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Frankie Vaughan

Frankie Vaughan
Background information
Birth name Frank Abelson
Born 3 February 1928, Liverpool, England
Died 17 September 1999
Genre(s) Traditional Pop
Years active 1940s-1998

Frankie Vaughan, CBE (3 February 1928-17 May 1999) was a singer of traditional pop music in the United Kingdom.

He was born Frank Abelson to a Jewish family in Liverpool, England. The name Vaughan came from a grandmother whose first grandson he was, who used to call Frank "my number one" grandson, in whose Russian accent "one" sounded like "Vaughan."

In his early life, he was a member of the Lancaster Lads Club, a member group of the National Association of Boys' Clubs in the UK, and in his career he was a major contributor to the clubs, dedicating his monetary compensation from one song each year to them. He started out at the club intending to be a boxer. Then at age 14 he received a scholarship to the Lancaster College of Art, where he sang in the dance band. After a stint in the Royal Army Medical Corps in World War II (where he spent most of his time boxing) he returned to art school, this time at the Leeds College of Art.

When he won a prize to design a furniture exhibition stand, he left for London, where he won second prize on a radio talent show.

Frankie's career began in the late 1940s in the theatre doing variety song and dance acts. He was known as a fancy dresser, wearing top hat, bow tie, tails, and cane. In the 1950s he worked for a few years with the Nat Temple band, and after that period he then began making records, and was very popular in the UK. In 1955, he recorded what was to become his trademark song, "Give Me the Moonlight, Give Me the Girl."

He recorded a large number of songs that were covers of United States hit songs, including Perry Como's "Kewpie Doll," Jimmie Rodgers' "Kisses Sweeter than Wine,"Boyd Bennett's "Seventeen" (also covered in the US by the Fontane Sisters), Jim Lowe's "The Green Door," and (with the Kaye Sisters) the Fleetwoods' "Come Softly to Me." From the 1950s through to the early 1960s, his recordings were popular in the UK. Though the rise of beat music eclipsed his chart career for two or three years, he returned to the Top 10 in 1967 with "There Must Be A Way".

He came to the United States in 1960 to make a movie with Marilyn Monroe, "Let's Make Love," and was an actor in several other movies, but his recordings were never chart hits in the US (though one, "Judy," did make the charts briefly and at a very low spot; even that one never got much air play in the US).

During the 1960's he became involved with youth social problems in Easterhouse, a large housing estate in the outskirts of Glasgow, and was influential in attracting new resources and inward investment to the area.

He continued performing until 1985, when he starred in a stage version of "42nd Street" at Drury Lane in London. After a year, he suffered a near fatal bout of peritonitis and had to leave the cast. He was married to Stella from 1951 to 1999 and they had three children and several grandchildren. He was awarded an OBE in 1965, a CBE in 1996 and as a resident of High Wycombe had been a Deputy Lord Lieutenant of the County of Buckinghamshire since 1993. He died from heart failure in 1999, aged 71.

Its also worth mentioning that Frankie Vaughan has been immortalised in cockney rhyming slang as the term "porn" - e.g. "Watching a Frankie tonight?"

Recordings


Preceded by
Elvis Presley

It's Now Or Never

 UK Christmas Number One single

Tower Of Strength

1961

 Succeeded by
Cliff Richard and The Shadows

The Next Time

External links


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