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Felix Mendelssohn's Hawaiian Serenaders
Felix Mendelssohn's Hawaiian Serenaders was a popular Hawaiian music band started by British frontman Bartholdy Felix Mendelssohn (19 September 19114 February 1952). They are best known for making Hawaiian music popular in England and throughout Europe during the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s. The group were based in London. Felix Mendelssohn Mendelssohn was born in Brondesbury Park, London, into a theatrical and entertainment family. He was the son of a stockbroker, Martin Mendelssohn (1877 – 1957) and Kate Lazarsfeld Warner (1889 – 1944) whose father was Dick Warner, the head of Warners International Theatrical Agency. Dick Warner changed the culture of popular entertainment, moving away from singing saloons and contracting more classical performers by utilising his Jewish cousinhood in Vienna, Prague and his birthplace, Bohemia. He claimed ancestry with the classical composer Felix Mendelssohn, though all Mendelssohns are of Jewish ancestry and claim cousinhood due ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hawaiian Music
The music of Hawaii includes an array of traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Styles like slack-key guitar are well known worldwide, while Hawaiian-tinged music is a frequent part of Hollywood soundtracks. Hawaii also made a contribution to country music with the introduction of the steel guitar.Unterberger, pgs. 465 - 473 In addition, the music which began to be played by Puerto Ricans in Hawaii in the early 1900s is called cachi cachi music, on the islands of Hawaii. The traditional music of Hawaii’s Native Hawaiian community is largely religious in nature, and includes chanting and dance music. Hawaiian music has had a notable impact on the music of other Polynesian islands; Peter Manuel called the influence of Hawaiian music a "unifying factor in the development of modern Pacific musics".Manuel, pgs. 236 - 241 Music festivals and venues Major music festivals in Hawaii include the Merrie Monarch Hula Fes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Goon Show
''The Goon Show'' is a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme. The first series, broadcast from 28 May to 20 September 1951, was titled ''Crazy People''; subsequent series had the title ''The Goon Show''. The show's chief creator and main writer was Spike Milligan, who performed the series alongside Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and (for the first two series) Michael Bentine. The scripts mixed ludicrous plots with surreal humour, puns, catchphrases and an array of bizarre sound effects. There were also light music interludes. Some of the later episodes feature electronic effects devised by the fledgling BBC Radiophonic Workshop, many of which were reused by other shows for decades. Elements of the show satirised contemporary life in 1950s Britain, parodying aspects of show business, commerce, industry, art, politics, diplomacy, the police, the military, educ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spike Milligan
Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was an Irish actor, comedian, writer, musician, poet, and playwright. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British Raj, British Colonial India, where he spent his childhood before relocating in 1931 to England, where he lived and worked for the majority of his life. Disliking his first name, he began to call himself "Spike" after hearing the band Spike Jones, Spike Jones and his City Slickers on Radio Luxembourg. Milligan was the co-creator, main writer, and a principal cast member of the British radio comedy programme ''The Goon Show'', performing a range of roles including the characters Eccles (character), Eccles and Minnie Bannister. He was the earliest-born and last surviving member of the Goons. He took his success with ''The Goon Show'' into television with ''Q... (TV series), Q5'', a surreal sketch show credited as a major influence on the members of ''Monty Python's Flying Circu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers (born Richard Henry Sellers; 8 September 1925 – 24 July 1980) was an English actor and comedian. He first came to prominence performing in the BBC Radio comedy series ''The Goon Show'', featured on a number of hit comic songs and became known to a worldwide audience through his many film roles, among them Chief Inspector Clouseau in '' The Pink Panther'' series. Born in Southsea, Portsmouth, Sellers made his stage debut at the Kings Theatre, Southsea, when he was two weeks old. He began accompanying his parents in a variety act that toured the provincial theatres. He first worked as a drummer and toured around England as a member of the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA). He developed his mimicry and improvisational skills during a spell in Ralph Reader's wartime Gang Show entertainment troupe, which toured Britain and the Far East. After the war, Sellers made his radio debut in ''ShowTime'', and eventually became a regular performer on vario ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Secombe
Sir Harold Donald Secombe (8 September 1921 – 11 April 2001) was a Welsh comedian, actor, singer and television presenter. Secombe was a member of the British radio comedy programme ''The Goon Show'' (1951–1960), playing many characters, most notably Neddie Seagoon. An accomplished tenor, he also appeared in musicals and films – notably as Bumble in '' Oliver!'' (1968) – and, in his later years, was a presenter of television shows incorporating hymns and other devotional songs. Early life Secombe was born in St Thomas, Swansea, the third of four children of Nellie Jane Gladys (née Davies), a shop manageress, and Frederick Ernest Secombe, a commercial traveller and office worker for a Swansea wholesale grocery business. From the age of 11 he attended Dynevor School, a state grammar school in central Swansea. His family were regular churchgoers, belonging to the congregation of St Thomas Church. A member of the choir, from the age of 12 Secombe would perform a sketc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penny Points To Paradise
''Penny Points to Paradise'' is a 1951 comedy feature film. The film was the feature film debut of the stars of ''The Goon Show'', Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers. The film was directed by Tony Young, who later produced ''The Telegoons'' for BBC Television. Plot Secombe plays the part of Harry Flakers, a man who has a big win on the football pools. He and his friend Spike Donnelly (Milligan) decide to go to the same shabby seaside boarding house that they have always patronised for their summer holiday, but this year all the other guests (including two young women out to marry money, a dodgy investment advisor and a master forger and assistant) are intent on taking the fortune off them in one way or another. Ultimately the forgers manage to substitute fake five-pound notes for the real ones that Flakers keeps in his suitcase, but before they can abscond with the money one of the girls is given cash by Flakers to buy some cigarettes, and accused of passing fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Webster Booth
Webster Booth (21 January 1902 – 21 June 1984) was an English tenor, best remembered as the duettist partner of Anne Ziegler. He was also one of the finest tenors of his generation and was a distinguished oratorio soloist. He was a chorister at Lincoln Cathedral (1911–1915) and made his professional stage debut with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, where he performed from 1923 to 1927. He made his West End Debut in ''The Three Musketeers'' in 1930. He began recording for HMV in 1929 and made over 500 solo recordings and many duet recordings with Anne Ziegler. He and Ziegler embarked on their famous duettist variety act in 1940. They starred in three musical plays, "The Vagabond King" (1943), "Sweet Yesterday" (1945) and toured in "And so to Bed" (1953–1954) and appeared in several musical films in the 1940s. They made frequent broadcasts together. In 1948 they went on a successful concert tour of New Zealand and Australia. When musical tastes changed in the 1950s they de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Ziegler
Anne Ziegler (22 June 1910 – 13 October 2003) was an English singer, known for her light operatic duets with her husband Webster Booth. The pair were known as the "Sweethearts in Song" and were among the most famous and popular British musical acts of the 1940s. Life and career She was born Irené Frances Eastwood in the Sefton Park area of Liverpool, and attended The Belvedere School. She trained as a classical pianist, and studied singing. In 1933 she began singing professionally as a soprano, changing her name to Anne Ziegler when she made her West End stage debut in 1934, in the chorus of ''By Appointment''. The same year, she was chosen to play Marguerite in a film, ''The Faust Fantasy''. While making the film she met and fell in love with the tenor Webster Booth, who was married at the time. In 1937, credited as Anne Booth, she appeared on Broadway as Sylvia Laurence in Arthur Schwartz's ''Virginia'' and, in 1938, Booth divorced his second wife and married Ziegler. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nat Jackley
Nat Jackley (born Nathaniel Tristram Jackley Hirsch; 16 July 1909 – 17 September 1988) was an English comic actor who starred in revue, variety, film and pantomime from the 1920s to the mid-1980s. His trademark rubber-neck dance, skeletal frame and peculiar speech impediment made him a formidable and funny comedian and pantomime dame. His later years were spent as a character actor in film and television, and appearing in pantomime. Jackley appeared in three Royal Variety shows, topping the bill in summer shows throughout Britain's seaside resorts and in London. Early life A native of Sunderland, he was born into a theatrical family. His father George Jackley (1885–1950) was a comic actor who was the leading comedian for the Melville Brothers at the Lyceum Theatre during the interwar years. George himself was the son of Nathan Jackley who, with his own troupe, The Jackley Wonders, performed in circuses throughout Europe and the United States. Nat's brother David was an a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Demobbed (1946 Film)
''Demobbed'' is a 1944 British comedy film directed by John E. Blakeley and starring Norman Evans, Nat Jackley, Gus McNaughton and Dan Young. Billed as "a musical comedy burlesque," its plot concerns a group of ex-soldiers who attempt to gain employment after being demobbed from the army. Cast * Norman Evans - Norman * Nat Jackley - Nat * Dan Young - Dan * Betty Jumel - Betty * Tony Dalton - Billy Brown * Jimmy Plant - Graham * George Merritt - James Bentley * Fred Kitchen - Black * Arthur Hambling - Curtis * Gus McNaughton - Capt. Gregson * Marianne Lincoln - Marianne * Anne Firth - Norma Deane * Neville Mapp - John Bentley * Webster Booth - Himself * Anne Ziegler - Herself * Sydney Bromley - BBC Announcer * Kay Lewis - Norman Evan's Partner * Freddie Watts - Landlord of the Red Lion * Edgar Driver - the Bookie * Noel Dainton - Police Inspector * Marjorie Gresley - the Mother * Angela Glynne - the Child Critical reception ''TV Guide TV Guide is an American di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Variety Bandbox
''Variety Bandbox'' is a BBC Radio variety show transmitted initially in the General Forces Programme and then the Light Programme. Featuring a mixture of comic performances and music, the show helped to launch the careers of a number of leading British performers. Presented by Philip Slessor, it became a feature of Sunday evenings for more than eight years between February 1944 and September 1952. Hosting duties would later be taken over by Derek Roy. Amongst those who launched their careers on the show was Frankie Howerd, who first appeared on ''Variety Bandbox'' in 1947 following a provincial tour. Howerd was to become a fixture of the show and honed his catch phrase-driven comedic style in these appearances. Tony Hancock also featured on the show early in his career. March 1950 saw the debut of a fortnightly series within the show called ''Blessem Hall'' which featured several characters voiced by a young Peter Sellers in one of his earliest performances, alongside Miriam K ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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