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Josef Locke
Joseph McLaughlin (23 March 1917 – 15 October 1999), known professionally as Josef Locke, was an Irish tenor. He was successful in the United Kingdom and Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s. Background Born in Derry, Ireland, he was the son of a butcher and cattle dealer, and one of nine children. He started singing in local churches in the Bogside at the age of seven, and as a teenager added two years to his age to enlist in the Irish Guards, later serving abroad with the Palestine Police Force, before returning in the late 1930s to join the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Career Known as ''The Singing Bobby'', he became a local celebrity before starting to work the UK variety circuit, where he also played summer seasons in English seaside resorts. The renowned Irish tenor John McCormack advised him that his voice was better suited to a lighter repertoire than the operatic one he had in mind, and urged him to find an agent—thus he found the noted impresario Jack Hylton who booked ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Derry
Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. The old walled city lies on the west bank of the River Foyle, which is spanned by two road bridges and one footbridge. The city now covers both banks (Cityside on the west and Waterside on the east). The population of the city was 83,652 at the 2001 Census, while the Derry Urban Area had a population of 90,736. The district administered by Derry City and Strabane District Council contains both Londonderry Port and City of Derry Airport. Derry is close to the border with County Donegal, with which it has had a close link for many centuries. The person traditionally seen as the founder of the original Derry is Saint , a holy man from , the old name for almost all of modern County Donegal, of which the west bank of the Foyle was a part befor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen
"I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen" is a popular song written by Thomas Paine Westendorf (1848-1923) in 1875. (The music is loosely based on Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Flat Minor Opus 64 Second Movement). In spite of its German-American origins, it is widely mistaken to be an Irish ballad. Westendorf, born in Virginia of German parents, was then teaching at the reform school known as the Indiana House of Refuge for Juvenile Offenders in Hendricks County, Indiana. He wrote it for his wife (who was, however, named Jennie), who had made a visit to her home state of New York due to homesickness. It's in the form of an "answer" to a popular ballad of the time, "Barney, Take Me Home Again," composed by Westendorf’s close friend, George W. Brown, writing under the nom de plume of George W. Persley. Recorded versions *A version by Will Oakland on Edison Amberol (catalog 1102) was very popular in 1912. *On 30 January 2011 Jon Boden released a version as part of his '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Variety Performance
The ''Royal Variety Performance'' is a televised variety show held annually in the United Kingdom to raise money for the Royal Variety Charity (of which King Charles III is life-patron). It is attended by senior members of the British royal family. The evening's performance is presented as a live variety show, usually from a theatre in London and consists of family entertainment that includes comedy, music, dance, magic and other speciality acts. The ''Royal Variety Performance'' traditionally begins with the entrance of the members of the royal family followed by singing of the national anthem, God Save the King, which was also performed by the participating acts as a traditional end to Royal Variety Performances; with the exception of 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, as a result of which, As If We Never Said Goodbye opened that year's show instead, sung by that year's host, Jason Manford. Background and founding The first performance, on 1 July 1912, was called th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holidays With Pay
''Holidays with Pay'' is a 1948 British comedy film directed by John E. Blakeley and starring Frank Randle, Tessie O'Shea and Dan Young. The film follows the Rogers family as they go on holiday to Blackpool and enjoy a series of adventures. Plot The Rogers family visit Blackpool for their annual holidays, and have difficulty finding rooms; but are befriended by a wealthy young man who takes them to stay in his haunted mansion. The family become entangled in a plot by the young man's grasping cousin to murder him for the family inheritance. However, all ends happily with the young man marrying the Rogers eldest daughter, Pamela. Cast * Frank Randle - Jack Rogers * Tessie O'Shea - Pansy Rogers * Dan Young - Phil Rogers * Josef Locke - Himself * Sally Barnes - Pamela Rogers * Sonny Burke - Michael Sandford * Bert Tracy Bert Tracey was a British silent film and talkie actor. He also directed one film, '' Boots! Boots!'', in 1934 which marked the film debut of George Formby as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mancunian Films
Mancunian Films was a British film production company first organised in 1934. From 1947 it was based in Rusholme, a suburb of Manchester, and produced a number of comedy films, mostly aimed at audiences in the North of England. History Founded by John E. Blakeley, the company produced films in London on extremely low-budgets. Blakeley's first studio consisted of a single soundstage in a loft space above a taxi garage. Whenever the filmmakers wanted to shoot a scene, they would first have to signal the mechanics below to stop working, so the noise from below wouldn't register on the soundtracks. Blakeley's first production was ''Boots! Boots!'' (1934), starring the variety entertainer George Formby in his first released film. Production values were so low that some scenes were filmed in semi-darkness, to hide the lack of set decorations. Despite the limitations, the debut film was a huge success in the regions, recouping Blakeley's investment several times over and launching George ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cara Mia
"Cara Mia" is a popular song published in 1954 that became a UK number 1, and US number 10 hit and Gold record for English singer David Whitfield in 1954, and a number 4 hit for the American rock group Jay and the Americans in 1965. The title means "my beloved" in Italian. Background The English singer David Whitfield first recorded the song with the Mantovani Orchestra in 1954. It made the charts in the United States, and in the UK was the first record to spend ten consecutive weeks at number 1 on the UK Singles Chart. Whitfield's version was one of the biggest selling British records in the pre- rock days. It sold more than three and a half million copies worldwide and was a Top 10 hit in America. Writers Authorship of the song was credited to Tulio Trapani (the pen name of the song's co-writer and arranger Mantovani) and Lee Lange (Bunny Lewis, Whitfield's producer). Jay and the Americans cover Jay and the Americans recorded "Cara Mia" on their 1965 LP ''Blockb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Torna A Surriento
"Torna a Surriento" () is a Neapolitan song composed in 1894 by Italian musician Ernesto De Curtis to words by his brother, the poet and painter Giambattista De Curtis. The song was copyrighted officially in 1905, and has become one of the most popular of this traditional genre; others include "'O sole mio", " Funiculì funiculà", and " Santa Lucia". History Tradition holds that the origin of the song dates to 1902, when Guglielmo Tramontano, mayor of Sorrento, asked his friend Giambattista De Curtis to write the song for the Prime Minister Giuseppe Zanardelli, then vacationing at his seaside hotel, the Imperial Hotel Tramontano; it was claimed that the piece was meant to celebrate Zanardelli's stay. Some claim the song is a plea to Zanardelli to keep his promise to help the impoverished city of Sorrento, which was especially in need of a sewage system. The song reflects the beauty of the city's great surroundings and the love and passion of its citizens. More recent rese ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The White Horse Inn
''The White Horse Inn'' (or ''White Horse Inn'') (German title: ''Im weißen Rößl'' ) is an operetta or musical comedy by Ralph Benatzky and Robert Stolz in collaboration with a number of other composers and writers, set in the picturesque Salzkammergut region of Upper Austria. It is about the head waiter of the White Horse Inn in St. Wolfgang who is desperately in love with the owner of the inn, a resolute young woman who at first only has eyes for one of her regular guests. Sometimes classified as an operetta, the show enjoyed huge successes in the West End (651 performances at the Coliseum starting 8 April 1931), as a Broadway version, and was filmed several times. In a way similar to ''The Sound of Music'' and the three '' Sissi'' movies, the play and its film versions have contributed to the popular image of Austria as an alpine idyll—the kind of idyll tourists have been seeking for almost a century now. Today, ''Im weißen Rößl'' is mainly remembered for its son ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Tauber
Richard Tauber (16 May 1891 – 8 January 1948) was an Austrian tenor and film actor. Early life Richard Tauber was born in Linz, Austria, to Elisabeth Seifferth (née Denemy), a widow and an actress who played soubrette roles at the local theatre, and Richard Anton Tauber, an actor; his parents were not married and his father was reportedly unaware of the birth as he was touring North America at the time. The child was given the name Richard Denemy; he was sometimes known as arlRichard Tauber, and also used his mother's married name, Seiffert; but the claim by the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' that he was ever known as Ernst Seiffert has no support from any of the 12 published books and monographs about him listed in Daniel O'Hara's comprehensive Richard Tauber Chronology. After he was adopted by his father in 1913, his legal name became Richard Denemy-Tauber. Tauber accompanied his mother on tour to theatres, but she found it increasingly difficult to cope, and left him with fos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Student Prince
''The Student Prince'' is an operetta in four acts with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Dorothy Donnelly. It is based on Wilhelm Meyer-Förster's play '' Old Heidelberg''. The piece has a score with some of Romberg's most enduring and beautiful tunes, including "Golden Days", "Drinking Song", "Deep in My Heart, Dear", "Just We Two" and "Serenade" ("Overhead the moon is beaming"). The plot has elements of melodrama but lacks the swashbuckling style common to Romberg's other works. It opened on December 2, 1924, at Jolson's 59th Street Theatre on Broadway and became the most successful of Romberg's works, running for 608 performances. It was staged by J. C. Huffman and was the longest-running Broadway show of the 1920s. Even the classic ''Show Boat'', the most enduring musical of the 1920s, did not play as long – it ran for 572 performances. "Drinking Song", with its rousing chorus of "Drink! Drink! Drink!" was especially popular with theatergoers in 1924, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dick Farrelly
Richard Farrelly (17 February 1916 – 11 August 1990) was an Irish songwriter, policeman and poet, composer of "The Isle of Innisfree", the song for which he is best remembered. His parents were publicans and when Farrelly was twenty-three he left Kells, County Meath for Dublin to join the Irish Police Force. He served in various Garda stations throughout his thirty-eight-year career, ending up in the Carriage Office in Dublin Castle. At heart Farrelly was very much a songwriter and poet. He was a private, modest and shy man who wrote over two hundred songs and poems during his lifetime. He married Anne Lowry from Headford, Co.Galway in 1955 and the couple had five children. His two sons Dick and Gerard are professional musicians. Composed on a bus On a bus journey from his native Kells, Farrelly got the inspiration for his now timeless composition the "Isle of Innisfree" and by the time he reached Dublin he had written the words and music. Farrelly's poignant words ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Quiet Man
''The Quiet Man'' is a 1952 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by John Ford. It stars John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Barry Fitzgerald, Ward Bond and Victor McLaglen. The screenplay by Frank S. Nugent was based on a 1933 ''Saturday Evening Post'' short story of the same name by Maurice Walsh, later published as part of a collection titled ''The Green Rushes''. The film features Winton Hoch's lush photography of the Irish countryside and a long, climactic, semi-comic fist fight. It was an official selection of the 1952 Venice Film Festival. John Ford won the Academy Award for Best Director, his fourth, and Winton Hoch won for Best Cinematography. In 2013, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Plot In the 1920s, Sean "Trooper Thorn" Thornton, an Irish-born retired boxer, travels from Pittsburgh to his birthplace of Inisfree to p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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