Return to ' OLD MASTERS ' Menu     Home Pencil Portraits Pedro Postcards Amazon Store Contact

Archibald, Certainly Not! Bang Went The Chance Of A Lifetime It's The First Time I've Ever Done That I Haven't The Faintest Idea I Stopped, I Looked, I Listened A Thing He Had Never Done Before We Parted The Best Of Friends The Servants' Registry Office Bang Went The Chance of a Lifetime And Very Nice, Too! What might have been What Was There, Was Good The Music Hall Comic I Shouldn't Be Surprised     Bang Went the Chance... What Might Have Been What Was There, Was..... The First Time I've Ever... A Thing He Had Never... And Very Nice, Too I Haven't the Faintest Idea...     GEORGE ROBEY must be considered as one of the most successful stars of music hall and theatre. Unlike many of those before him, Robey did not come from a working class background. Born in 1869 of a good middle-class family, he had a good education in England and Germany, and was at Cambridge when his father, like many another good middle-class parent, went broke, and young George was thrown on his own devices. He disliked his training as an engineer, and when he was at the Westminster Aquarium one day was asked to assist 'Professor' Kennedy, a professional hypnotist. He entered into the act so well, it seems, that he was thereafter welcomed as an assistant -. unpaid, of course. A little later, presumably while he was hypnotised, he suddenly burst into song and so impressed the manager of the theatre that he promptly offered him a paid engagement. From this modest beginning he went on to become one of the greatest stars of all time, and receive a knighthood. Although he became known as 'The Prime Minister of Mirth', Robey was multi-talented, being just as successful as a pantomime dame, as Falstaff in Olivier's film of 'Henry V, as Menelaus in Offenbach's comic opera 'Helen', and as Sancho Panza in Chaliapine's 'Don Quixote'. But it was as a purveyor of suggestive naughtiness that made him such a legend and so in demand that he could appear at four theatres in one night, travelling from one to another in his own carriage. Indeed, George could do more with his eyebrows than most people could with their whole face, and make the most innocent lines sound like something wicked. He was also responsible, with the help of Violet Loraine, for the huge success of 'If You Were The Only Girl In The World', still such a great favourite. He died in 1954.