大象传媒

by Claudia Elliott.

It was the showbiz event of the year. Around 3,000 fans of Cockney pop idol gathered in Soho Square, London for his wedding on 18 June 1960.

Lines of policemen, some on horseback, formed a cordon as the excited teenagers surged forward outside St Patrick’s church. There were cheers for celebrity guests Alma Cogan, Max Bygraves and Sid James.

Tommy Steele, 23, arrived to screams of delight, whistling and waving from the crowd. After the ceremony he and his bride, Ann Donoghue, a former Windmill Theatre dancer, were driven to a reception at The Savoy, followed by a family do at a pub in Eltham.

Born Thomas Hicks in Bermondsey, south London, he was discovered playing skiffle at the 2i’s coffee bar in Soho in 1956. That year with his backing group The Steelmen he had his first hit, Rock With The Caveman, co-written by Lionel Bart and Mike Pratt. His first number one was the following year’s Singing The Blues, released alongside Guy Mitchell’s version.

It had been a run of dizzy success in just four years for the singer dubbed ‘Britain’s answer to Elvis Presley’. For his first booking, at the Stork Club in Piccadilly, he’d had to borrow a shirt and suede shoes. A year later, he was on £1,000 a week and, according to his publicity, ‘earns more in a month than the Prime Minister in a year’. Such was Steele’s popularity, girls rushed the stage at a concert in Dundee and knocked him out cold.

Unbeknown to his fans, the marriage also signalled his intent to move on from rock into the world of film and theatre, which he did with great success. He continued to have hits into the 1960s, including a number five with What A Mouth (What A North And South), 1963’s Flash Bang Wallop and even tried his hand at folk in 1962 with a cover of Pete Seeger’s Where Have All The Flowers Gone.

On the eve of his wedding, he told a reporter: “Y’know what? I gave myself six months in the business when I started. ‘The world at my feet?’ Never say that, chum!”