From The Guardian (UK)

Frankie Vaughan

Singer whose show business career began in the synagogue

By Michael Freedland
Saturday September 18, 1999

He threw out a leg, chuckled in the middle of a song, made love to Marilyn Monroe on screen and, at one time, was Britain's most successful popular entertainer. Like few others in his walk of life, Frankie Vaughan, who has died aged 71, was loved for himself as well as for his talent. The fact that boys' clubs all over Britain once had plaques and photographs of him in their huts and halls told another part of his story. He gave them his money as well as his talent.

One of the reasons for Vaughan's huge success was that he was not at all like the crooners of his generation. He had style - he wore a tuxedo on stage, had a shiny top-hat and carried a cane. Entertainers had not done that for 20 years when he hit it big in the early 1950s. But then what else could he have worn for the number that became his theme song, Give Me The Moonlight? That song - and others like Green Door, Garden Of Eden and Kisses Sweeter Than Wine - were hits at a time that young men were still being shunted off to national service while their girls danced in full frilly skirts.

Later, in the 1960s, came Tower Of Strength and Loop De Loop. He also recorded the title numbers of shows such as Cabaret, Mame and, biggest of all, Hello Dolly.

His voice was also different from other pop singers. It wasn't just the chuckle, which, along with the kick, was always the right cue for the girls to scream. You couldn't miss the Liverpool twang - he put that city on the map long before the Beatles. But there was something else. Like his idol, Al Jolson, there was much of the music of the synagogue in Vaughan's voice. In fact, his earliest appearances were singing in the choir at services in Leeds, the city where he grew up.

He was born Frank Abelson in Liverpool - "to good parents", he would always say. They struggled constantly to provide a decent home for their son and two daughters. Both seemed to spend every waking hour working - his father as an upholsterer, his mother as a seamstress. As a result, young Frank spent a great deal of time with his grandmother. It was she who, indirectly, was responsible for his change of name.

When he first went into show business, his agent, the legendary Billy Marsh, declared that Frank Abelson wasn't going to see his name in lights. Frank remembered that his grandmother always called him - in her Russian Jewish accent - "my number vawn grandson". So he took her at his word and became Frankie Vaughan.

Before that, he had thought of becoming a boxer. He had taken up the sport at Lancaster Lads Club, the beginning of his life-long connection with the boys' club movement. He also studied at Lancaster College of Art, to which had won a scholarship at the age of 14. There, he sang in the dance band and took part in student rags. His studies were interrupted by national service in the Royal Army Medical Corps, although he spent most of his days boxing and was an army champion. On demob, he became a student teacher at Leeds College of Art.

Soon afterwards, Vaughan went to London on the proceeds of a prize to design a furniture exhibition stand. He came second in the radio version of Hughie Green's Opportunity Knocks talent show - working with a girl singer named Irene Griffen. They had no intention of working up a permanent act; it was just the only way that Frankie could get on the show. Then, he had his first big break: at the Hulme Hippodrome, where he topped the bill at the then huge sum of £100 a week.

In 1954, Vaughan made his first recording for the HMV label, My Sweetie Went Away. He sang with the Ken Mackintosh Band numbers like No Help Wanted and Look At That Girl. He really made it big with a tour of the then vast Moss Empire variety theatre circuit, during which he discovered an old piece of sheet music in a Glasgow shop. It was Give Me The Moonlight. His record of the song sold more than a million copies, establishing him with the young fans who bought the new 45rpm discs.

In 1960, Vaughan went to Hollywood to make the film Let's Make Love, with Marilyn Monroe. He had earlier appeared in Arthur Askey's comedy Ramsbottom Rides Again (1956) and a musical, The Lady Is A Square, with Anna Neagle. Monroe tried to entice him into an affair, but he maintained that he loved his wife, Stella, whom he had met at the Locarno ballroom, Leeds, after the war, and that they needed to live in London. Back home, he filled the Talk of the Town theatre restaurant for weeks, and became a sort of elder statesman among British performers. He returned to the venue for years afterwards. In 1965, he was awarded an OBE, and in 1997 a CBE.

In 1985, Vaughan had one of his most notable successes - starring in what turned out to be his swansong role, the lead in the musical 42nd Street at Drury Lane. He left the cast after a year at the start of what turned out to be a terminal series of illnesses. He was always sure of his epitaph. "I am lucky to have a talent, lucky to have met such a wonderful girl as my wife Stella, lucky to have such a wonderful family, and lucky to have a job I adore."

Frankie Vaughan is survived by Stella and their three children.

• Frankie Vaughan (Abelson), entertainer, born February 3, 1928; died September 17, 1999

Frankie Vaughan dies after series of heart operations

By John Ezard
Saturday September 18, 1999

The singer Frankie Vaughan, once one of the most highly touted hopes of the pre-Elvis and pre-Beatles pop world, died yesterday, aged 70.

His end, at his home near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, came four months after he collapsed and underwent six heart operations in an Oxford hospital.

A spokesman for his agent, Peter Charlesworth, said: "He came out of hospital about three weeks ago because he had improved slightly. But sadly he did not recover".

Vaughan built a 40-year career on a virile voice, a flourishing onstage boater and cane, and Italianate good looks. He was, however, buried a few hours after he died, in accordance with his Jewish faith.

He was born in Liverpool and took his stage name from the promptings of his Russian grandmother.

She used to call him, as a first grandchild, "my number vorn".

In the 1950s, he, Dickie Valentine and David Whitfield were viewed as the three British singers most likely to break into an international market then largely dominated by similar, second-rank American crooners.

Vaughan's hits included Kisses Sweeter than Wine and Green Door. In 1957 he topped the British hit parade with Garden of Eden. In 1961 he pushed Elvis Presley's song Little Sister out of the number one slot with Tower of Strength and stayed there for four weeks. Then he was eclipsed in the charts by a new generation. But he remained one of British television variety's most durably popular stars. His trademark song on stage and in an international night club career, was Give Me The Moonlight.

After successfully performing at Las Vegas, he acted in the film Let's Make Love, with Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand. But he disliked Hollywood and dropped out of films.

His last big role was in 1985 in the West End musical 42nd Street, but he found it taxing. He almost died of peritonitis after failing to seek medical help because he wanted to continue with the show.

Last night the DJ Terry Wogan praised Vaughan's generous work in charity golf. "He never lost his simplicity or his humility and that was the most engaging thing about him."

In 1993 the Queen appointed him deputy lord lieutenant of Buckinghamshire in recognition equally of his charity work and showmanship.

TV presenter and artist Rolf Harris, who had known Vaughan since the 1950s, said: "He worked very hard to polish his work to become one of the outstanding performers of our time. He will be missed."