Frankie Vaughan
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| Frankie Vaughan (1962) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Frankie Vaughan, CBE (born Frank Abelson on February 3, 1928 in Liverpool , England , † May 17, 1999 in High Wycombe , Buckinghamshire ) was a British pop singer . In his home country he was particularly successful with cover versions of US hits; from 1953 to 1968, eleven of his singles reached the top 10 of the British charts . With the titles Garden of Eden ( 1957 ) and Tower of Strength ( 1961 ) he had two number one hits. He was one of the most popular entertainers in Britain in the 1950s.
From Liverpool to the London stage
Frank Abelson was born in Liverpool as the son of Russian-Jewish emigrants . His father was an upholsterer, his mother a seamstress. Young Frank sang in the choir of the synagogue on Princes Road. During the Second World War the family was evacuated to Lancaster . Frank became a member of the Lancaster Lads Club, an association of the National Association of Boys 'Club ("National Association of Boys' Clubs"). Here he trained to be a boxer . At 14, however, he received a scholarship to the Lancaster College of Art, a secondary school for the fine arts. Here he sang in the dance orchestra. After serving briefly in the Royal Army Medical Corps (where he spent most of his time boxing), he wanted to become an art teacher and went back to Art College, this time in Leeds , where his family had moved for work. During a revue he was discovered here by BBC producer Barney Colehan.
He went to London , where he began his theater career in 1949 with singing and dancing in variety shows. He played his first professional role in the Kingston Empire; here he fell on the Music Hall star Hetty King , who became his advisor. He became known for dressing extravagantly with a top hat , bow tie , tails and a walking stick .
Interpreter of popular hits
After working with the Nat Temple Orchestra in the early 1950s, he began recording his own records in 1953 , which became quite successful in the UK. From 1954 to 1968, except for 1966, he was represented in the British singles charts with at least one title (31 in total) every year. However, his trademark was a title that he did not place in the charts: Give Me the Moonlight, Give Me the Girl , a song by Albert von Tilzer and Lew Brown from 1918, which he brought to market in 1955. After this song, which he usually performed as the finale of his stage show, he was also referred to as Mr. Moonlight .
Much of his successful songs were covers of hits from the United States, some of which also hit the UK charts with their original artists , including Perry Como's Kewpie Doll , Jimmie Rodgers' Kisses Sweeter Than Wine , Boyd Bennett's Seventeen , Jim Lowe's The Green Door (25 years later a number one hit for Shakin 'Stevens ), Édith Piafs Milord and Come Softly to Me from the Fleetwoods , which he interpreted with the Kaye Sisters .
Number one hits by far
His first number one hit was also the first chart topper by a Liverpool artist. The song Garden of Eden made Joe Valino popular in the USA , who had his only hit with it. In Great Britain, three other artists competed with their cover versions for the favor of record buyers: In addition to Valino and Vaughan, these were Gary Miller and Dick James . The song was not without controversy; it contained the line "a voice in the Garden tells you she is forbidden" ("a voice in paradise tells you it is forbidden"), which at the time was enough in conservative circles to want to put Garden of Eden on the index. Vaughan's version of the song, written by Denise Norwood, reached the top of the UK Top 40 on January 25, 1957 . In May of that year he appeared at the Liverpool Empire; he toured the United States and was named Show Business Personality of the Year.
Vaughan celebrated his second number one hit four and a half years later with the best-selling single for Christmas 1961 in Great Britain: Tower of Strength was a number five hit for Gene McDaniels in the USA . In the UK, in December 1961, it became Burt Bacharach's only number one hit that he had not written with Hal David ; Tower of Strength was a collaboration between Bacharach and Bob Hilliard . For Vaughan the success of this recording, like his first number one hit a Johnny Franz production, meant a small comeback - his career had been a little on the decline, his last hit Milord a year earlier was only down 34, his last top ten hit was more than two years ago. But after the advent of beat music , his career continued to decline . At least he was able to record a top 10 hit in 1967 with There Must Be a Way .
Despite being a big star in Britain, Vaughan never got a foothold on the United States charts; his only hit there was the song Judy , which climbed to number 22 on the Hot 100 in 1958. However , he was quite successful in the revue scene on the stages of New York City and Las Vegas .
Success on the screen
Vaughan had his first film appearance in 1956 in John Baxter's western comedy Ramsbottom Rides Again (with comedian Arthur Askew ), the adventure film Faustrecht in Kenya ( Escape in the Sun ) followed that same year and his first leading role as singer Dave Wyman in These Dangerous Years in 1957 , the film in which David McCallum made his screen debut. 1960 Vaughan went to the US where he met Marilyn Monroe , Yves Montand and Tony Randall under George Cukor's film comedy directed Let's Make Love ( Let's Make Love turned). In order to stay with his family in England, he decided against a possible career in Hollywood .
Commitment to young people
During the 1960s he also made a name for himself through his involvement in projects in the social hotspot Easterhouse . Easterhouse is a monotonous district of Glasgow at the time , which was built in the 1950s and early 1960s as a purely residential area with identical houses, without any planning of shops, leisure or sports facilities and with poor public transport connections . In this mixed up community, aided by high unemployment, youth gangs emerged in the 1960s; Vaughan worked with other celebrities to bring new investments and thus order back into the district and helped build a youth home. He was also committed to other youth work projects and donated part of the proceeds from his hit The Green Door to the National Association of Boys' Clubs .
After the great successes
Vaughan was also present in his home country with concerts and cabaret performances in the 1970s. In 1985 he surprisingly took over James Laurenson's role in the musical 42nd Street in London's Drury Lane Theater . After a year, however, he suffered an almost fatal peritonitis and had to give up the role again. Frankie Vaughan died of heart failure in 1999.
Honors
In 1965, Queen Elizabeth II awarded Vaughan an OBE , and in 1997 a CBE . Since 1993 he has been a Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire County .
Vaughan's name has been immortalized in the London dialect Cockney Rhyming Slang . Here his name is used as a rhyme synonym for porn , so in the phrase "Watching a Frankie tonight?" ("Watching porn tonight?")
Private
Since 1951 Vaughan was married to Stella Shock; the two have three children. While filming Let's Make Love , there were rumors in the tabloids that he was having an affair with Marilyn Monroe; these rumors have never been confirmed and remain in doubt.
According to legend, Vaughan owes his stage name to his Russian grandmother, who did not speak good English. When he told her he wanted to become a singer, she is said to have said: “You will be the best of (actually: one , spoken with an accent like the name Vaughan ) there ever was” (“You will be the best it ever was gave.")
Filmography (selection)
- 1956: Ramsbottom Rides Again
- 1960: Let's do it with love
- 1961: The Right Approach
literature
- Donald Clarke (ed.): The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music . London 1989/1990, ISBN 0-14-051147-4 , pp. 1197f.
Web links
- Frankie Vaughan in the All Movie Guide
- Portrait Museum of Liverpool
- Biography with singles discography
- Obituary from the BBC
- Frankie Vaughan in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b all chart positions according to David Roberts (ed.): Guinness World Records - British Hit Singles and Albums . 19th edition. 2006, ISBN 978-1-904994-10-7 , p. 583
- ↑ Music Sales Awards: UK
- ^ David Roberts (ed.): Guinness World Records - British Hit Singles and Albums . 19th edition. 2006, ISBN 978-1-904994-10-7 , p. 583
- ^ Paul Gambaccini , Tim Rice , Jo Rice: The Guinness Book of Number One Hits . 2nd edition. Enfield (Middlesex) 1988, ISBN 0-85112-893-9 , p. 33
- ^ Paul Gambaccini, Tim Rice, Jo Rice: The Guinness Book of Number One Hits . 2nd edition. Enfield (Middlesex) 1988, ISBN 0-85112-893-9 , p. 61
- ↑ Chart placement according to Donald Clarke (ed.): The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music . London 1989/1990, ISBN 0-14-051147-4 , p. 1197
- ↑ Museum of Liverpool ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Donald Clarke (ed.): The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music . London 1989/1990, ISBN 0-14-051147-4 , pp. 1197f.
- ^ Donald Clarke (ed.): The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music . London 1989/1990, ISBN 0-14-051147-4 , p. 1197
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Vaughan, Frankie |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Abelson, Frank (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British pop singer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 3, 1928 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Liverpool , England |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 17, 1999 |
| Place of death | High Wycombe , Buckinghamshire |