Theatre Register

Tommy Steele

Shows · Tommy Steele

Actor b. 1936 On stage 1965

Sir Thomas Hicks (born 17 December 1936), known professionally as Tommy Steele, is an English entertainer, regarded as Britain's first teen idol and rock and roll star. After being discovered at the 2i's Coffee Bar in Soho, London, Steele recorded a string of hit singles including "Rock with the Caveman" (1956) and the chart-topper "Singing the Blues" (1957). Steele's rise to fame was dramatised in The Tommy Steele Story (1957), the soundtrack of which was the first British album to reach number one on the UK Albums Chart. With collaborators Lionel Bart and Mike Pratt, Steele received the 1958 Ivor Novello Award for Most Outstanding Song of the Year for "A Handful of Songs". He starred in fu…

On stage 1 production

1965 Half A Sixpence Broadhurst Theatre · Original · directed by Gene Saks 512 perf.

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Also credited on1 work

Finian’s Rainbow

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In the literature8 passages

  • The slight show wouldn’t have lasted 511 performances had it not been for Tommy Steele’s Kipps. He was a marvel, singing enthusiastically, dancing up a hurricane, making us care about the fate of the character no matter what mistakes he made—and he played a banjo.ebooks/Filichia, Peter/Strippers, Showgirls, and Sharks - Peter Filichia.txt
  • Cast: Tommy Steele, Ann Shoemaker, James Grout, Carrie Nye, Polly James, Grover Dale, Will Mackenzie, John Cleeseebooks/Green, Stanley/Broadway Musicals, Show By Show - Seventh Edition - Stanley Green & Cary Ginell.txt
  • H.G. Wells’ novel, Kipps, supplied the basis for this period musical in which Tommy Steele (for whom it was written) starred in London in 1963, in New York in 1965, and on film in 1967. Half a Sixpence is about Arthur Kipps, an orphan who becomes a draper’s apprentice in Folkestone, England, at the turn of the century. Arthur inherits a f…ebooks/Green, Stanley/Broadway Musicals, Show By Show - Seventh Edition - Stanley Green & Cary Ginell.txt
  • Half a Sixpence. Tommy Steele playing the banjo for his pub cronies in the “Money to Burn” number. (Friedman-Abeles)ebooks/Green, Stanley/Broadway Musicals, Show By Show - Seventh Edition - Stanley Green & Cary Ginell.txt
  • The rise of Tommy Steele, which prefigured the emergence of British pop as a global force in the 1960s, disproved the popular belief that only Americans could produce pop music, much as the debut of Oliver! would disprove the popular belief that only Americans could write musicals. Bart was instrumental to both refutations, and it is fitt…ebooks/Napolitano, Marc/Oliver!_ A Dickensian Musical - Marc Napolitano.txt
  • Bart first began publicly alluding to his Dickensian musical project in 1959 on the heels of Fings ; in a March 1959 interview with Jenny Firth, the composer explained that in spite of his successes as a pop songwriter, he was turning his attention to more substantive projects: “I’m working on Frankie Vaughan’s film, ‘Heart of a Man’, and…ebooks/Napolitano, Marc/Oliver!_ A Dickensian Musical - Marc Napolitano.txt

Passages naming this person, found by keyword across 178 books. A keyword match is not a biography, and a common name will pull in the wrong one.

What this page does not know

  • What this person played. No cast list we hold records a character against a performer.
  • Which of the credits above the roles on this record — actor — apply to. The roles sit on the person and never on a credit, so a director who also acted looks the same here as one who did not.

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