne Elliss in October 1972, and has a son, Marleau, born in October 1973. He lives in West Yorkshire, England.
  Bret has also written many newspaper and magazine articles, for instance, for The Stage, and he has lectured at the University of Chicago. He had adapted songs from the original French for his godmother, actress Jacqueline Danno, and for his friend the chanteuse Barbara. She commissioned him to adapt her theme song, Ma plus belle histoire d'amour, into English. Bret also appears in the Italian documentary, 'Rudy', which tells the story of Rudolph Valentino. He also made a trio of documentaries for the E! channel in the USA: Freddie Mercury, Valentino and Tallulah Bankhead.
  
  wn.com/David_Bret
• 
  Eartha Kitt
  Eartha Mae Kitt (January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American singer, actress, and cabaret star. She was perhaps best known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 hit recordings of "C'est Si Bon" and the enduring Christmas novelty smash "Santa Baby". Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the world." She took over the role of Catwoman for the third and final season of the 1960s Batman television series, replacing Julie Newmar, who was unavailable due to other commitments.
  Kitt was born Eartha Mae Keith on a cotton plantation in North, a small town in Orangeburg County near Columbia, South Carolina. Kitt's mother was of Cherokee and African-American descent and her father of German or Dutch descent. Kitt was conceived by rape.
  Kitt was raised by Anna Mae Riley, an African-American woman whom she believed to be her mother. Anna Mae went to live with a black man when Eartha was aged 8. He refused to accept Kitt because of her relatively pale complexion. Kitt lived with another family until Riley's death. She was then sent to live in New York City with Mamie Kitt, who she learned was her biological mother.^{[citation needed]} She had no knowledge of her father, except that his surname was Kitt and that he was supposedly a son of the owner of the farm where she had been born. Newspaper obituaries state that her white father was "a poor cotton farmer".
  
  wn.com/Eartha_Kitt
• 
  Elizabeth Taylor
  Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age. As one of the world's most famous film stars, Taylor was recognized for her acting ability and for her glamorous lifestyle, beauty and distinctive violet eyes.
  National Velvet (1944) was Taylor's first success, and she starred in Father of the Bride (1950), A Place in the Sun (1951), Giant (1956), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for BUtterfield 8 (1960), played the title role in Cleopatra (1963), and married her co-star Richard Burton. They appeared together in 11 films, including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), for which Taylor won a second Academy Award. From the mid-1970s, she appeared less frequently in film, and made occasional appearances in television and theatre.
  Her much publicized personal life included eight marriages and several life-threatening illnesses. From the mid-1980s, Taylor championed HIV and AIDS programs; she co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985, and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1993. She received the Presidential Citizens Medal, the Legion of Honour, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, who named her seventh on their list of the "Greatest American Screen Legends". Taylor died of congestive heart failure in March 2011 at the age of 79, having suffered many years of ill health.
  
  wn.com/Elizabeth_Taylor
• 
  Gracie Fields
  Dame Gracie Fields, DBE (born Grace Stansfield, 9 January 1898 – 27 September 1979), was an English-born, later Italian-based actress, singer and comedienne and star of both cinema and music hall.
  Grace Stansfield was born over a fish and chip shop owned by her grandmother, Sarah Bamford, in Molesworth Street, Rochdale, Lancashire. She made her first stage appearance as a child in 1905, joining children's repertory theatre groups such as 'Haley's Garden of Girls' and the 'Nine Dainty Dots'. Her two sisters, Edith and Betty and brother, Tommy, all went on to appear on stage, but Gracie was the most successful. Her professional debut in variety took place at the Rochdale Hippodrome theatre in 1910 and she soon gave up her job in the local cotton mill, where she was a half-timer, spending half a week in the mill and the other half at school.
  She met comedian and impresario Archie Pitt and they began working together. Pitt gave Fields champagne on her 18th birthday, and wrote in an autograph book to her that he would make her a star. Pitt would come to serve as her manager and the two married in 1923 at Clapham Register Office. Their first revue in 1915 was called Yes I Think So and the two continued to tour Britain together until 1924 in the revue Mr Tower of London, with other reviews including By Request, It's A Bargain and The Show's The Thing.
  
  wn.com/Gracie_Fields
• 
  Greta Garbo
  Greta Garbo (18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990), born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of her films were sensational hits, and all but three of her twenty-four Hollywood films were profitable. Garbo was nominated four times for an Academy Award and received an honorary one in 1954 for her "luminous and unforgettable screen performances". She also won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress for both Anna Karenina (1935) and Camille (1936). In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Garbo fifth on their list of greatest female stars of all time, after Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, and Ingrid Bergman.
  Garbo launched her career with a leading role in the 1924 Swedish film The Saga of Gosta Berling. Her performance caught the attention of Louis B. Mayer, chief executive of Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), who brought her to Hollywood in 1925. She immediately stirred interest with her first silent film, Torrent, released in 1926; a year later, her performance in Flesh and the Devil, her third movie, made her an international star.
  
  wn.com/Greta_Garbo
• 
  Irving Fields
  Irving Fields (born August 4, 1915) is an American pianist and lounge music artist who was born in New York City, New York. Some of his most noteworthy compositions include "Miami Beach Rhumba", "Managua, Nicaragua" and "Chantez, Chantez," covered by Dinah Shore in 1957.
  Fields' most famous album is Bagels & Bongos, recorded for Decca Records in 1959 with his trio, which sold two million copies. The next year he released the sequel More Bagels & Bongos, which was reissued on CD in 2009 by Roman Midnight Music under the direct creative advisement of 94-year old Fields, the only reissue commissioned directly by Irving. Fields claims to have recorded nearly 100 albums featuring trios, quartets, orchestras and solo. His most known work is the 1960s output that directly followed Bagels & Bongos and fused international music with Latin, including: Bikinis and Bongos, featuring Hawaiian music, Pizza and Bongos featuring Italian music and Champagne and Bongos featuring French music. He also did an album of songs done in a Twist style called Twistin!. Irving's sister was Peppy Fields, often called the Sophie Tucker of Miami, who hosted celebrity radio and tv shows for 35 years.
  
  wn.com/Irving_Fields
• Jane Horrocks
  Barbara Jane Horrocks (born 18 January 1964) is an English voice, stage, screen and television actress, voice artist, musician, and singer. She is best known for her role as "Bubble" in the TV series Absolutely Fabulous as well as her distinctive voice and strong Lancashire accent.
  Horrocks, the youngest of three children, was born in Rawtenstall, Lancashire, England, the daughter of Barbara (née Ashworth), a hospital worker, and John Horrocks, a sales representative. She attended Balladen County Primary School and later trained at the Oldham College and subsequently at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art with Imogen Stubbs and Ralph Fiennes, and began her career with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She drew critical notice for her performance in the film Life Is Sweet (1991), followed by her award-winning performance in the West End play The Rise and Fall of Little Voice in which she sang all the songs. Horrocks became a name with the role of Bubble in Absolutely Fabulous (1992–2012), in which she also played Katy Grin in the last two seasons.
  
  wn.com/Jane_Horrocks
• Jess Yates
  Jesse Frederick Joseph Yates (20 December 1918 – 9 April 1993) was a British television presenter and producer. He was the creator and presenter of Yorkshire Television’s religious programme Stars on Sunday which earned him the nickname 'The Bishop'.
  Born in Tyldesley, Lancashire, his family moved to Llandudno when he was five and he lived in Wales for much of his life. After leaving school, Yates worked as a cinema organist Yates was born into a showbusiness family; his mother booked his stage acts. After the war he directed documentary films, joined BBC Television as a freelance designer and joined the BBC on the production side in 1949. He was involved with programmes, such as Come Dancing, The Good Old Days and the Miss World competition.
  Later he became head of children’s programmes for Yorkshire TV in 1968. The following year he began hosting Stars on Sunday. Yates would introduce the show seated at an electric organ - on which he occasionally performed in a tremulous manner - placed in front of a stained-glass window. One of his many charming observations was, "We can't see round the bend in the road, but God can." The programme attracted many special guests, including Harry Secombe, Dame Anna Neagle, Gracie Fields and Dorothy Squires. He was quoted as wanting stars to appear on the programme as this is what he thought would persuade viewers to tune-in. At the end of the series viewing figures had risen from 600,000 to seven million.
  
  wn.com/Jess_Yates
• 
  Jessica Tandy
  Jessie Alice "Jessica" Tandy (June 7, 1909 - September 11, 1994) was an English-American stage and film actress.
  She first appeared on the London stage in 1926 at the age of 16, playing, among other roles, Katherine opposite Laurence Olivier's Henry V, and Cordelia opposite John Gielgud's King Lear. She also worked in British films. Following the end of her marriage to the British actor Jack Hawkins, she moved to New York, where she met Canadian actor Hume Cronyn. He became her second husband and frequent partner on stage and screen.
  She won the Tony Award for her performance as Blanche Dubois in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948, sharing the prize with Katherine Cornell (who won for the female lead in Antony and Cleopatra) and Judith Anderson (for the latter's portrayal of Medea). Over the following three decades, her career continued sporadically and included a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's horror film, The Birds (1963), and a Tony Award-winning performance in The Gin Game (1977, playing in the two-hander play opposite Hume Cronyn). Along with Cronyn, she was a member of the original acting company of the Guthrie Theater.
  
  wn.com/Jessica_Tandy
• 
  Jinx Falkenburg
  Eugenia Lincoln "Jinx" Falkenburg (21 January 1919 - 27 August 2003) was an actress, expert swimmer and tennis star, and one of the highest-paid and most ubiquitous cover-girl models in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s, one of the first supermodels. She married journalist and influential publicist Tex McCrary in 1945.
  Known as “Tex and Jinx” to most American households, the glamorous couple pioneered and popularized the talk-show format, first on radio and then in the early days of television. They hosted a series of interview shows in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s that combined celebrity chit-chat with discussions of important topics of the day.
  Born in Barcelona, Spain to American parents, her father Eugene “Genie” Lincoln Falkenburg was an engineer for Westinghouse. Thinking the name would bring good luck, she was nicknamed Jinx by her mother Marguerite “Mickey” Crooks Falkenburg, an accomplished athlete and tennis player (Brazil women’s champion in 1927), and the name stuck. ^{[page needed]} All the Falkenburg offspring became known for their tennis abilities. Bob Falkenburg, Jinx’s younger brother, won the men’s singles championship at Wimbledon in 1948.
  
  wn.com/Jinx_Falkenburg
• Margaret Rutherford
  Dame Margaret Taylor Rutherford, DBE (11 May 1892 – 22 May 1972) was an English character actress, who first came to prominence following World War II in the film adaptations of Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit, and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. In 1963 she won the best supporting actress Oscar as The Duchess of Brighton in The VIPs.
  She is probably best known for her 1960s performances as Miss Marple in several films based loosely on Agatha Christie's novels.
  Margaret Rutherford's father, William Rutherford Benn, suffered from mental illness. During his honeymoon he had a nervous breakdown and was confined to an asylum. He was eventually released on holiday and on 4 March 1883, he murdered his father, the Reverend Julius Benn, a Congregational church minister, by bludgeoning him to death with a chamberpot (Worcester Spode). Shortly afterwards, William tried to kill himself as well, by slashing his throat with a pocketknife. After the murder, William Benn was confined to the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Several years later he was released, reportedly cured of his mental affliction. He changed his surname to Rutherford, and returned to his wife, Ann (née Taylor).
  
  wn.com/Margaret_Rutherford
• Max Bygraves
  Max Bygraves OBE (born Walter William Bygraves on 16 October 1922) is an English comedian, singer, actor and variety performer. He appeared on his own television shows, sometimes performing comedy sketches between songs. Shows he presented included the gameshow Family Fortunes.
  Max Bygraves was born the son of poor parents in Rotherhithe, southeast London docklands. His father was a professional boxer known as Battling Tom Smith, and a casual dockworker.
  He protrayed Charley Moon in the film of the same name.
  Bygraves married WAAF sergeant Gladys (known as Blossom) Murray in 1942. The couple have three children: Christine, Anthony, and Maxine. Bygraves also has three other children: John Rice, Beverly Mayhew-Sass, and Stephen Rose.
  Bygraves and his wife moved from Bournemouth to Queensland, Australia, in 2008. She died there in 2011, aged 88.
  
  wn.com/Max_Bygraves
• Miss Marple
  Jane Marple, usually referred to as Miss Marple, is a fictional character appearing in twelve of Agatha Christie's crime novels and in twenty short stories. Miss Marple is an elderly spinster who lives in the village of St. Mary Mead and acts as an amateur detective. Alongside Hercule Poirot, she is one of the most famous of Christie's characters and has been portrayed numerous times on screen. Her first appearance was in a short story published in The Sketch magazine in 1926, "The Tuesday Night Club", which later became the first chapter of The Thirteen Problems (1932). Her first appearance in a full-length novel was in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930.
  The character of Miss Marple is based on Christie's grandmother and her cronies, but there is no definitive source for the derivation of the name 'Marple'. The most common explanation suggests that the name was taken from the railway station in Marple, Stockport, through which Christie passed, with the alternative account that Christie took it from the home of a Marple family who lived at Marple Hall, near her sister Madge's home at Abney Hall. Agatha Christie attributed the inspiration for the character of Miss Marple to a number of sources: Miss Marple was "the sort of old lady who would have been rather like some of my grandmother's Ealing cronies – old ladies whom I have met in so many villages where I have gone to stay as a girl". Christie also used material from her fictional creation, spinster Caroline Sheppard, who appeared in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. When Michael Morton adapted Roger Ackroyd for the stage, he removed the character of Caroline replacing her with a young girl. This change saddened Christie and she determined to give old maids a voice: Miss Marple was born.
  
  wn.com/Miss_Marple
• Monty Banks
  Montague (Monty) Banks (18 July 1897 – 7 January 1950 born Mario Bianchi in Cesena, Italy) was a comedian and film director.
  In the 1920s, he worked in Hollywood, starring in many silent short comedies and in the feature-length action thriller Play Safe (1927). A large excerpt from this movie is included in Robert Youngson's compilation film Days of Thrills and Laughter (1961). With the arrival of sound films, Banks's strong Italian accent forced him to phase out his acting career in favor of working as a gagman and director. He directed Laurel and Hardy in their film Great Guns, under the name 'Montague Banks'.
  He was married to Gladys Frazin. The marriage was not a happy one and they divorced on 29 April 1932 as a result of her abusive behaviour. She subsequently committed suicide in March 1939. He met singer and actress Gracie Fields in 1935 and they married in March 1940. As an Italian national, he would have been classified as an 'enemy alien' in Britain during World War II. Consequently he and Fields left the UK for Canada initially, and then the neutral United States in order to prevent his internment.Italian American internment also came into place in the United States during 1941 and 1942, affecting thousands of Italians, but this was eventually relaxed.
  
  wn.com/Monty_Banks
• Monty Python
  Monty Python (sometimes known as The Pythons) was a British surreal comedy group who created Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series. The Python phenomenon developed from the television series into something larger in scope and impact, spawning touring stage shows, films, numerous albums, several books and a stage musical as well as launching the members to individual stardom. The group's influence on comedy has been compared to The Beatles' influence on music.
  The television series, broadcast by the BBC from 1969 to 1974, was conceived, written and performed by members Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. Loosely structured as a sketch show, but with an innovative stream-of-consciousness approach (aided by Gilliam's animation), it pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in style and content. A self-contained comedy team responsible for both writing and performing their work, the Pythons' creative control allowed them to experiment with form and content, discarding rules of television comedy. Their influence on British comedy has been apparent for years, while in North America it has coloured the work of cult performers from the early editions of Saturday Night Live through to more recent absurdist trends in television comedy. "Pythonesque" has entered the English lexicon as a result.
  
  wn.com/Monty_Python
• 
  Noël Coward
  Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 1899 – 26 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".
  Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy in London as a child, making his professional stage début at the age of eleven. As a teenager he was introduced into the high society in which most of his plays would be set. Coward achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his works, such as Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, Present Laughter and Blithe Spirit, have remained in the regular theatre repertoire. He composed hundreds of songs, in addition to well over a dozen musical theatre works (including the operetta Bitter Sweet and comic revues), poetry, several volumes of short stories, the novel Pomp and Circumstance, and a three-volume autobiography. Coward's stage and film acting and directing career spanned six decades, during which he starred in many of his own works.
  
  wn.com/Noël_Coward
• 
  Richard Burton
  Richard Burton, CBE (10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role (without ever winning), and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid actor in Hollywood. He remains closely associated in the public consciousness with his second wife, actress Elizabeth Taylor; the couple's turbulent relationship was rarely out of the news.
  Richard Burton was born Richard Walter Jenkins in the village of Pontrhydyfen, Neath Port Talbot, Wales. He grew up in a working class, Welsh-speaking household, the twelfth of thirteen children. His father, Richard Walter Jenkins, was a short, robust coal miner, a "twelve-pints-a-day man" who sometimes went off on drinking and gambling sprees for weeks. Burton later claimed, by family telling, that "He looked very much like me...That is, he was pockmarked, devious, and smiled a great deal when he was in trouble. He was, also, a man of extraordinary eloquence, tremendous passion, great violence."
  
  wn.com/Richard_Burton
• 
  Tom Hollander
  Thomas Anthony "Tom" Hollander (born 25 August 1967) is a British actor who has appeared in films Enigma, Gosford Park, Cambridge Spies, Pride and Prejudice, Pirates of the Caribbean, In the Loop, Valkyrie and Hanna.
  Tom Hollander was born in Bristol and raised in Oxford, the son of teachers. His parents are English, though his father is descended from Czech Jews who converted to Catholicism; Hollander was chief chorister at school. He attended the Dragon School and then Abingdon School. As a youngster, he was a member of the National Youth Theatre and the National Youth Music Theatre (then known as the Children's Music Theatre). In 1981, at fourteen years of age, he was awarded the lead role in a BBC dramatization of Leon Garfield's John Diamond. He read English at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He was actively involved in stage productions as a member of the Footlights and president of the Marlowe Society. Friend and fellow student Sam Mendes directed him in several plays while they were at Cambridge, including a critically acclaimed production of Cyrano de Bergerac (which also featured future Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg). After finishing university and failing to secure a place at a drama school, he found work in theatre nevertheless.
  
  wn.com/Tom_Hollander
• 
  Tommy Steele
  Tommy Steele OBE (born Thomas William Hicks, 17 December 1936, Bermondsey, London), is an English entertainer. Steele is widely regarded as Britain's first teen idol and rock and roll star.
  Before landing a singing career, Steele tried his hand at a number of odd jobs and had a brief spell as a merchant seaman. Like many singers of his era he never did national service, having failed the medical examination because, at eighteen years old, he was diagnosed as suffering with cardiomyopathy. However, according to his autobiography, Bermondsey Boy: Memories of a Forgotten World, he failed the medical because he had flat feet. While on leave or during dock strikes, he played guitar and banjo and sang in The 2i's Coffee Bar and the Cat's Whisker where hand-jiving was devised, two coffee houses in Soho, both as a solo performer and with Wally Whyton's Vipers Skiffle Group. When a ship Steele was serving on docked in Norfolk, Virginia, he heard Buddy Holly and fell in love with rock and roll, turning his back on the British skiffle craze. He was discovered by freelance photographer John Kennedy, who believed Steele could be Britain's answer to Elvis Presley. Later co-manager Larry Parnes was incorrectly credited with creating the stage name 'Tommy Steele.' It was Steele who adapted the surname of his Scandinavian paternal grandfather, Thomas Stil-Hicks (pronounced Steel-Hicks), adding another E to the spelling.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Tommy_Steele
• Val Parnell
  Valentine Charles Parnell (14 February 1892 – 22 September 1972), known as Val Parnell, was a British television producer and theatrical impresario.
  Parnell was born in London on Valentine's Day in 1892. He began his theatrical career at age 13 by working as an office boy for a music-hall circuit. By 1945 he had become Managing Director of the Moss Empires music hall and variety circuit, in charge of some of London's most prestigious theatres.
  He auditioned and signed a twelve-year-old Julie Andrews for her first professional performance and introduced her to her manager, Charles Tucker, aka Uncle Charlie Tucker.
  In 1956 he was appointed Managing Director of Associated TeleVision. He took a personal interest in the station's output and presented the weekly musical variety show Val Parnell's Sunday Night at the London Palladium until 1965.
  He lost his position on the ATV board to Lew Grade in 1962 and retired in 1966.
  He died in France in 1972.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Val_Parnell
• 
  Winston Churchill
  Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, PC, DL, FRS, Hon. RA (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British Conservative politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century, he served as Prime Minister twice (1940–45 and 1951–55). A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, a writer, and an artist. He is the only British prime minister to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was the first person to be made an Honorary Citizen of the United States.
  Churchill was born into the aristocratic family of the Dukes of Marlborough. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a charismatic politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer; his mother, Jenny Jerome, was an American socialite. As a young army officer, he saw action in British India, the Sudan, and the Second Boer War. He gained fame as a war correspondent and wrote books about his campaigns.
  
  wn.com/Winston_Churchill

• Would A Manx Cat Wag Its Tail
• I Took My Harp To A Party
• In My Little Bottom Drawer
• What Can You Give A Nudist
• The Punch And Judy Show
• They All Make Love But Me
• Dancing With Tears In My Eyes
• I'm Playing With Fire
• We're Living At The Cloisters
• Sally
• Singin' In The Bathtub
• The Clatter Of The Clogs
• Walter Walter
• Because I Love You
• Fred Frannakapan
• I Lift Up My Finger And I Say 'Tweet Tweet'
• The Little Pudden Basin
• The Biggest Aspidistra In The World

• Come Back to Sorrento
• Papa, Won't You Dance With Me?
• The Biggest Aspidistra in the World
• If I Knew You Were Coming I'd've Baked a Cake
• When I Grow Too Old to Dream
• Bluebird of Happiness
• Pedro the Fisherman
• If I Can Help Somebody
• Serenade of the Bells
• Count Your Blessings
• Red Sails in the Sunset
• McNamara's Band
• Bless This House
• Forever and Ever
• Little Old Lady
• A Letter to a Soldier
• I Took My Harp to a Party
• At the End of the Day
• How Are Things in Glocca Morra
• Now Is the Hour

• Ave Maria
• Remember Me?
• Sally
• That Old Feeling
• The First Time I Saw You
• Isle of Capri
• Now Is the Hour
• Wish Me Luck (As You Wave Me Goodbye)
• Fall In and Follow the Band
• Goodnight, My Love
• Just One More Chance
• The Holy City
• Looking on the Bright Side
• Walter, Walter (Lead Me to the Altar)
• Love in Bloom
• My Blue Heaven
• Just a Dancing Sweetheart
• Red Sails in the Sunset
• The Sweetest Song in the World
• I Never Cried So Much in All My Life

• Sing as We Go
• I Took My Harp to a Party
• Christopher Robin Is Saying His Prayers
• One Day When We Were Young
• Will You Love Me When I'm Mutton
• Ave Maria
• Sally
• The Biggest Aspidistra in the World
• Three Green Bonnets
• In My Little Bottom Drawer
• If I Should Fall in Love Again
• Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye

• The Organ, The Monkey And Me
• Gipsy Lullaby
• Trees
• Smilin' Through
• The House Is Haunted
• How Changed Is the Old Place Now
• Come Back To Sorrento
• The Biggest Aspidistra In The World
• Bless This House
• Red Sails In The Sunset
• Now Is the Houor
• Dancing With Tears In My Eyes
• Home
• How Deep Is The Ocean
• At The End Of The Day
• Pedro The Fisherman
• Medley: 1 Sally 2 Charmaine 3 You're More than All the World To Me
• Will You Love Me When I'm Mutton
• You're Driving Me Crazy
• Count Your Blessings

• Sally
• Sing as We Go
• Oh Sailor Behave
• In My Little Bottom Drawer
• Just One More Chance Just One More Chance Just One More Chance Just One More Chance Just One More Chance
• Laugh at Life
• It Isn't Fair
• I Took My Harp to a Party
• The Bargain Hunter
• The Mockingbird Went Cuckoo
• Mary Rose
• Over the Garden Wall
• My Lucky Day
• Stop and Shop at the Co-Op Shop
• There's a Lovely Lake in London
• We've Got to Keep Up With Joneses
• Walter, Walter (Lead Me to the Altar)
• All for One and One for All
• The Bleeding Heart
• He's Dead but He Won't Lie Down
• The Biggest Aspidistra in the World
• Gracie Fields and Sandy Powell's Party

Born: 1898-01-09

Died: 1979-09-27

• timeline:
• 2012
• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005
• 2004
• 2003
• 2002
• 2001

• timeline:
• 2012
• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005
• 2004
• 2003
• 2002
• 2001