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Castaway
1 appearance
Entertainer and television host, best known for presenting Sunday Night at the London Palladium, The Generation Game, and Play Your Cards Right.
On the island
Eight records
It was something I'll never forget because from that day on he influenced me. I try now and again to play a little bit like him, but he has the most wonderful chords.
I adore him as a person. He's a man's man, but then the way women look at him, you know, he's the kind of guy you think, well. I'd sum it up, I think, like this, that if if my wife was to come to me one day and say, you know, I'm leaving you for Howard Keel, I'd understand.
Nat Kinkole probably was the most influence on me learning piano... and I had the great thrill of working with him at the palladium... he just sat at the piano with nobody else in the palladium at all and just sat and played just for me alone. It was the most moving thing and it was something I'll never forget.
Errol Garner worked the palladium, and I went out to introduce him... As we were wheeling the piano on, the leg snapped off. We had to then lift it up, get it to the middle, get the beer box and get some black velvet... So the zero gun away, the way you go, playing away there on a beer box.
Sammy Davis Jr., who to me was the greatest all-round entertainer I've ever seen.
George Shearing with the Robert Farnon Orchestra
I love the piano and I love all these guys. I wish I'd have met this man. I never have met George Shearing. It's one of the things that I still live in hope.
I'll Never Love This Way AgainFavourite
And when my wife and I, well, Nelia, were sort of, I was going over to New York to see her, and she was coming over here, working in Paris, and maybe to see her. And it was all very romantic, the phone calls, and the going here and coming there and all that sort of thing.
Frank Sinatra with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra
One of the greatest singers of all time for me personally is Frank Sinatra.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:24Did you really intend to be Fred Astaire when you first went on stage fifty-five years ago?
Oh yes, I was going to oh yes... I wanted to be just the song of dance man. Frederisthere influenced me. So dance was the most influential. Dance was the most influence. Just dancing and I used to dance on our lino at home.
Presenter asks
10:21At what point did you develop a kind of interchange with the audience?
Well, I always had a bit of an interchange with the audience. I mean, when I was doing these amateur shows before, I turned pro, and I'd often, you know, if the pianist couldn't play my music at the right tempo, I'd stop and walk over to her and explain to the audience and say, you know, it's a bit quicker, dear. You know, you'd have a joke at her expense. I'd break out and talk to the audience.
Presenter asks
14:48Were you terrified [when you first drove to the London Palladium]?
I drove round the block three times before I had the courage to go into the stage door.
The keepsakes
The book
Omar Khayyám
I'd love to learn those. Because I was thinking about this and I love all the court dramas by John Grisham... But Oma Khayyam, I'd love to learn.
The luxury
Because it's the one part of golf that always I'm not good out of bunkers unless I practice.
Presenter asks
20:24Do you think [game shows] have pandered too much to the materialistic approach now?
I agree with you, just pl playing for the fun of it is wonderful. And in the 70s, that's how it was. And I think in the 70s, it suited the 70s. But I think we're living in a much more materialistic world now. And I think people do expect to win more. And we expect to give them more as well.
Presenter asks
22:56How would you define the trick with [the contestants on the Generation Game]?
The trick is to to leave their dignity intact, have a joke at their expense, but you know, not be rude. Well, I've always been lucky to be able to semi-insult people and get away with it... they take it from me. And I think they realise in the end, especially with doing the interviews that I used to do, that it was just to relax them.
Presenter asks
28:03Is it a disappointment to you that you haven't succeeded in those other [light entertainment] things?
I would have, yes, I would have much preferred at this stage to have more shows that were light entertainment shows... But I didn't do a whole batch of series after series in the same way that Morcombe and Wise did and Benny Hill did and all those kind of things, because the game shows, you know, as Bill Cotton's everybody said, you're too good at game shows. That's your trouble.
“I couldn't be like that all the time. I'm not that... But he's always there whenever I'm in charge. He's in charge. And whenever just before I go on stage or when I'm going to do a television show, I'm standing on the side there, quite relaxed, probably got a glazed look about my eyes at the time. But then he always turns up and he pushes me on. And then I become this other Brucie.”
“I've built a whole career on fluffing lines. That's why people go, and I say to people, I don't talk like that. But everybody goes, they do, you see.”
“Oh, I'll always have a feeling that the the other side of of what I can do... I do feel that it's a shame that that was neglected and I I'll always have that regret.”
“I read somewhere the other day that age is a state of mind and I think it is right. I mean I honestly can say particularly when I sort of go on to an audience and I'm performing in front of an audience that I don't feel any different to how I did when I was 35, 40 years of age.”