John Lennon, like the rest of The Beatles, grew up in Liverpool, England. He got his start playing shows throughout the city, and he lived there with his family until The Beatles found widespread success. The band was incredibly successful, and whenever The Beatles returned, they were treated as hometown heroes. Lennon found this embarrassing and did not like going home.
John Lennon | Harry Benson/Express/Getty Images John Lennon grew up in Liverpool
Lennon was born in Liverpool in 1940. While he initially lived with his mother, Julia, and his father, Alfred, his parents separated when he was a toddler. His aunt, Mimi Smith, took custody of Lennon after reporting Julia to Social Services. According to Paul McCartney, Lennon’s life with Smith was posh.
John's Aunt Mimi was born #onthisday 24 April 1906. Here's John with Mimi, Uncle George and Sally the dog in the back garden of their Liverpool home...
John Lennon | Harry Benson/Express/Getty Images John Lennon grew up in Liverpool
Lennon was born in Liverpool in 1940. While he initially lived with his mother, Julia, and his father, Alfred, his parents separated when he was a toddler. His aunt, Mimi Smith, took custody of Lennon after reporting Julia to Social Services. According to Paul McCartney, Lennon’s life with Smith was posh.
John's Aunt Mimi was born #onthisday 24 April 1906. Here's John with Mimi, Uncle George and Sally the dog in the back garden of their Liverpool home...
- 1/29/2023
- by Emma McKee
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
Andrew Heard 21st August 1958 - 9th January 1993
The artist Andrew Heard was a combination of contrasts, contradictions and charm. Although his large immensely detailed canvases referenced quintessentially English topics, it is a testament to their brilliance of construction that the viewer didn't need to know who his subjects were in order to be engaged by them. Usually British actors, comedians and neglected television personalities held centre stage. It helped, enhanced and enriched the viewing experience if you knew them, but as he was more successful in Europe, the references were secondary to the visual impact of the work. Heard had more recognition in Germany where his paintings sold well via the Friedman-Guinness Gallery in Frankfurt, he also exhibited at Turske & Turske in Zurich, where the essentially English comic Arthur Askey held little in the way of a visual translation abroad. His work was initially monochromatic and stark but developed into a cavalcade of color.
The artist Andrew Heard was a combination of contrasts, contradictions and charm. Although his large immensely detailed canvases referenced quintessentially English topics, it is a testament to their brilliance of construction that the viewer didn't need to know who his subjects were in order to be engaged by them. Usually British actors, comedians and neglected television personalities held centre stage. It helped, enhanced and enriched the viewing experience if you knew them, but as he was more successful in Europe, the references were secondary to the visual impact of the work. Heard had more recognition in Germany where his paintings sold well via the Friedman-Guinness Gallery in Frankfurt, he also exhibited at Turske & Turske in Zurich, where the essentially English comic Arthur Askey held little in the way of a visual translation abroad. His work was initially monochromatic and stark but developed into a cavalcade of color.
- 1/7/2018
- by robert cochrane
- www.culturecatch.com
Above: Spectacular full-scale derailment from the 1931 version of The Ghost Train (and also the 1941 version).
Arnold Ridley is fondly remembered in the UK as one of the stars of seventies sitcom Dad’s Army, about an incompetent and mainly superannuated group of volunteer soldiers in the WWII home guard, a show which made Ridley a national star at age 72 (it continued until he was 81). His sweetly doddering persona made a brilliant foil to the petulant Arthur Lowe, the dithering John Le Mesurier and gloomy Scot John Laurie.
One day, shooting on location in a graveyard, one of Ridley’s younger co-stars mused, “Hardly worth your leaving, is it, Arnold?” A rather harsh bit of humor: if you find it too mean, take comfort in the fact that the young thesp predeceased Ridley by some years, owing to liver failure. What larks!
But looong before Dad’s Army, Arnold Ridley found...
Arnold Ridley is fondly remembered in the UK as one of the stars of seventies sitcom Dad’s Army, about an incompetent and mainly superannuated group of volunteer soldiers in the WWII home guard, a show which made Ridley a national star at age 72 (it continued until he was 81). His sweetly doddering persona made a brilliant foil to the petulant Arthur Lowe, the dithering John Le Mesurier and gloomy Scot John Laurie.
One day, shooting on location in a graveyard, one of Ridley’s younger co-stars mused, “Hardly worth your leaving, is it, Arnold?” A rather harsh bit of humor: if you find it too mean, take comfort in the fact that the young thesp predeceased Ridley by some years, owing to liver failure. What larks!
But looong before Dad’s Army, Arnold Ridley found...
- 9/9/2013
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
The Ghost Train
Directed by Walter Forde
Written by J.O.C. Orton, Val Guest, & Marriott Edgar
Starring Arthur Askey, Richard Murdoch, Kathleen Harrison, and Carole Lynne
UK, 85 min – 1941.
“I say, I wonder if I could teach you to talk. I wonder if you could say ‘Heil Hitler.’ Eh? No, not with a beak like that.”
A train speeds down the railroad, with nothing but dark, shadowed tracks ahead. Suspenseful nondiegetic music plays. The train accelerates, approaches and passes through the names of people involved in making the film – producers, stars, writers, and the director. This continues, until the audience no longer sees the journey from the train’s perspective. The train materializes out of a tunnel and the audience is placed at a safe distance from the suspenseful ride. These are the opening credits of Walter Forde’s The Ghost Train.
The basic plot follows the story of a group of train passengers,...
Directed by Walter Forde
Written by J.O.C. Orton, Val Guest, & Marriott Edgar
Starring Arthur Askey, Richard Murdoch, Kathleen Harrison, and Carole Lynne
UK, 85 min – 1941.
“I say, I wonder if I could teach you to talk. I wonder if you could say ‘Heil Hitler.’ Eh? No, not with a beak like that.”
A train speeds down the railroad, with nothing but dark, shadowed tracks ahead. Suspenseful nondiegetic music plays. The train accelerates, approaches and passes through the names of people involved in making the film – producers, stars, writers, and the director. This continues, until the audience no longer sees the journey from the train’s perspective. The train materializes out of a tunnel and the audience is placed at a safe distance from the suspenseful ride. These are the opening credits of Walter Forde’s The Ghost Train.
The basic plot follows the story of a group of train passengers,...
- 3/11/2013
- by Karen Bacellar
- SoundOnSight
Our pick of your marriage proposal film clips. Plus: how would you like Clip joint to work in future?
First off, to regular business. Here's our pick of five of our favourite's posted on last week's marriage proposal-themed Clip joint.
1. StevieBee
An odd sort of proposal, especially when the man doesn't realise he's being proposed to, but when Arthur Askey gets into Anne Shelton's chair in Bees in Paradise it takes him a while to realise that he's accepted. Wartime British comedy at its sorry best. "That's the one I want. The little one."
• Watch
2. Thesubhuman
When you are wandering about in haunted woodland practising your wedding vows, try to make sure they are not mistaken for a proposal by one of the undead. It's easily done. Corpse Bride.
• Watch
3. rowingrob
I'll go for the "oldest clip of the week" sub-prize with this from 1913 – Death's Marathon. Thank heavens the...
First off, to regular business. Here's our pick of five of our favourite's posted on last week's marriage proposal-themed Clip joint.
1. StevieBee
An odd sort of proposal, especially when the man doesn't realise he's being proposed to, but when Arthur Askey gets into Anne Shelton's chair in Bees in Paradise it takes him a while to realise that he's accepted. Wartime British comedy at its sorry best. "That's the one I want. The little one."
• Watch
2. Thesubhuman
When you are wandering about in haunted woodland practising your wedding vows, try to make sure they are not mistaken for a proposal by one of the undead. It's easily done. Corpse Bride.
• Watch
3. rowingrob
I'll go for the "oldest clip of the week" sub-prize with this from 1913 – Death's Marathon. Thank heavens the...
- 3/6/2012
- by Adam Boult
- The Guardian - Film News
Singer, comic actor and stalwart of Coronation Street
Betty Driver, who has died aged 91, was a gutsy and durable comic actor who meant one thing to young audiences and quite another to those who could remember the second world war and the years immediately after it. To the youthful, she will be remembered as Betty Turpin (later Betty Williams), the barmaid, shoulder to cry on and wife of the policeman Cyril Turpin in Granada television's Coronation Street, whose cast she joined in 1969.
To a much older audience, she will also be remembered for her appearances in repertory theatres and in stage revues; as the child star who took over from the popular singer Gracie Fields on a stage tour, doing some of her best-known numbers; and as the principal singer for a year with the leading dance orchestra leader of the time, Henry Hall, on his BBC radio programme,...
Betty Driver, who has died aged 91, was a gutsy and durable comic actor who meant one thing to young audiences and quite another to those who could remember the second world war and the years immediately after it. To the youthful, she will be remembered as Betty Turpin (later Betty Williams), the barmaid, shoulder to cry on and wife of the policeman Cyril Turpin in Granada television's Coronation Street, whose cast she joined in 1969.
To a much older audience, she will also be remembered for her appearances in repertory theatres and in stage revues; as the child star who took over from the popular singer Gracie Fields on a stage tour, doing some of her best-known numbers; and as the principal singer for a year with the leading dance orchestra leader of the time, Henry Hall, on his BBC radio programme,...
- 10/16/2011
- by Dennis Barker
- The Guardian - Film News
Variety show star of the 1960s whose hits included Dance On and Secret Love
During the mid-1960s, the singer Kathy Kirby, who has died aged 72 after a short illness, was almost ever-present on television variety shows. Her powerful vocal style was heard on the million-selling hits Dance On and Secret Love, and her blonde hair and hourglass figure drew comparisons to Marilyn Monroe.
She was born Kathleen O'Rourke in Ilford, Essex, the eldest of three children of Irish parents. Her mother, Eileen, brought up the family alone after their father left home when the children were very young. Kirby showed a taste for show business from an early age, winning a toddlers' talent contest at three years old. After leaving a local convent school with three O-levels, and dyeing her natural red hair blonde, she regularly attended the Ilford Palais de Danse. There, dressed in a tight black dress and black evening gloves,...
During the mid-1960s, the singer Kathy Kirby, who has died aged 72 after a short illness, was almost ever-present on television variety shows. Her powerful vocal style was heard on the million-selling hits Dance On and Secret Love, and her blonde hair and hourglass figure drew comparisons to Marilyn Monroe.
She was born Kathleen O'Rourke in Ilford, Essex, the eldest of three children of Irish parents. Her mother, Eileen, brought up the family alone after their father left home when the children were very young. Kirby showed a taste for show business from an early age, winning a toddlers' talent contest at three years old. After leaving a local convent school with three O-levels, and dyeing her natural red hair blonde, she regularly attended the Ilford Palais de Danse. There, dressed in a tight black dress and black evening gloves,...
- 5/20/2011
- by Dave Laing
- The Guardian - Film News
American-born singer and actor who spent the war years in Britain
For those people for whom the words Itma, "Big-Hearted Arthur" and Ambrose conjure up fond memories, and the blitz less fond ones, the name of the American-born singer and actor Evelyn Dall, who has died aged 92, might ring a few syncopated bells. Dall spent the war years in Britain, during which time she co-starred with Tommy "It's That Man Again" Handley and Arthur Askey in a few musical-comedy films, and was a featured soloist with Bert Ambrose's dance band, performing at the Holborn Empire and the Mayfair hotel.
Billed as "The Blonde Bombshell", having filched the sobriquet from Jean Harlow, who had died some years before, the petite Dall, who was cute rather than sexy, gave chirpy support to the two cheeky comedians who traded on their radio fame for their lingering appeal. Dall ("doll" when pronounced by...
For those people for whom the words Itma, "Big-Hearted Arthur" and Ambrose conjure up fond memories, and the blitz less fond ones, the name of the American-born singer and actor Evelyn Dall, who has died aged 92, might ring a few syncopated bells. Dall spent the war years in Britain, during which time she co-starred with Tommy "It's That Man Again" Handley and Arthur Askey in a few musical-comedy films, and was a featured soloist with Bert Ambrose's dance band, performing at the Holborn Empire and the Mayfair hotel.
Billed as "The Blonde Bombshell", having filched the sobriquet from Jean Harlow, who had died some years before, the petite Dall, who was cute rather than sexy, gave chirpy support to the two cheeky comedians who traded on their radio fame for their lingering appeal. Dall ("doll" when pronounced by...
- 5/23/2010
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
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