Sid James (born Solomon Joel Cohen; 8 May 1913 – 26 April 1976) was a British-based South African actor and comedian. He made his name as Tony Hancock's co-star in Hancock's Half Hour and also starred in the popular Carry On films. He was known for his trademark "dirty laugh" and lascivious persona. Bruce Forsyth described him as "a natural at being natural."
James was born Solomon Joel Cohen on 8 May 1913 to Jewish parents in South Africa, later changing his name to Sidney Joel Cohen, and then Sidney James. His family lived on Hancock Street in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. Upon moving to England later in life, he claimed various previous occupations, including diamond cutter, dance tutor and boxer. In reality, he had trained and worked as a hairdresser.
It was at a hairdressing salon in Kroonstad, Orange Free State that he met his first wife. He married Berthe Sadie Delmont, known as Toots, on 12 August 1936, and her father Joseph Delmont, a wealthy Johannesburg businessman, bought a salon for James. Within a year James announced that he wanted to become an actor and joined Johannesburg Repertory Players. Through this he got work with the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
Alan Michael Sugar, Baron Sugar (born 24 March 1947) is a British business magnate, media personality, and political advisor. From humble origins in the East End of London, Sugar now has an estimated fortune of £770m (US$1.14 billion), and was ranked 89th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2011. In 2007, he sold his remaining interest in the consumer electronics company Amstrad, his largest and best known business venture.
Sugar is also notable for his time as chairman of Tottenham Hotspur from 1991 to 2001. He starred in the BBC TV series The Apprentice, which has run to eight series. It has been broadcast annually since 2005 and is based upon the popular U.S. television show of the same name, featuring the American entrepreneur Donald Trump.
Sugar was born in Hackney, east London. He is the youngest of four children of Fay (1907–1994) and Nathan (1907–1987) Sugar. His father was a tailor in the East End garment industry.
When Sugar was a child, his family lived in a council flat. Because of his profuse, curly hair, he was nicknamed "Mopsy". He attended Northwold Primary School and then Brooke House Secondary School in Upper Clapton, Hackney, and made extra money by boiling and selling beetroot from a stall. In The Apprentice (2009), Sugar revealed "I was in the Jewish Lads Brigade, Stamford Hill Division, Trainee Bugler, but it didn't make me sell computers!" After leaving school at 16, he worked briefly for the civil service as a statistician at the Ministry of Education. He started selling car aerials and electrical goods out of a van he had bought with his savings of £100.
Anthony John "Tony" Hancock (12 May 1924 – 24 June 1968) was an English comedian and actor.
Popular during the 1950s and early 1960s, he had a major success with his BBC series Hancock's Half Hour, first on Radio from 1954, then on television from 1956, in which he soon formed a strong professional and personal bond with comic actor Sid James. Although Hancock's decision to cease working with James around 1960 disappointed many of his fans at the time, his last BBC series in 1961 contains some of his best remembered work ("The Blood Donor"). After breaking with his scriptwriters Ray Galton and Alan Simpson later that year, his career took a downward course because of Hancock's increasing dependence on alcohol.
Hancock was born in Southam Road, Hall Green, Birmingham, England, (some sources incorrectly say Small Heath, a different Birmingham district) but from the age of three was brought up in Bournemouth, where his father, John Hancock, who ran the Railway Hotel in Holdenhurst Road, worked as a comedian and entertainer.
Barbara Windsor: I think heaven's being left alone with a Steinbeck in the edit suite. You sit in front of your life and you're allowed to re-edit it. Cut the rotten bits, loop the sex, montage the good moments. Live it over and over, a bit better every time. And eventually, make it perfect.
This is the story of a man,
Who conquered life drink in hand
Ship unmanned.
Marked by genius, channelled good,
By some a bit misunderstood.
They'd been wrong many times before
Some times our saints are sinners,
They blur the lines and lead the way,
Their Way.
Raise hell and a glass in reverence,
The fearless lives of our great saints - our saints.
Never a stranger to late night snake
bite fist fights and empty pints,
Unrivaled heights.
He led with songs, they sang along,
created bonds that held so strong
Some were right and some were wrong
Some times our saints are sinners,
They blur the lines and lead the way,
Their Way.
Raise hell and a glass in reverence,
The fearless lives of our great saints, our saints.
It's by the sea and at nights end that's when the sin and swill begin
That's when he had that certain light inside his head
For every whisper he would scream for every draught he shared a drink
For every sorrow there is a light from our St. James
On the sea by the cliff he watches, he waits the night to see
The day - his way
Last call will find us all
But there's a light that leads the way, our way.
Some times our saints are sinners,
They blur the lines and lead the way,
Their Way.
Raise hell and a glass in reverence,
Well, I went down to Old Joe's Barroom
Down on the corner by the square
They were serving drinks as usual
Oh, the usual crowd was there
In the corner sat Big Joe McKenzie
His eyes were blood shot red
And as he turned to address the crowd around him
These were the very words that he said:
Well I went down to St James Infirmary
To see my baby there
She was laid out on that long white table
So cold, so pale, so fair
Let her go, let her go, God bless her
Where ever she may be
Let her search that whole wide world over
Never find a man as sweet as me
She'll never find a man as sweet as me
When I die, won't you bury me in my high top Stetson hat
Put a twenty dollar gold piece on my watch hand
So the gang'll know I died standing pat
I want six crapshooters for pallbearers
Pretty gals sing me a song
I want a jazz band on my hearse wagon
To raise Hell as we roll 'long
Won't you roll out that rubber tire hack
Thirteen men go down to that old graveyard
There's only twelve of them men coming back
Now that you heard my story
Have another shot of the booze
Anything anybody should ask
I got the St James Infirmary blues