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THE DYNAMIC DUO IN DERBYSHIRE (U.K.)

GREAT NAMES OF THE PAST:

MEMORIES AND MELODIES:

OUR VERY OWN LINKS PAGE:

FILMS WE ENJOYED:

MORE MELODIES AND MEMORIES

CELEBRITIES

SINGERS AND SONG:

REAL MUSIC - THE 1950s:

Guestbook

Mail Form

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Wilfred Pickles: The Darling of the Radio:

The year of 1948 is usually associated with the Berlin Airlift, when America and Britain beat the Communist blockade of West Berlin by flying in thousands of tons of food, coal, medicine and clothing and other essentials.

At least the first month or two of that year are special for Bradford for an entirely different reason. A very great broadcaster, revolutionary in his own Yorkshire way, was starring at the Alhambra with a young woman who went on to become Britain’s most popular comic actress.

The broadcaster was Halifax-born Wilfred Pickles, whose travelling radio programme for the BBC, Have a Go, regularly attracted a listening audience of 18 million and upwards. The young woman was June Whitfield. He was Buttons and she was Cinderella in Francis Laidler’s marvelous pantomime which bridged Christmas 1947 and the New Year. The panto was broadcast on the BBC Home Service on January 21, 1948.
Pickles, the Michael Parkinson of his day, was revolutionary because he refused to disguise his distinctive Yorkshire accent. He fought successfully against attempts within the BBC hierarchy to use the bland Received Pronunciation which broadcasters were expected to use.

"There has been a gradual standardisation of spoken English. Too many Northerners, I’m afraid, are ashamed of speaking the language their forefathers spoke," he said. In 1948 Pickles read Shakespeare’s sonnets in his own voice on the radio. The public loved it, and they loved him and his wife Mabel for taking Have a Go out into villages, towns, and cities beyond London to "let the people meet the people". Have a Go was first broadcast from Bingley on March 4, 1946. It was a cheerful neighbourly sort of programme, a precursor of Down Your Way, exactly suited to Wilfred Pickles’ personality. He made people laugh by asking "Are y’ courtin?"

His fan mail was colossal, more than 1,000 letters a week. He employed three secretaries to deal with it, and ordered signed photographs of himself 10,000 at a time. He thrived on getting out and about. Hospitals were regular venues for his radio show. At 2.15pm on Christmas Day, 1947, dressed up as Santa Claus and accompanied by June Whitfield and other members of the Cinderella cast, he broadcast a special show for the Light Programme direct from Bradford Children’s Hospital, Manningham.

The Yorkshire Observer reported: "While the millions who heard little Harvey Matthews, aged 11, of Torre Crescent, Bradford, sing from his bed the second verse of Away in a Manger, and the third verse by eight-year-old Jean Scotcher, of 8 Bowling Alley Terrace, Rastrick, accompanied by Jack Harvey’s Orchestra, must have immediately understood the whole spirit of Wilfred’s party."

The pantomime stars in their stage costumes brought gasps of surprise and pleasure from the children. But there was more, a link from the hospital to Walt Disney in Hollywood, who persuaded Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse to send their Christmas greetings to that hospital in Bradford.
That was Wilfred Pickles all over. The loss of his son at the age of seven had the effect of making him go out of his way to do something for children.
Like Freddie Trueman and Jimmy Savile, Wilfred Pickles was an unapologetic Yorkshireman. Pride in his roots, however, did not make him small-minded or one-dimensional.
His career was multi-faceted. One newspaper described him as "a superb actor of startling versatility".

He brought cheer, fellowship and a bit of sillyness to the nation during the years of rationing after the war.
(c) The Dynamic Duo in Derbyshire 2003

Bonnie - A Girl For All Seasons:

Bonnie Langford has packed a wealth of experience into her outstanding career which has embraced success in Theatre, television, Films and Radio in both Britain and America. On Broadway, she starred at the Winter Gardens Theatre in a revival of the musical Gypsy opposite Angela Lansbury, following a highly successful major US Tour.

On London's West End stage, she has starred in seven smash hit musicals including Gone With The Wind at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane; Gypsy—Piccadilly Theatre; Cats—New London Theatre; The Pirates Of Penzance—first at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and later at the London Palladium; Peter Pan: The Musical (playing the title role) at the Aldwych Theatre; and Me And My Girl at the Adelphi. Her most recent role was in the much acclaimed Sweet Charity at the Victoria Palace Theatre. She has also appeared in three Royal Variety Performances and in numerous Royal Galas.

Bonnie appeared in the hit musical film Bugsy Malone and has starred in many British Television series including Junior Showtime, 'Saturday Starship—which she hosted, Just William, the award-winning Hot Shoe Show, and BBC TV's science fiction series Doctor Who—playing the Doctor's assistant, Melanie. At the age of 12, she headlined the top rated TV Special Lena and Bonnie, and she has been the subject of TV's This Is Your Life. She appeared alongside Joan Collins in Family Album in BBC TV's highly successful series of Noel Coward plays Tonight At 8.30. She has made numerous guest-star appearances on all the major TV variety shows and series and hosted several Radio shows and Radio plays, including two series which she presented for the BBC.

Her albums include Cats (Original Cast Recording), Gypsy (London Cast Recording), Isabella on Wuthering Heights, Nancy on Oliver, Millie on Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, The Songs Of Rodgers And Hammerstein II, Leading Ladies, and most recently her own album entitled Bonnie Langford Now.
(c) The Dynamic Duo in Derbyshire 2003


Actress Anne Heywood, who was born Violet Joan Pretty:

Violet Joan Pretty was was born on 11th December 1931 in Handsworth. Her father Harold was a former orchestral violinist, now working in factories. The family was not well off. She joined St Mary's School at the end of August 1938 from York Road School. The family had moved into a new council house at 147 Shaftmoor Lane after a year at 49 Lyncroft Road. During the War the family moved to Erdington, to 197 Bleak Hill Road, where they stayed until c.1950. Violet went to Fentham Road Secondary School. Her mother died suddenly when she was a few months past her thirteenth birthday, and she had to leave school at fourteen, in order to to look after the younger members of her family. This frustrated her wish to go on to art school. She worked for three months as an usherette at the A.B.C. Palace cinema in Erdington at the age of fourteen.

In 1947 Violet joined Highbury Little Theatre in Sutton Coldfield, remaining there for two years. In the same year she won Birmingham University's Carnival Queen title. Among a dozen more beauty titles the most prestigious one was in 1950, the National Bathing Beauty Contest, held in Morecambe from 1945-1980, and which from 1956 was called Miss Great Britain. Interestingly, another Birmingham girl, June Mitchell, had won three years earlier. As contestant number 16 accepted her £1000 prize and a silver rose bowl on 30th August 1950, who could have foreseen the amazing paths her career would take? (We are grateful to Morecambe Library for their help with this information).

In 1951 Violet had a part as a beauty queen in the film "Lady Godiva rides again". In the same year she was signed up by a Canadian compere called Carroll Levis, well known for his talent-spotting ventures. She featured prominently in one of his Discoveries shows for four years, touring at theatres around the country, and she appeared on television three times with the show. Around 1955 she was spotted by a talent scout for Rank while playing the principal boy in Aladdin at the Chelsea Palace. That year she changed her name to Anne Heywood, and in 1956 was given a seven year contract with Rank as an actress. In 1957 she had a part in "Doctor at large", and a string of other films followed.

Probably the 1963 film "The very edge" gave a hint of what was to come. In that film she won praise for her portrayal of a wife who was assaulted in her own home by a psychopath (played by Jeremy Brett). Her husband found himself unable to cope with her troubled state. Her portrayal of the psychological bond she had with her attacker, of her dramatic confrontation with him, and of the assertiveness she needed to try to save her integrity showed she had the ability to explore deeper, troubled parts of the human psyche.

In the summer of 1964 filming started on the first Anglo-Czech co-production, a film called "Ninety degrees in the shade". Anne played a clerk involved in an intense physical relationship with her boss, who was stealing from the business. Investigators put pressure on Anne's character, who could not make herself reveal her lover's crimes, and she took her own life. The film was praised by Hitchcock, and won the International Critics' Prize at the Berlin Film Festival.

Altogether Anne starred in over thirty films, in Italy and in Hollywood as well as in Britain, many produced by her husband, Raymond Stross, whom she married in 1960. She starred alongside Robert Mitchum in A Terrible Beauty (1960, also known as The Night Fighters) and Gregory Peck in The Chairman (1969), and starred in The Fox (1967), for which she won a Golden Globe for Actress in a Leading Role. In that film, adapted from a D.H. Lawrence novella, she played Ellen March, a woman in a lesbian relationship whose life is turned upside down by a rather silent and macho man who comes between her and her lover.

"The Midas run" was filmed in Italy in 1969, and Anne starred alongside Fred Astaire and Ralph Richardson. She also sang in the film. The producer was Raymond Stross, her husband. Fred Astaire was very annoyed that a revealing love scene between Anne and Richard Crenna had been inserted into the film after he had finished his contribution, in order to raise box office appeal. "They've forgotten a seven letter word - decency...They [sexual scenes] weren't in the script, or I wouldn't have done the film. People wrote and said they were surprised I would appear in such a film. I was as surprised as they were. I will not be a part of something crummy. I wouldn't go to work if I had to do something distasteful to me" (quoted in TV Guide, 11th April, 1970). In the film "I want what I want", made in 1970, Anne played a young man who wanted to be a woman, and who had the surgery following self-mutilation. This is another example of Anne exploring the anguish and suffering that can be associated with sexuality.

In fact Anne Heywood will probably be remembered for two rather different kinds of roles: nice girls, and then those exploring themes which extended the boundaries of "acceptable" content. Some of her films, like those involving nuns being tortured and raped, earned her the criticism of being involved in "exploitation". Anne herself was unapologetic about these kinds of roles. In 1969, in the magazine Life, she said: "I'm attracted to strange parts because they are more complicated than those of straightforward persons. You have to dig deep to find out how they tick. Besides, these are the kinds of pictures people want to see". Anne's husband, in an interview in Films and Filming in 1971, spoke in glowing terms about her contribution to the films: "Let me say that she has one of the finest minds, and one of the most enquiring minds, of any person I have met...She is dedicated - to an extreme. She has no ego other than the will to do her best. She is not prepared to give anything less than one hundred and one percent the whole time. This goes to the minutest details". Anne was the subject of a half-hour documentary broadcast on Sunday 26th November 1972 on BBC1. Michael Aspel told the story of the former beauty queen who had made it in the big time as an actress, and made a million along the way. Anne had overcome the handicap, as it were, of being a beauty contestant to be taken seriously as an actress.

It is interesting to mention local newspapers' approach to Anne. One the one hand, she comes from Birmingham and is therefore a local heroine, but the roles she has specialised in raise eyebrows. Perhaps the best expression of this tension is the biographical article in the Sunday Mercury in October 1992, written as Anne was about to visit Birmingham as guest of honour at the Birmingham International Film and Television Festival.

The headline is: "Return of a girl who shocked the world!", yet the article spends half its time emphasising how Anne never used sex as a means to get on, and how important marriage and motherhood are to her. It is as if they assume that readers see screen roles as a simple reflection of personal behaviour, and need to prove that their heroine is not a sex-crazed person. At the same time, however, they are only too happy to stir up interest with sensationalism.

Raymond Stross died in 1988, and Anne later remarried, to George Druke, a former Assistant Attorney General of New York State. She lives in Beverley Hills. Her life story has been described as Cinderella or rags to riches, but those labels perhaps don't emphasise enough her determination, her ambition, and the role of fate. In 1974, in an interview for the Birmingham Mail, she said: "Strangely enough, had I not left school early to help with the family, I would have taken up a scholarship to the College of Art, and never become an actress".
(c) The Dynamic Duo in derbyshire 2003


Richard Todd: Star of Stage and Screen:

Born in Ireland, Richard Todd spent a few of his childhood years in India, where his father served as an army physician. Later his family relocated to West Devon, England. Todd trained for a potential military career at Sandhurst before inaugurating his acting training at the Italia Conta school.

He helped organize the Dundee Repertory Theatre, then spent six years' service in World War II, first as an officer in the Yorkshire Light Infantry, then as a paratrooper with the 6th Airbourne. Todd was among those who parachuted into France during the D-Day Invasion of 1944; eighteen years later, he played a cameo in Darryl F. Zanuck's D-Day recreation The Longest Day (1946). After the war, he rejoined the Dundee rep, then made his West End debut as The Scot, the ill-tempered, dying protagonist of John Patrick's play The Hasty Heart.

In 1949, Todd began his film career when he was tapped to recreate his Hasty Heart characterization before the cameras; the performance would earn him an Academy Award nomination. Highlights of Todd's 1950s film output include his portrayal of Marlene Dietrich's castaway beau in Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1950), his swashbuckling heroics in Disney's The Story of Robin Hood (1952), The Sword and the Rose (1953) and Rob Roy, The Highland Rogue (1954), his sensitive performance as "Chaplain of the Presidents" Peter Marshall in A Man Called Peter and his military derring-do in the 1956 British box-office smash The Dam Busters.

Although he devoted more and more of his energies to the stage in the late 1950s-early 1960s, Todd served as executive producer on 1961's Why Bother to Knock and later portrayed a Timothy Leary clone in 1967's The Love-Ins. More recently the actor's achievements include stage actor and producer. Todd lists Equus as his favorite stage production, though it's likely that his eight-year run in the Mayfair Theatre presentation The Business of Murder was kinder to his bank account. In 1987, Richard Todd published Caught in the Act, the first volume of his memoirs.
(c ) The Dynamic Duo in derbyshire 2003

The Verve Jazz Recordings:

A SHORT HISTORY:

Verve Records was originally the product of the vision of Norman Granz, a crucial figure whose innovations forever altered the face of jazz. In the final stages of World War II, as the Swing Era began to wind down, Granz, then in his mid-twenties, was working as a film editor at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Hollywood. But his real passion was music.

By the late 1940s, Granz was steadily expanding his jazz empire. Producing two all-star JATP concert tours per year, Granz broke from societal convention by teaming black and white musicians and refusing to submit to segregation while traveling, insisting that his racially integrated ensembles be treated with respect commensurate with their talent. In 1948, Granz signed a five-year distribution contract with Mercury Records for his newly established label, Clef. After the Mercury deal expired, Granz set up independent distribution for Clef and set up a series of specialized subsidiary to release the artists he was signing.

In 1956, Granz formed Verve Records and moved all of his recordings to the Verve catalog. By now, long-playing records had replaced 78s as listeners' format of choice, and—thanks in large part to ten years' worth of ongoing Jazz at the Philharmonic releases—the public was accustomed to extended live performances on record. With its adventurous recording policy and huge roster of disparate artists, Verve boasted a virtual who's-who of the postwar jazz world. Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, Duzzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Lester Young, Kid Ory, Stan Getz, Ben Webster, Roy Eldridge, Gerry Mulligan, Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, Illinois Jacquet, Art Tatum, Flip Phillips, and Teddy Wilson all recorded for Verve. The Verve roster would also come to include such world-class vocalists as Ella Fitzgerald, whose career experienced a remarkable artistic rebirth under Granz's stewardship, Anita O'Day, Nina Simone, Mel Torme and Blossom Dearie.

Although Verve would play a substantial role in popularizing the LP format and stereo recording, the quality that really set Verve apart was Granz's open-minded musical philosophy. Granz's refusal to recognize artificially imposed stylistic boundaries helped to create an environment in which the musicians could fulfill their artistic potential, and resulted in a series of inspired collaborations between players with widely divergent backgrounds

By 1920, blues vocalists like Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith had an impact on other performers including the early trumpet styles of Joe "King" Oliver and Louis Armstrong.
(c) The Dynamic Duo in Derbyshire 2003

and the label lives on.....

Influenced in turn by both Armstrong's trumpet and vocal style, singers including Bing Crosby and Connie Boswell developed distinctive vocal styles as early as 1926. During the swing era of the 1930s and '40s, every band included a "girl" or "boy" singer. While the era of the big bands focused mainly on instrumental music, occasionally vocalists were featured on ballads or novelty songs. Vocalists who began their early careers as band singers include Frank Sinatra with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Ella Fitzgerald with the Chick Webb Orchestra, and Anita O'Day with the Gene Krupa Orchestra.

World War II wrought economic demise on the big bands, creating new opportunities for vocalists as leaders. A recording ban was imposed by the American Federation of Musicians during the war but vocalists were excluded, since the union did not recognize them as musicians. This opportunity allowed vocalists to record freely, gaining widespread popularity in the commercial market.

Through the late 1940s, '50s, and '60s, a variety of male jazz vocalists ascended to great commercial success. The vibrant and strong baritone voices of Nat King Cole, Billy Eckstine, Arthur Prysock, Joe Williams, and Johnny Hartman epitomized popular music, especially romantic ballads and love songs.

By the 1950s, blues and R&B music began influencing the jazz vocal style. Crossover artists Dinah Washington and Etta James became influential to younger singers including Nancy Wilson and Abbey Lincoln. The vocal styles of Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald continued to influence singers into the 1990s. From the 1940s on, vocalists including Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, Shirley Horn, Betty Carter, and Teri Thornton, developed their individual vocal styles and influenced future generations of singers.

Dedicated to our favourites: JOE WILLIAMS, ELLA FITZGERALD, PEARL BAILEY,AND SARAH VAUGHAN who helped to make music history on the Verve Label.
(c) The Dynamic Duo in Derbyshire 2003


Sarah Vaughan: A Great Singing Talent:


Ella Fitzgerald called her the world's "greatest singing talent." During the course of a career that spanned nearly fifty years, she was the singer's singer, influencing everyone from Mel Torme to Anita Baker. She was among the musical elite identified by their first names. She was Sarah, Sassy -- the incomparable Sarah Vaughan.


Born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1924, Vaughan was immediately surrounded by music: her carpenter father was an amateur guitarist and her laundress mother was a church vocalist. Young Sarah studied piano from the age of seven, and before entering her teens had become organist and choir soloist at the Mount Zion Baptist Church. When she was eighteen, friends dared her to enter the famed Wednesday Night Amateur Contest at Harlem's Apollo Theater. She won first prize with a sizzling rendition of "Body and Soul." In the audience that night was the singer Billy Eckstine. Six months later, she had joined Eckstine in Earl Hines's big band along with jazz legends Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker.


When Eckstine formed his own band soon after, Vaughan went with him. Others including Miles Davis and Art Blakey, were eventually to join the band as well. Within a year, however, Vaughan wanted to give a solo career a try. By late 1947, she had topped the charts with "Tenderly," and as the 1940s gave way to the 1950s, Vaughan expanded her jazz repertoire to include pop music. As a result, she enlarged her audience, gained increased attention for her formidable talent, and compiled additional hits, including the Broadway show tunes "Whatever Lola Wants" and "Mr. Wonderful." While jazz purists balked at these efforts, no one could deny that in any genre, Vaughan had one of the greatest voices in the business.


In the late 1960s, Vaughan returned to jazz music, performing and making regular recordings. Throughout the 1970s and '80s she recorded with such jazz notables as Oscar Peterson, Louie Bellson, Zoot Sims, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Don Cherry, and J.J. Johnson. Her recordings of the "Duke Ellington Song Book (1 and 2)" are considered some of the finest recordings of the time. While for many years her signature song had been "Misty," by the mid-70's, she was closing every show with Sondheim's "Bring In The Clowns." In 1982, while in her late fifties, Vaughan won the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocalist for her album, "Gershwin Live"!


While she continued to work without the massive commercial success enjoyed by colleagues such as Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, and Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan consistently retained a special place in the hearts of fellow musicians and audiences alike. She continually performed at top venues, playing to adoring sell-out crowds well into her sixties. Remarkably, unlike many singers, she lost none of her extraordinary talent as time went on. Her multi-octave range, with its swooping highs and sensual lows, and the youthful suppleness of her voice shaded by a luscious timbre and executed with fierce control, all remained intact. In 1990, at the age sixty-six, Sarah Vaughan passed away. Shortly after her death, Mel Torme summed up the feelings of all who had seen her, saying "She had the single best vocal instrument of any singer working in the popular field."
(c) The Dynamic Duo in Derbyshire 2003

Ella Fitzgerald: The First Lady of Song:

Her first dream was to be a dancer. Growing up in New York, she was inspired by "Snake Hips" Tucker, studying his serpentine moves and practicing them constantly with friends. Then, one fateful night at the Apollo Theater in 1934, the headlining Edwards Sisters brought down the house with their dancing. Amateur Hour began immediately after, and a 16-year-old Ella Fitzgerald stepped on stage, but was too intimidated to dance. Instead, she sang "Judy," silenced the awestruck crowd, and won first prize. It was the beginning of one of the most celebrated careers in music history.

Born in Newport News, Virginia in 1917, Ella Fitzgerald moved with her mother to New York after the death of her father. Living in Yonkers, Fitzgerald attended public school, where she sang in the glee club and received her musical education.

After her early success at the Apollo, and as a popular performer at a number of other amateur venues, Fitzgerald was invited to join Chick Webb's band. Within a short while she was the star attraction, and had made a number hits including her trademark "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" (1938). After Webb's death in 1939, Fitzgerald led the band for three years.


During her time with Webb's band, Fitzgerald recorded with a number of other musicians, including Benny Goodman. By the time she began her solo career in the mid-1940s, she was a well-respected figure throughout the music industry. Her vibrant and energetic voice showed an exceptional range and control. Performing with "Jazz at the Philharmonic," her popularity grew beyond the music world. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, she continued to perform as a jazz musician, but concentrated primarily on popular music. Rivaled only by Frank Sinatra, her recordings of work by Cole Porter, Ira and George Gershwin, and Rogers and Hart were incredibly successful.


One of the early "scat" performers, Fitzgerald found a place among the growing jazz innovators, making recordings with such greats as Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong. Her true genius, however, was not formal innovation or deeper expression, but artistic renderings of the enthusiastic songs of her time. "I'm very shy, and I shy away from people," Ella once said. "But the moment I hit the stage, it's a different feeling. I get nerve from somewhere; maybe it's because it's something I love to do." More than anything, it is this love of performing that won her the hearts of millions throughout the world.


By the 1970s, she was performing with a trio headed by pianist Tommy Flanagan, and regularly with dozens of different symphony orchestras. Though her voice was not what it had been, Fitzgerald's enthusiasm and charisma continued to excite crowds well into the 1980s. After a successful appearance in the United Kingdom in 1990, she retired due to ailing health. Two years later President Ronald Reagan awarded her the National Medal of Honor. Suffering continued health problems, Fitzgerald spent the last few years of her life in her Beverly Hills home. On June 15, 1996 she died at the age of seventy-eight.


Of Fitzgerald, Johnny Mathis said, "She was the best there ever was. Amongst all of us who sing, she was the best." From those early days on Harlem streets to the upper stratosphere of musical fame, Ella Fitzgerald's life was the quintessential American success story. Through fifty-eight years of performing, thirteen Grammys and more than forty million records sold, she elevated swing, bebop, and ballads to their highest potential. She was, undeniably, the First Lady of Song.

Pearl Bailey: A Consummate Entertainment:

Pearl Bailey signs her autograph, "All Love, Pearl". - -and she means it. This rare treasure has a heart as big as the world. If there is a benefit for children, Pearl is supporting it. If one cares about other's liberty and rights, Pearl is there, standing tall and advocating that the ethical and fair thing be done. If AIDS is the issue, Pearl rolls up her sleeves and wades right in to see that the humane thing be done. In other words, Pearl loves people... all kinds of people, any age, any race, any nationality, any philosophy. To her, people are people.


Many know Pearl Bailey as a consummate entertainer, and that is true. Since she was a young girl, she has been singing, performing, entertaining, innovating, and captivating her audience throughout the world. She has performed in all mediums, from night clubs to the stage on Broadway to movies to television. She has appeared in such hits as "Variety Girl", "Isn't It Romantic", "Carmen Jones", "That Certain Feeling", "St. Louis Blues", and "Porgy and Bess". She has received the theater's highest honor, the Tony Award.


And as magnificent as she is as an entertainer, Pearl Bailey's personal commitment to helping others is greater. She is the United States Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations (and she takes her job very seriously). Recently, she spoke to the World Health Organization about the importance of world cooperation and concern about AIDS victims. She is working with Barbara Bush on her nationwide literacy campaign.

She speaks to young people throughout the nation about commitment and contribution. She works for child abuse prevention and family cohesiveness. The Living Legacy Award acknowledges and honors human contribution. Pearl Bailey genuinely deserves this recognition, for she cares about people with all her heart-and she does something positive about her concerns.
(c) The Dynamic Duo in Derbyshire 2003
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THE DYNAMIC DUO IN DERBYSHIRE (U.K.) |GREAT NAMES OF THE PAST: |MEMORIES AND MELODIES: |OUR VERY OWN LINKS PAGE: |FILMS WE ENJOYED: |MORE MELODIES AND MEMORIES |CELEBRITIES |SINGERS AND SONG: |REAL MUSIC - THE 1950s: |Guestbook |Mail Form