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Baptiste, (Frederick Eustance) Thomas Anthony (1929–2018), actor and singer  

Stephen Bourne

Baptiste, (Frederick Eustance) Thomas Anthony (1929–2018), actor and singer, was born on 17 March 1929 in Georgetown, British Guiana, the son of Frederick Baptiste, a wealthy landowner, and his wife, Pearl. When Baptiste left home, he told his father that he intended to study agriculture but, on his arrival in ...

Article

Bowie, David [real name David Robert Jones] (1947–2016), singer and actor  

Richard Weight

Bowie, David [real name David Robert Jones] (1947–2016), singer and actor, was born on 8 January 1947 at 40, Stansfield Road, Brixton, south London, as David Robert Burns, the son of Hayward Stenton (John) Jones (1912–1969) and Margaret Mary Burns...

Article

Connor, Edric Esclus (1913–1968), actor and singer  

Stephen Bourne

Connor, Edric Esclus (1913–1968), actor and singer, was born on 2 August 1913 in the village of Mayaro, Trinidad, the son of Edwin Connor, shoemaker and small farmer. At sixteen he won a scholarship from the Trinidad government railway to study engineering at the ...

Article

Davies, Spencer David Nelson [known as Spencer Davis] (1939–2020), singer, guitarist, and actor  

Ken Hunt

Davies, Spencer David Nelson [known as Spencer Davis] (1939–2020), singer, guitarist, and actor, was born on 17 July 1939 at Graig House Maternity Hospital, Swansea, Glamorgan, the son of David Hector Davies (1915–1989), a fusilier with the Royal Welch Fusiliers...

Article

Fields, Dame Gracie [real name Grace Stansfield] (1898–1979), music-hall entertainer and film actress  

Jeffrey Richards

Fields, Dame Gracie [real name Grace Stansfield] (1898–1979), music-hall entertainer and film actress, was born at 9 Molesworth Street, Rochdale, Lancashire, on 9 January 1898, the eldest of the four children (three daughters and one son) of Fred Stansfield (1874–1956), engineer, and his wife, ...

Article

Flanagan, Bud [real name Chaim Reuben Weintrop] (1896–1968), comedian and singer  

Sid Colin

revised by David Goldie

Flanagan, Bud [real name Chaim Reuben Weintrop] (1896–1968), comedian and singer, was born on 14 November 1896 in Hanbury Street, London, the fifth son and the youngest of the ten children of Polish immigrants, Wolf Weintrop, the owner of a barber's shop and tobacconist's in ...

Article

Formby, George [real name George Hoy Booth] (1904–1961), music-hall entertainer and actor  

Jeffrey Richards

Formby, George [real name George Hoy Booth] (1904–1961), music-hall entertainer and actor, was born at 3 Westminster Street, Wigan, Lancashire, on 26 May 1904, the eldest of the seven surviving children (four girls and three boys) of James Lawler Booth (1875–1922), music-hall entertainer, and his wife, ...

Article

Grant, Cyril Ewart Lionel [Cy] (1919–2010), actor and singer  

Stephen Bourne

Grant, Cyril Ewart Lionel [Cy] (1919–2010), actor and singer, was born on 8 November 1919 in Beterverwagting, Demerera, British Guiana, the son of Henry William Grant, a Moravian minister. His mother was a music teacher. 'I was brought up in a typically colonial way...

Article

Kirkwood, Patricia [Pat] (1921–2007), actress and singer  

Roger Philip Mellor

Kirkwood, Patricia [Pat] (1921–2007), actress and singer, was born on 24 February 1921 at 6 Seedley Terrace, Pendleton, Salford, Lancashire, the elder child and only daughter of William Kirkwood, a shipping clerk of Scottish descent, and his wife, Norah, née Carr. Her mother had theatrical ambitions for ...

Article

Lind, Letty [real name Letitia Elizabeth Rudge] (1861–1923), actress and dancer  

Graeme Cruickshank

Lind, Letty [real name Letitia Elizabeth Rudge] (1861–1923), actress and dancer, was born Letitia Elizabeth Rudge on 21 December 1861, at her father's residence, Back 159, Irving Street, Birmingham. Letty was the eldest daughter in the family of five daughters and three sons of ...

Article

O'Shea [married name Rollo], Teresa Mary [Tessie] (1913–1995), singer and actress  

Frances Gray

O'Shea [married name Rollo], Teresa Mary [Tessie] (1913–1995), singer and actress, was born on 13 March 1913 at 61 Plantagenet Street, Cardiff, the daughter of James Peter O'Shea, a labourer at a gasworks, and his wife, Nellie, née Carr. Her father was Irish, her mother Lancastrian. A natural performer, she won a talent contest at the age of eight, tying for first place with an entire Welsh choir. A subsequent appearance in a charity show brought her to the attention of the ...

Article

Secombe, Sir Harry Donald (1921–2001), entertainer  

Dennis Barker

Secombe, Sir Harry Donald (1921–2001), entertainer, was born in Swansea on 8 September 1921, the younger son and third of four children of Frederick Ernest Secombe, a commercial traveller for the wholesale grocery firm Walters and Batchelors and an amateur cartoonist, and his wife, ...