John Hanson (August 31, 1922 – December 4, 1998) was a

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-born

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tenor A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...

and actor, who starred in several West End musicals during the 1950s and 1960s. Born John Stanley Watts in Oshawa,

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, Canada, of

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parents, who moved back across the

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three years later. He was educated at

Dumfries Academy Dumfries ( ; sco, Dumfries; from gd, Dùn Phris ) is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland. It is located near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth about by road from the ...

in Dumfries,

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. His headmaster recognized his talent as a

boy soprano A boy soprano (British and especially North American English) or boy treble (only British English) is a young male singer with an unchanged voice in the soprano range, a range that is often still called the treble voice range (in North Americ ...

, and recommended him to the Scottish Broadcasting Corporation. It was there that he made his debut, at the age of 12. His 1960

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, ''The Student Prince / The Vagabond King'' peaked at Number 9 in the

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. Hanson was most famous for his role as the "Red Shadow", the hero of the musical ''

The Desert Song ''The Desert Song'' is an operetta with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel. It was inspired by the 1925 uprising of the Riffs, a group of Moroccan fighters, against French colo ...

'', which enjoyed a record-breaking revival at the Palace Theatre in 1967. He also appeared in the 1973 Christmas Special of the BBC's ''

Morecambe and Wise Eric Morecambe (John Eric Bartholomew, 14 May 1926 – 28 May 1984) and Ernie Wise (Ernest Wiseman, 27 November 1925 – 21 March 1999), known as Morecambe and Wise (and sometimes as Eric and Ernie), were an English comic double act, working ...

'' Show in which he sang "Stout-Hearted Men". He also appeared on BBC TV's long running variety show, '' The Good Old Days''. Hanson died in December 1998, at the age of 76, in

Shepperton Shepperton is an urban village in the Borough of Spelthorne, Surrey, approximately south west of central London. Shepperton is equidistant between the towns of Chertsey and Sunbury-on-Thames. The village is mentioned in a document of 959 AD ...

, Surrey,

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References

External links

Obituary, ''The Independent'', 7 December 1998
1922 births 1998 deaths 20th-century English male actors 20th-century English singers English male musical theatre actors English male television actors English tenors Male actors from Oshawa Musicians from Oshawa People educated at Dumfries Academy Canadian emigrants to the United Kingdom 20th-century British male singers {{UK-singer-stub