40 Facts About Tommy Steele

Tommy Steele starred in further musical films including The Duke Wore Jeans and Tommy the Toreador, the latter spawning the hit "Little White Bull".

Tommy Steele shifted away from rock and roll in the 1960s, becoming an all-round entertainer.

Tommy Steele originated the part of Kipps in Half a Sixpence in the West End and on Broadway, reprising his role in the 1967 film version.

Tommy Steele was knighted in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to entertainment and charity and was awarded the Freedom of the City of London in 2021.

Tommy Steele was born Thomas Hicks in Bermondsey, London, England, in 1936.

Tommy Steele's father, Thomas Walter Hicks, was a racing tipster and his mother, Elizabeth "Betty" Ellen Bennett, worked in a factory; they had married in 1933, in Bermondsey.

Tommy Steele dreamt of being a star performer after his parents took him to the London Palladium, but "didn't think you could be English and be a star".

In 1952, at age 15, Tommy Steele joined the Merchant Navy, working on the Cunard line.

Tommy Steele was not eligible for national service because of a diagnosis of cardiomyopathy.

Whilst working as a merchant seaman, Tommy Steele learned to play guitar and began performing country and calypso music, inspired most by Hank Williams.

Tommy Steele has claimed that when a ship he was serving on docked in Norfolk, Virginia, US, he saw Buddy Holly perform and fell in love with rock and roll.

On shore leave in summer 1956, Tommy Steele met writer Lionel Bart and actor Mike Pratt at a Soho party.

Usually with the Cavemen, Tommy Steele began playing in Soho bars, including "Blue Suede Shoes" and "Heartbreak Hotel" alongside country songs in his set.

Tommy Steele promoted the single with his first television appearance, on bandleader Jack Payne's BBC series Off the Record and quickly became a national teen idol.

Tommy Steele's success saw him dubbed "Britain's Elvis", though his appeal has been characterised as less provocative than Presley's.

Tommy Steele's third, "Singing the Blues", reached number 1 in January 1957, staving off a recording by Guy Mitchell for one week.

Tommy Steele was among the first British pop stars to be heavily merchandised, with tie-in sweaters, shoes and toy guitars.

Only a few months after his first chart presence, the singer was filming his life story; The Tommy Steele Story featured twelve new songs, written hastily by Steele, Bart and Pratt, that expanded the singer's repertoire to incorporate ballads and calypso music.

Tommy Steele made several appearances on the BBC programme Six-Five Special, though agent Ian Bevan restricted the singer's bookings in the belief that television "tends to cheapen an artist of that nature".

Tommy Steele performed at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC's Third Annual Festival of Dance Music in April 1957 and topped the bill at the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium in November 1957.

Tommy Steele starred in a dual role in his second film vehicle, The Duke Wore Jeans, released in March 1958.

In May 1958, Tommy Steele was hospitalised after being mobbed by fans at a concert at Caird Hall, Dundee, having had his right arm hurt, chunks of his hair pulled out and his shirt ripped off.

Tommy Steele continued to record rock and roll over 1958 and 1959, finding chart success with covers of US hits including "Come On, Let's Go" and "Tallahassee Lassie".

In 2009, the greatest hits collection The Very Best of Tommy Steele reached the Top 40 in the UK Albums Chart, the first UK chart entry for Steele in over 46 years.

The London production was troubled when Tommy Steele demanded cuts to the first act on opening night.

In 1983, Tommy Steele directed and starred in the West End stage production of Singin' in the Rain at the London Palladium.

In 2008, at the age of 71, Tommy Steele toured in the lead role of the stage musical Doctor Dolittle.

Tommy Steele was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1958 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC Television Theatre.

Tommy Steele is a respected sculptor and four of his major works have been on public display.

When Tommy Steele lived in Montrose House, Petersham, Surrey, his life-sized sculpture of Charlie Chaplin as "The Tramp" stood outside his front door.

Tommy Steele is an artist of some note and has exhibited at the Royal Academy.

In 1981, Tommy Steele wrote and published a novel titled The Final Run about World War II and the evacuation of Dunkirk.

Tommy Steele wrote a children's novel, entitled Quincy, about a reject toy trying to save himself and his fellow rejects in the basement of a toy store from the furnace the day after Christmas.

Tommy Steele co-wrote many of his early songs with Lionel Bart and Mike Pratt, but he used the pseudonym of Jimmy Bennett from 1958 onwards.

On 7 November 2019, Tommy Steele was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the British Music Hall Society, at a Celebratory Luncheon in Mayfair's Lansdowne Club.

In May 2020, Tommy Steele announced a new project which he had been working on titled Breakheart, which was available exclusively online throughout May Announced via a specially recorded video during the COVID-19 lockdown, Breakheart was a seven-episode audio thriller, written by Tommy Steele and set during the Second World War.

Tommy Steele and [Winifred] Anne Donoghue was born on in May 1936 and married at St Patrick's Catholic Church, Soho Square, London, in spring 1960.

In 2019, Tommy Steele was awarded the Freedom of the City of London.

Tommy Steele was knighted in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to entertainment and charity.

Tommy Steele's rise to fame was satirised in the 1958 West End musical Expresso Bongo and its 1959 film adaptation starring Cliff Richard.