Max Bygraves

Singer/songwriter Max Bygraves was enormously popular in postwar England, releasing a steady stream of popular "singalong" records while being widely seen and heard on television, radio, and in the movies. His most famous catch phrase was "I wanna tell you a story!"; his own story is a real-life tale of rags to riches. Walter William Bygraves was one of six children of Battling Tom Smith, a flyweight professional boxer and occasional dockworker, in London's rough East End. Bygraves showed his talent early, singing and doing impersonations for customers along his paper route and at parties, and was tapped for a solo performance at Westminster Abbey under the sponsorship of his music teacher. He joined the RAF at the start of the second World War, and on his first night in the barracks entertained his fellow troops with an impersonation of "The Cheeky Chappie," a 1930s music hall comedian named Max Miller. His fellow soldiers started calling him "Max," and the name stuck. Bygraves married a WAAF sergeant in 1942, and continued to entertain his fellow soldiers, being asked to perform in larger and larger concerts. After the war, Max tried to find work as a carpenter, and was considering emigrating to Australia, when the BBC approached him about doing an ex-servicemen's show. In addition to Bygraves, They're Out featured such up-and-comers as Benny Hill, Harry Secombe, and Spike Milligan; the show's bandleader, Jack Payne, was impressed enough by him to invite him to join his orchestra. By 1951 Max had played the Palladium, been featured on some radio and television spots, and become friends with rising comic Eric Sykes. Sykes began writing for Bygraves, first in a radio script called Educating Archie, which was to be his breakthrough: Sykes played a ventriloquist dummy,...