Terry Hall (ventriloquist)
Terence "Terry" Hall (20 November 1926 – 3 April 2007) was an English
Biography
Hall was born in Chadderton, Lancashire, where his parents ran a working men's club.[1] He was educated at St Patrick's School in Oldham and at De La Salle College in Pendleton, Salford. Hall initially worked as a ventriloquist with a boy dummy, named Mickey Finn, and won a talent show aged 15.
Hall created Lenny the Lion in 1954 after he visited the zoo while working at the
Hall and Lenny first appeared on BBC Television in 1956, in a variety show entitled Dress Rehearsal that also signalled Eric Sykes's television debut. The Lenny the Lion Show ran on from 1957 to 1960, followed by Lenny's Den in 1959 to 1961, and the pop music show Pops and Lenny in 1962 to 1963. In 1958 Bill Mevin created a comic strip based on Lenny the Lion.[2] Hall visited the United States in 1958, making his debut on The Ed Sullivan Show with Lenny that year. Throughout the 1960s, Hall and Lenny appeared on stage in Blackpool and on television. The Beatles made one of their early TV appearances in a 1963 episode of Pops and Lenny, singing "From Me to You" and "Please, Please Me". David Bowie's father, Hayward Jones, worked on the show, and launched the Lenny the Lion Fan Club. Lenny advertised Trebor mints for three years. Hall released a single, "Lenny's Bath Time", in 1963.
In spite of the fact that Hall was a staunch Oldham Athletic fan, during the 1957–58 English football season, Hall took Lenny to the Den (old) which was then the home of Millwall F.C. and allowed Lenny to pose with his "fellow Lions" for publicity shots, much to the delight of all present in the ground.[3]
Hall and Lenny continued to work in variety through the 1970s, appearing on television in programmes such as
Hall married twice. He had two daughters, Beverley and Melanie from his first marriage to Kathleen Mary Hall,who died. He married a second time in 1980, to dance teacher Denise Francis. He suffered from
References
- ^ a b c Obituary, The Guardian, 30 May 2007]
- ^ "Bill Mevin - Lambiek Comiclopedia".
- ISBN 0-7524-2187-5
- ^ gbgameshows (31 October 2012). "3-2-1 - 'Hollywood' (1978)" – via YouTube.
- ^ "Reading with Lenny - BroadcastForSchools.co.uk". www.broadcastforschools.co.uk.
External links
- Terry Hall at IMDb
- Lenny the Lion at IMDb
- Lenny the Lion at TelevisionHeaven.com
- Children's entertainer Hall dies, BBC News, 11 April 2007
- Obituary, The Independent, 12 April 2007
- Obituary[dead link], The Daily Telegraph, 12 April 2007
- Obituary, The Times, 14 April 2007