Web Page No 2486

23rd June 2018

1^st Picture: Terry and Lennie

2^nd Picture: Terry and Lennie

3^rd Picture: Terry’s wife and sister

4^th Picture: Blue Plaque at his childhood home

Terry Hall and Lennie the Lion

Terence "Terry" Hall (20 November 1926 – 3 April 2007) appeared regularly on television with his puppet, Lenny the Lion Terry Hall is credited with having been one of the first ventriloquists to use a non-human puppet.

Terry Hall was born in Chadderton, Lancashire, on 20^th November 1926, but Lennie was not created until 1954.

Lenny the Lion, was a puppet that he made himself from papier-mache, draped in an old fox fur and with a golf-ball for a nose. Lenny was actually created after a visit to a zoo during the Blackpool summer season of 1954 inspired the ventriloquist.

Two years later, Lennie and Terry Hall appeared on BBC television alongside Eric Sykes in a one-off variety show called Dress Rehearsal. The following year saw the introduction of The Lenny the Lion Show which became a TV fixture, at a time when large swathes of the British public were still tuning in to ventriloquists on the radio - notably Peter Brough and Archie Andrews in Educating Archie.

Plenty of other ventriloquists were to follow the animal example - Keith Harris made his name with a duck called Orville, Roger de Courcey with Nookie Bear and Rod Hull with his belligerent Emu. Lenny the Lion, by contrast, was a peaceable soul. He never roared or growled aggressively. Terry Hall had tried a tooth-baring routine earlier in his career but found that it frightened some children in the audience. At that time, he was sharing a Blackpool bill with the singer Anne Shelton, who suggested maybe a softer approach.

Lenny became an unlikely lion insofar as his stage persona was very shy, gentle and lisping with a high-pitched voice and a slight speech impediment. His catch-phrase, "Aw! Don't embawass me," delivered with a paw covering his face, endeared him to audiences, young and old, on both sides of the Atlantic. In fact in1958, they even appeared in the United States on the Ed Sullivan Show.

It must have seemed a long way from Oldham, where Terry attended St Patrick's school and De La Salle College, Salford. His parents ran a working men's club in Oldham and, at the age of just 15, he won a talent contest with Bert Williams his first dummy which he had acquired for £2.10s. He went on to join the touring Carroll Levis Discoveries stage show, and a variety career beckoned. He could entrance audiences by drinking a pint of water and smoking a cigarette while projecting his voice on to his companion.

Terry and Lennie’s television career blossomed in the early 1960s, the Beatles even appeared on the programme Pops and Lenny in May 1963, singing their number one hit, From Me to You, and its predecessor, Please Please Me, before joining Lennie and Terry Hall in a rendition of After You've Gone. One strange fact to come out of this show was that David Bowie's father, Hayward Jones, was working on the programme at the time and he launched the Lenny the Lion Fan Club because his son was an avid fan.

Although they would never have their own show again, Terry Hall and Lenny remained a pull at local theatres and especially at the seaside and they guested on TV variety shows like Big Night Out, David Nixon's Comedy Bandbox, The Blackpool Show and the iconic children's show Crackerjack. In the 1970s, variety was in sharp decline but, against the trend, they made of a comeback on the ITV children's educational series called Reading with Lenny. The programme came with an accompanying series of storybooks, written by Terry Hall and featuring a character called Kevin the Kitten. There were twenty-eight, ten minute, episodes and this series ran from 1977 to 1980 and was often repeated right up until 1982.

In 1980 Terry married his second wife, Denise "Dee" Francis, a dance teacher, and settled in her home town of Coventry.

He remained a popular figure locally all his life until Alzheimer's disease blighted his final years. He is survived by his wife, and two daughters from his first marriage. He is remembered in Coventry as a true gentleman.

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Peter

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News and Views:

On this day 23rd June 1960-1965.

On 23/06/1960 the number one single was Three Steps to Heaven - Eddie Cochran and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. 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 Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 23/06/1961 the number one single was Surrender - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Harpers West One (ATV) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 23/06/1962 the number one single was Good Luck Charm - Elvis Presley and the number one album was West Side Story Soundtrack. 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 Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 23/06/1963 the number one single was I Like It - Gerry & the Pacemakers 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 Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Kennedy declares Ich bin ein Berliner

On 23/06/1964 the number one single was It's Over - Roy Orbison and the number one album was Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones. 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 Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 23/06/1965 the number one single was I'm Alive - Hollies and the number one album was The Sound of Music Soundtrack. 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 Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.