1. Una Winifred Atwell was a British pianist, born in the colony of Trinidad who migrated to Britain and who enjoyed great popularity in Britain and Australia from the 1950s with a series of boogie-woogie and ragtime hits, selling over 20 million records.
Winifred Atwell's family owned a pharmacy and she trained as a pharmacist herself and was expected to join the family business.
Winifred Atwell played the piano from a young age and achieved considerable popularity locally.
Winifred Atwell played for American servicemen at the Air Force base.
Winifred Atwell went away and wrote "Piarco Boogie", which was later renamed "Five Finger Boogie".
Winifred Atwell left Trinidad in the early 1940s and travelled to the United States to study with Alexander Borovsky.
Winifred Atwell played in a concert at The Town Hall in New York on 10 May 1945, as part of a presentation by the Altruss Opera Company starring Paul A Smith, a well-known tenor.
Winifred Atwell became the first female pianist to be awarded the academy's highest grading for musicianship.
On 21 October 1946, Winifred Atwell appeared on BBC TV programme Stars In Your Eyes, which was quickly followed by several radio appearances on the Light Programme.
Winifred Atwell appeared on the variety stages too, sometimes with another pianist called Donald Thorne.
Winifred Atwell attracted attention with an unscheduled appearance at the Casino Theatre, where she substituted for an ill star.
Winifred Atwell caught the eye of entrepreneur Bernard Delfont, who put her on a long-term contract in 1948.
Winifred Atwell was championed by popular disc jockey Jack Jackson, who introduced her to Decca Records promotions manager Hugh Mendl.
Winifred Atwell released a number of discs for Decca in 1951 that were well received.
The rag was originally performed on a concert grand for the occasion, but Winifred Atwell felt it did not sound right, and so got her husband to buy a honky tonk piano for 50 shillings from a junk shop in Battersea, London, which was used for the released version of the song.
Winifred Atwell had cannily made the choice, for stage purposes, of her playing first a concert grand, then the old upright piano from Battersea.
When Winifred Atwell first came to Britain, she initially earned only a few pounds a week.
Winifred Atwell signed a record contract with Decca, and her sales were soon 30,000 discs a week.
Winifred Atwell was by far the biggest-selling pianist of her time.
Winifred Atwell's 1954 hit, "Let's Have Another Party", was the first piano instrumental to reach number one in the UK Singles Chart.
Winifred Atwell is the only holder of two gold and two silver discs for piano music in Britain, and was the first black artist in the UK to sell a million records.
Winifred Atwell's peak was in the second half of the 1950s, during which her concerts drew standing-room-only crowds in Europe and Australasia.
Winifred Atwell played three Royal Variety Performances, appeared in every capital city in Europe, and played for over twenty million people.
Winifred Atwell became a firm television favourite and had her own series in Britain.
Winifred Atwell did have a guest appearance on the Arthur Godfrey show two years later.
In 1955, Winifred Atwell arrived in Australia and was greeted as an international celebrity.
Winifred Atwell was paid AUS$5,000 a week, making her the highest-paid star from a Commonwealth country to visit Australia up to that time.
Winifred Atwell toured Australia many times and made Australian guitarist, Jimmy Doyle, her musical director in the 1960s.
In 1962, she made a nationwide tour of Britain, with "The Winifred Atwell Show", accompanied by the Cy Bevan Group, who were with her then current radio series Pianorama.
Winifred Atwell bought an apartment on the beach front in Flight Deck, an apartment complex in Collaroy in Sydney, as a jumping-off base for her worldwide performance commitments.
Winifred Atwell always donated her services in a charity concert on Sundays, the proceeds going to orphanages and needy children.
Winifred Atwell spoke out against the Third World conditions endured by Aboriginal Australians, which made headlines during an outback tour of the country in 1962.
Winifred Atwell left her estate to the Australian Guide Dogs for the Blind and a small amount to her goddaughter.
Winifred Atwell created headlines in the 1960s with her dieting, slimming from 16 to 12 stone, using what would today be called a protein diet.
Winifred Atwell was a devout Catholic, who unpretentiously played the organ for her parish church.
In 1968, Winifred Atwell recorded Ivory and Steel, an album of standards and classics, with the Pan Am Jet North Stars Steel Orchestra, and supported musical scholarships in the West Indies.
Winifred Atwell categorically stated that she would retire and not return as a public performer, and that she had had an excellent career.
Winifred Atwell is buried beside husband, Lew Levisohn, in Northern Rivers Memorial Park, South Gundurimba in northern New South Wales, just outside Lismore.
Winifred Atwell has a piano-shaped headstone that was paid for by Elton John.
In November 2020, a Nubian Jak Community Trust black plaque honouring Winifred Atwell was unveiled at the former site of a hair salon she owned in Chaucer Road, Brixton, south London.