Edmund Hockridge

Edmund Hockridge (born August 9 1919) is a Canadian singer and actor.

Hockridge grew up on a farm in the Canadian Rockies in the Vancouver area. His mother was a fine pianist and his father and three brothers - all older than him - loved to sing. At 17, a Vancouver music club organised an audition with New York Metropolitan Opera star, John Charles Thomas, who encouraged him to look to music as a career. Going overseas during the Second World War with the Royal Canadian Air Force led to Hockridge being "loaned" to the BBC, in a unit supplying news and entertainment to the troops in Europe, working with the Glenn Miller Band and the Canadian Band of the Allied Expeditionary Force led by Robert Farnon. Hockridge learned much of his craft as an entertainer at the radio (mike), singing and producing 400 shows for the BBC Forces Network and, as the war ended, he was snapped up for appearances with the big names in British popular music, Gerald Bright (better known as Geraldo) and George Melachrino among them.

After the war, he had his own coast-to-coast radio show from Toronto with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, in whose Gilbert and Sullivan productions he played all thirteen patter-song roles. He was also developing a career in grand opera, taking leading roles in "Don Giovanni", "La Boheme" and "Peter Grimes". His big break, in 1950, came with the chance to play Billy Bigelow in Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Carousel" at the famous Theatre Royal in London's Drury Lane. This marked the beginning of 40 years in showbusiness in the United Kingdom. In 1951 he went back on British radio, while continuing to do his stage performances. After three years and nearly 1300 performances, he joined the American cast of "Guys and Dolls" when they brought the show to London, in the role of Sky Masterson.

Hockridge went on to make two more musical roles his own - Judge Forestier, in "Can-Can", and Sid Sorokin in "Pajama Game", an instant hit with the British public and the British Royal Family. His hit single, "Hey There", from what quickly became a hit show, ensured that his name was known to everyone in the land. Seven magical years of musicals was followed by public appearances, concerts, pantomimes, Royal Command Performances, London Palladium seasons, summer shows, Television dates in Britain, Canada and Europe and some extra special occasions - topping the bill on the maiden voyage of the QE2 to New York and representing Canada in the choir at the Coronation among them. Cabaret bookings took Hockridge to the famous Stanley Hotel in Nairobi, and the Mandarin Hotel in Hong Kong, and he recorded singles, EPs and eleven albums.

He continued to perform on stage regularly, latterly with his family, until his retirement.

Recordings

His first recording, "Serenade" (1950) on UK Decca Records, was followed by three releases on HMV, none of which sold very well. Then in 1953 he switched to Parlophone, making recordings of songs from "Guys and Dolls," "Carousel," and "Can-Can." In 1955 he went back to HMV, while still doing songs from the same musicals that saw him as an actor: in this case, "Hey There" from "The Pajama Game." Finally, in 1956, he switched to Pye Nixa, the label which brought him his first hits. His second Nixa recording was a cover of Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Sixteen Tons," with a cover of Dean Martin's "Young and Foolish" on the flip side. While Ford's version of "Sixteen Tons" outdid Hockridge's, his version of "Young and Foolish" was a top-10 hit on the New Musical Express chart. He followed this record with a revival of "No Other Love," which was a major hit on the NME charts. He had one final entry on the charts with "By the Fountains of Rome" in September 1957. After that, he continued to record for Pye Nixa, though not charting, until 1962.

External links

* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0387952/ IMDB entry]