20 Facts About Adam Faith

1.

Terence Nelhams Wright, known as Adam Faith, was an English singer, actor, and financial journalist.

2.

Adam Faith became the first UK artist to lodge his initial seven hits in the top 5, and was ultimately one of the most charted acts of the 1960s.

3.

Adam Faith was one of the first UK acts to record original songs regularly.

4.

Adam Faith had his first job at 12, delivering and selling newspapers part-time while still at school.

5.

Adam Faith did not write his own material, and much of his early success was through partnership with songwriters Les Vandyke and John Barry, whose arrangements were inspired by the pizzicato arrangements for Buddy Holly's "It Doesn't Matter Anymore".

6.

Adam Faith began his musical career in 1957, while working as a film cutter in London in the hope of becoming an actor, singing with and managing a skiffle group, the Worried Men.

7.

Adam Faith's second release later that year was a cover of Jerry Lee Lewis's "High School Confidential", backed with the Burt Bacharach and Hal David penned "Country Music Holiday" but this failed.

8.

Adam Faith returned to work as a film cutter at National Studios at Elstree until March 1959, when Barry invited him to audition for a BBC TV rock and roll show, Drumbeat.

9.

Adam Faith became an actor by taking drama and elocution lessons.

10.

The script called for Adam Faith to sing songs and, because Barry was arranging Adam Faith's recordings and live Drumbeat material, the film company asked him to write the score.

11.

Adam Faith made six further albums and 35 singles, with a total of 24 chart entries, of which 11 made the UK top ten, including his two number ones.

12.

Adam Faith negotiated an advance for his own comeback album with Warner Bros.

13.

In 1961, Adam Faith starred in What a Whopper, supported by Sid James, Spike Milligan, Wilfrid Brambell, Carole Lesley and others well known at the time.

14.

In 1962, Adam Faith co-starred opposite Donald Sinden and Anne Baxter in the film Mix Me a Person, playing a working-class youth falsely accused of murder.

15.

Adam Faith starred as the eponymous hero in the early 1970s television series Budgie, about an ex-convict.

16.

Adam Faith was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1971 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews.

17.

Adam Faith's acting career declined after a 1973 motor car accident in which he almost lost a leg.

18.

Adam Faith restarted with a role in Stardust as the manipulative manager of rock star David Essex, for which he was nominated for a BAFTA award.

19.

Adam Faith married Jackie Irving in 1967 and they had one daughter, Katya Adam Faith, who became a television producer.

20.

English film director and producer Michael Winner stated that Adam Faith was his investment adviser, leading to significant losses on two different investments.