Web Page  No 2306

8^th  October 2016

Top Picture: Gabby Hayes

Second Picture: Hopalong Cassidy and Gabby Hayes

Third Picture: Gabby Hayes grave stone

George "Gabby" Hayes

One of the best known ‘also rans’ in the us westerns was George Francis "Gabby" Hayes (May 7, 1885 – February 9, 1969) was an American radio, film, and television actor. He was best known for his numerous appearances in Western films as the colorful sidekick to the leading man.

He was born in May 1885  the third of seven children in his father's hotel in Stannards, New York, a hamlet just outside Wellsville, New York. He was the son of Elizabeth Morrison and Clark Hayes, and the nephew of George F. Morrison, vice president of General Electric. He did not come from a cowboy background; in fact, he did not know how to ride a horse until he was in his forties and had to learn for film roles.

His father, Clark Hayes, operated the Hayes Hotel in Stannards and was also involved in oil production. George Hayes grew up and played semi-professional baseball while in high school, then ran away from home in 1902, at the age of 17. He joined a stock company, apparently traveled for a time with a circus.

He married Olive E. Ireland, daughter of a New Jersey glass finisher, on March 4, 1914. She joined him in vaudeville, performing under the name Dorothy Earle  and he had become so successful in vaudeville that by 1928 he was able, at age 43, to retire to a home on Long Island in Baldwin, New York. He lost all his savings the next year in the 1929 stock-market crash. His wife convinced him to try his luck in films, and the couple moved to Los Angeles. They remained together until her death on July 5, 1957. The couple had no children.

On his move to Los Angeles, he  had a chance meeting with producer Trem Carr, who liked his look and gave him 30 roles over the next six years. In his early career, he was cast in a variety of roles, including villains, and occasionally played two roles in a single film. He found a niche in the growing genre of Western films, many of which were series with recurring characters. Ironically, he would admit he had never been a big fan of Westerns. In real lifehe was  an intelligent, well groomed and articulate man, but was cast as a grizzled codger who uttered phrases such as "consarn it", "yer durn tootin'", "dadgummit", "durn persnickety female", and "young whippersnapper."

From 1935 to 1939, he played the part of Windy Halliday, the sidekick to Hopalong Cassidy (played by William Boyd). In 1939 he left Paramount Pictures in a dispute over his salary and moved to Republic Pictures. Paramount held the rights to the name Windy Halliday, so a new nickname was created for his character, Gabby. As Gabby Whitaker, he appeared in more than 40 films between 1939 and 1946, usually with Roy Rogers (44), but also with Gene Autry (7) and Wild Bill Elliott (14), often working under the directorship of Joseph Kane (34).

He was also repeatedly cast as a sidekick to western icons Randolph Scott (six times) and John Wayne (15 times, some as straight or villainous characters). He  played Wayne's sidekick in Raoul Walsh's Dark Command (1940), which featured Roy Rogers in a supporting role. He became a popular performer and consistently appeared among the 10 favorite actors in polls taken of moviegoers of the period.

The Western film genre declined in the late 1940s, and he made his last film appearance in The Cariboo Trail (1950). He moved to television and hosted The Gabby Hayes Show, a western series, from 1950 to 1954 on NBC, and a new version in 1956 on ABC. He introduced the show, often while whittling on a piece of wood, and would sometimes throw in a tall tale. Halfway through the show, he would say something else, and at the end of the show, also, but he did not appear in the stories themselves. When the series ended, he retired from show business.

Following his wife's death on July 5, 1957, he lived in and managed a 10-unit apartment building he owned in North Hollywood, California. In early 1969, he entered Saint Joseph Hospital in Burbank, California, for treatment of cardiovascular disease. He died there on February 9, 1969, at the age of 83. George "Gabby" Hayes was interred in the Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.

For his contribution to radio, Gabby Hayes has a star on the and a second star for his contribution to the television industry. In 2000, he was posthumously inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

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Peter

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Mary Writes:-

I remember going to the Guildhall with the first boyfriend to see Chubby Checker. It was a wonderful show much enjoyed by all. We still talk about it now. We saw some pop stars of the day and it was all great fun. As for the twist, I loved it and did it whenever there was a pop tune playing. The best time of all was dancing at the hotel when in 1962 I went on a school holiday to Switzerland. I was given the same advice as Peter but we didn`t listen! Today I might have arthritis but the back is fine! I`ve been known to get up and dance quite recently,

On this day 8th October 1960-1965

On 08/10/1960 the number one single was Tell Laura I Love Her - Ricky Valance and the number one album was Tottenham Hotspur. The top rated TV show was Bootsie & Snudge (Granada) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68.The big news story of the day was No Hiding Place (AR).

On 08/10/1961 the number one single was Kon-Tiki - The Shadows and the number one album was The Shadows - Shadows. The top rated TV show was Sunday Night at the London Palladium (ATV) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 08/10/1962 the number one single was Telstar - The Tornadoes and the number one album was Best of Ball Barber & Bilk. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 08/10/1963 the number one single was Do You Love Me? - Brian Poole & the Tremoloes and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 08/10/1964 the number one single was Oh Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was XVIIIth Olympics in Tokyo.

On 08/10/1965 the number one single was Tears - Ken Dodd and the number one album was Help - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Web Page  No 2304

1^st October 2016

Top Picture: Chubby Checker LP cover

Second Picture: Chubby and Catherina’s wedding day

Third Picture: Chubby Checker today

The Twist

Not many people realise that the Twist goes back before the 1960s, in fact it was written by Hank Ballard, who originally recorded it in 1959 with his group The Midnighters. Hank Ballard, who died in 2003, was an influential R&B musician who blended rock, country and gospel in the '50s and '60s. He claimed that he got the idea for the song from watching The Midnighters on stage. To Hank the group often moved onstage like they were "trying to put a cigarette out." In a sense, they were twisting. Thus, the title of the song.

Hank Ballard & The Midnighters tried to get a Twist craze going with their original version of the song, doing the dance at their shows as they toured America (their dance was a little different, with band members lifting a leg to twist). It caught on in Philadelphia and in Baltimore, but was far from a national craze until Chubby Checker covered the song.

Hank Ballard's original version was the B-side to "Teardrops On Your Letter," a song that was covered by many Country musicians. "The Twist" went over very well live and Ballard thought it was a hit, but his record company (King Records) thought "Teardrops On My Letter" would do better (it made no.87). In Baltimore a DJ named Buddy Deane had a TV dance party show (The Buddy Deane Show) and played the song. The audience reaction was excellent and Buddy recommended the song to Dick Clark, who had his own show in Philadelphia, American Bandstand. Dick Clark loved the song but was wary of Hank Ballard, who was known for raunchy songs like "Sexy Ways". So Dick Clark, who was a media mogul with interests in record labels and artists, went looking for his own artist for the song. He held auditions, and found a young man named Earnest Evans, a chicken plucker who liked to sing on the job. He was a great impersonator and kept everyone at the chicken plant laughing as he'd do his impersonations of the popular stars of that time like Fats Domino, Elvis, The Coasters and the Chipmunks.

Because of strict payola laws, he was technically prohibited from having financial dealings with record companies, but he had a good relationship with the Cameo-Parkway label, which took care of recording and releasing the new version.

Studio musicians at Cameo-Parkway played on the record, and Earnest Evans sang the vocals, in fact this recording almost duplicated the Hank Ballard version. Dick Clark was ready to release the record but wanted Ernest Evans to think up a stage name. It was Dick Clark's wife who suggested that he use a take off on Fats Domino: Fats=Chubby Domino=Checker; so Ernest Evans became Chubby Checker, and after performing the song on American Bandstand, it was his version that raced up the charts. The cover was so convincing that when Hank Ballard first heard the song on the radio he thought it was him but since he was the songwriter, he earned massive royalties when Chubby Checker's version became a huge hit.

This started a dance craze that got so popular because it was so easy to do. Even the severely rhythm-challenged could do The Twist  It helped bridge a generation gap, since both kids and adults could do it, it was also a dance where the participants didn't touch each other, which became a new trend, especially with Disco dancing.

The Chubby Checker hit the No 1 spot in America in September 1960 and re-released in the winter of 1961, It is the only song to hit US #1 twice with identical versions.

There were a few more Twists in 1963, and in 1964 The Beatles returned "Twist And Shout" to the charts (#2), but that was all the twisting of the '60s.

The Twist craze didn't catch on in England until 1962, after this was released for the second time. That's when it charted in the UK. The Twist was a worldwide phenomenon. Checker recorded versions in Italian, German and French.

For my sins I actually remember entering a Twist Competition at a College Dance in 1963 and actually winning. My parents told me that if I carried on dancing like this it would affect my back and hips in later life. Here we are fifty years later and I think that they might well have been right!

Looking back everyone associates Chubby Checker with the Twist but looking through his discology he only ever released seven ‘Twist’ records. But as they say, The Dance goes on!!!

On 12th December 1963 he, by then a millionaire at 22 years old, proposed marriage to Catharina Lodders, a 21-year-old Dutch model and Miss World 1962 from Haarlem, the Netherlands. He had met Miss Lodders in Manila the prior January. They were married on 12 April 1964 at Temple Lutheran Church in Pennsauken, New Jersey. Their first child, Bianca Johanna Evans, was born in a Philadelphia hospital on 8 December 1966.

As a point of interest he is the father of WNBA player Mistie Bass.^[

He continued in the music industry and  had a single at No1 on Billboard's dance chart in July 2008 with "Knock Down the Walls". The single also made the top 30 on the Adult Contemporary chart.  In 2009, he recorded a public service announcement for the Social Security Administration to help launch a new campaign to promote changes in Medicare law. He encourages Americans on Medicare to apply for Extra Help, "A new 'twist' in the law makes it easier than ever to save on your prescription drug plan costs’ he says.

On February 25, 2013, he released a new single, the ballad "Changes," via iTunes; it was posted on YouTube and amassed over 100,000 views.

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On this day 1^st October 1960-1965

On 01/10/1960 the number one single was Tell Laura I Love Her - Ricky Valance and the number one album was Down Drury Lane to Memory Lane - A Hundred and One Strings. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 01/10/1961 the number one single was Johnny Remember Me - John Leyton. The top rated TV show was "Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth 13.25 Ipswich Town  were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was Sunday Night at the London Palladium (ATV)".

On 01/10/1962 the number one single was She's Not You - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Best of Ball Barber & Bilk. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 01/10/1963 the number one single was She Loves You - The Beatles and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was US predicts Vietnam victory by 1965.

On 01/10/1964 the number one single was I'm Into Something Good - Herman's Hermits and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Web Page  No 2302

19th September 2016

Top Picture: Lt Cdr Peter Twiss

Second Picture: First Day Cover

Third Picture: Peter Twiss in later life.

Peter Twiss

Lionel Peter Twiss OBE, DSC & Bar was a British test pilot who holds the World Air Speed Record as the first man to fly faster than 1,000 mph .

He was born in Lindfield, Sussex and lived with his grandmother while his parents were in India and Burma. He was the grandson of an admiral and the son of an army officer. He went to school at Haywards Heath and later at Sherborne School. In 1938 he was employed as an apprentice tea-taster by Brooke Bond in London, before returning to the family farm near Salisbury.

Amazingly he was rejected as a pilot by the Fleet Air Arm, but was accepted as a Naval Airman Second Class at the outbreak of the Second World War. After training at 14 Elementary and Reserve Flying Training School, Castle Bromwich, he went on to fly Fairey Battles and Hawker Harts. He underwent operational training at RNAS Yeovilton flying Blackburn Rocs, Blackburn Skuas and Gloster Gladiators. His next posting was at the School of Army Co-operation at Andover, flying Bristol Blenheims as a twin conversion. He was then posted to 771 Squadron in the Orkney Islands, flying a variety of naval aircraft on various duties, including metobservations at 12000 ft in winter in the open cockpit of a Fairey Swordfish, and target-towing duties.

He was then posted to a Merchant Ship Fighter Unit on catapult ships flying Hawker Hurricanes. These missions required the pilot to ditch or bale out in the expectation of being recovered by a passing ship. During the Malta Convoys in 1942, he flew Fairey Fulmars with 807 Squadron, from the carrier HMS Argus. For his service, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) in June 1942. Later in the year the squadron converted to Supermarine Seafires flying from HMS Furious for the Operation Torch landings in North Africa. During the Allied landings in Algeria and Morocco he added a bar to his DSC, gazetted in March 1943. By this time he had shot down one Italian aircraft 14 May 1942 and damaged another.

He then flew long-range intruder operations over Germany from RNAS Ford, developing night fighter tactics with the RAF's Fighter Interception Unit. Ford, also acted as an operational research unit, and so he flew missions over occupied Europe in Beaufighters and Mosquitoes.

Later in 1944 he was sent to the British Air Commission Washington DC, where he had the opportunity to test various prototype aircraft and evaluated airborne radar equipment. He servedin the Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. By the end of the war he was a lieutenant commander. In 1945 he attended No. 3 Course at the Empire Test Pilots' School (ETPS), then based at RAF Cranfield and then to the Naval Squadron at the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down.

After leaving the service in 1946, he joined Fairey Aviation as a test pilot and flew many of the company's aircraft, including the Fairey Rotodyne compound-helicopter. In 1947 he entered the Lympne Air Races flying a Firefly IV, winning the high-speed race at 305.93 mph. He worked for two years on the Fairey Delta 2, a supersonic delta-winged research plane. On 17 November 1955 this aircraft suffered engine and consequently hydraulic power problems on a test flight, but he managed to crash land at Boscombe Down. He received the Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service for this feat. The aircraft was repaired and on 10 March 1956 he flew the aircraft and broke the World Speed Record, raising it to 1,132 mph an increase of some 300 mph over the record set the year before.

In 1960, Fairey Aviation was sold to Westland Aircraft, a helicopter manufacturer, which was not his area of expertise and he left after a career in which he had piloted more 140 different types of aircraft. That year he joined Fairey Marine  and was responsible for development and sales of day-cruisers. He appeared in the film From Russia with Love driving one of the company's speedboats. His work as a marine consultant led to directorships of Fairey Marine (1968–78) and Hamble Point Marina (1978–88).

In 1969, driving the Fairey Huntsman 707 Fordsport, he took part in the Round Britain Powerboat Race, including among his crew Rally champion Roger Clark. He also appeared in the film Sink the Bismarck in which he flew a Fairey Swordfish. He was also for several years a member of Lasham Gliding Society. His autobiography Faster Than the Sun was published in 1963, and revised in 2005.

His first three marriages ended in divorce, his fourth wife died in 1988. He was survived by his fifth wife. He had a son, three daughters and several stepchildren. He died in August 2011 at the age of 90.

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Peter

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On this day 26^th September 1960-1965

On 26/09/1960 the number one single was Apache - The Shadows and the number one album was Down Drury Lane to Memory Lane - A Hundred and One Strings.The top rated TV show was The Army Game (Granada) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 26/09/1961 the number one single was Reach for the Stars / Climb Ev'ry Mountain - Shirley Bassey and the number one album was The Shadows - Shadows. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 26/09/1962 the number one single was She's Not You - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Best of Ball Barber & Bilk. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Flood kills 333 in Barcelona.

On 26/09/1963 the number one single was She Loves You - The Beatles and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 26/09/1964 the number one single was I'm Into Something Good - Herman's Hermits and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 26/09/1965 the number one single was Make It Easy On Yourself - Walker Brothers and the number one album was Help - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.