Eric Sykes was an English radio, stage, television and film writer, comedian, actor, and director whose performing career spanned more than 50 years. He frequently wrote for and performed with many other leading comedy performers and writers of the period, including Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Tommy Cooper, Peter Sellers, John Antrobus, and Johnny Speight. Sykes first came to prominence through his many radio credits as a writer and actor in the 1950s, most notably through his collaboration on The Goon Show scripts. He became a TV star in his own right in the early 1960s when he appeared with Hattie Jacques in several popular BBC comedy television series.
Ventriloquism, or ventriloquy, is a performance act of stagecraft in which a person creates the illusion that their voice is coming from elsewhere, usually a puppeteered prop known as a "dummy". The act of ventriloquism is ventriloquizing, and the ability to do so is commonly called in English the ability to "throw" one's voice.
Edgar John Bergen was an American ventriloquist, actor, comedian, vaudevillian and radio performer, best known for his proficiency in ventriloquism and his characters Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd. He was the father of actress Candice Bergen.
Walter William Bygraves, best known by the stage name Max Bygraves, was an English comedian, singer, actor and variety performer. He appeared on his own television shows, sometimes performing comedy sketches between songs. He made twenty Royal Variety Performance appearances and presented numerous programmes, including Family Fortunes between 1983 and 1985. His catchphrase "I wanna tell you a story" became an integral part of his act, although it had originated with comedian Mike Yarwood impersonating Bygraves.
Harry Bourlon Illingsworth, professionally known as Harry Worth, was an English comedy actor, comedian and ventriloquist. Worth portrayed a charming, gentle and genial character, totally bemused by life, creating comedic confusion wherever he went.
Ray Alan was an English ventriloquist and television entertainer from the 1950s until the 1980s. He was associated primarily with the dummies Lord Charles and Ali Kat and later with the puppets Tich and Quackers. Lord Charles was the first ventriloquist's dummy to have his own personal microphone.
Peter Brough was an English radio ventriloquist who became a well-known name to audiences in the 1950s. He is associated with his puppet Archie Andrews.
Albert Arthur Powell MBE, known as Sandy Powell, was an English comedian best known for his radio work of the 1930s and for his catchphrase "Can you hear me, mother?". He first said this in a theatre in Coventry. Fifty years later, deciding he needed a rest from the business, he again said it in a Coventry theatre, for the last time.
Archie Andrews is an American comics character created in 1941.
Educating Archie was a BBC Light Programme comedy show which was broadcast for nearly ten years between June 1950 and February 1960, mostly at lunchtime on Sundays. The programme featured ventriloquist Peter Brough and his doll Archie Andrews. The show was very popular, despite its unlikely central premise of a ventriloquist act on radio. Educating Archie averaged 15 million listeners, and a fan club boasted 250,000 members. It was so successful that in 1950, after only four months on the air, it won the Daily Mail's Variety Award.
Leonard Insull (1883–1974) was Britain's leading ventriloquial figure maker of the twentieth century. He created many hundreds of items for Lewis Davenport Ltd.
Terry Wayne Fator is an American ventriloquist, impressionist, stand-up comedian, and singer. Born in Dallas, Texas, he developed an interest in ventriloquism from a young age, developing both this and a talent for singing. After initially performing with two bands, Fator eventually conducted solo performances, combining ventriloquism and singing with comedy. He gained national recognition for his talent when he won the second season of America's Got Talent, which helped to boost his career.
Archie is a masculine given name, a diminutive of Archibald. It may refer to:
Otto Sol Petersen was an American ventriloquist, comedian, and actor known for his act Otto and George, which he performed with his dummy George Dudley. Petersen began performing with George as a street act in Manhattan and Brooklyn in the early 1970s. In the late 1970s the act moved into night clubs and began to evolve into an "X-rated" act.
"Cowpuncher's Cantata" is a song that was released by Max Bygraves in 1952. It peaked at number 6 on the UK Singles Chart and spent a total of eight weeks in the top 12.
James Edward Nelson was an American ventriloquist who appeared on television in the 1950s and 1960s. He is most famous for commercials for Nestlé chocolate featuring Farfel the Dog. He also hosted a children's show sponsored by Nestlé.
Associated London Scripts (ALS) was a writers' agency organised as a co-operative which involved many leading comedy and television writers of the 1950s and 1960s.
Valentine Vox is a British born American ventriloquist and author known for his scholarly book on the history of ventriloquism, I Can See Your Lips Moving: the history and art of ventriloquism, which traces the practice back some three thousand years.
Walter John Ridley was a British record producer and songwriter. Primarily associated with traditional pop music especially in the 1950s, he produced hit records by Alma Cogan, Max Bygraves, Ronnie Hilton and many others, and later provided UK number one hits for Benny Hill and the pairing of Windsor Davies and Don Estelle.
This is a list of events from British radio in 1950.
