Elton Hayes

Elton Hayes (born February 16, 1915 in Bletchley , † September 23, 2001 in Bury St Edmunds ) was a British singer and actor.

Life

Hayes grew up in a family of actors, learned the violin and ukulele as a child and was trained as an actor. As a teenager, she made her first appearances as a singer. In the late 1930s he got his first guitar and played English folk songs. Hayes was stationed in India during the Second World War . His fingers stiffened because of a rheumatic fever ; he continued to play the guitar anyway.

After the war, Hayes was hired by the BBC as a writer and singer for BBC Radio and quickly became known nationwide. Tours followed, u. a. through North America, regular television appearances and record productions. His interpretations of Edward Lear's poem The Owl and the Pussycat were particularly well known . In the late 1940s, Hayes had his own TV show on the BBC: Elton Hayes - He Sings to a Small Guitar . In 1952 he starred in the Disney film Robin Hood and his daring companions , for which he also wrote part of the music.

In the 1960s, he retired from show business and devoted himself to raising livestock . In 1995, he suffered a stroke , gave up ranching and moved to live with friends in Bury St Edmunds , where he died in 2001.

Hayes was married to Betty Inman († 1982). The couple were childless.

Web links

• Elton Hayes in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Portrait on www.whirligig-tv.co.uk (engl.)