Entertainers in British Films: A Century of Showbiz in the Cinema

by Denis Gifford

Representing the first attempt to compile a complete catalog of the entertainers who appeared on film in Great Britain from the invention of the cinema in the mid-1890s to the present, this innovative book covers more than 2,000 entertainers. Each entry gives the entertainer's specialty, a chronological listing of his/her films, and the titles of the songs sung, played, or danced to. Uniquely, the catalog lists appearances in shorts and especially series of shorts, such as Ace Cinemagazine, Eve's Film Review , and Pathe Pictorial , as well as other prewar series of cinemags. Newsreel performances are also included.

Attempting to compile the first complete catalog of the entertainers who appeared on film in Great Britain from the invention of cinema in the mid-1890s to the present, this innovative reference book covers more than 2,000 entertainers comedians, singers, musicians, impressionists, dancers and dance bands, contortionists, acrobats, pop groups and pop stars, and more. Listed here are the complete filmographies for bygone entertainers such as Max Miller, and Tommy Trinder; music-hall artists, including Marie Lloyd and Harry Champion; radio stars such as Richard Murdoch and Norman Long; crooners from Al Bowlly to Donald Peers; and a supporting cast of many more.

Each entry gives the entertainer's speciality, a chronological listing of his/her films, and the titles of the songs sung, played, or danced to. Uniquely, the catalog lists appearances in shorts, especially series of shorts, such as Ace Cinemagazine, Eve's Film Review , and Pathe Pictorial , as well as other prewar series of cinemags. Newsreel performances are also included. Based on more than 30 years research by the man dubbed custodian of the nation's nostalgia ( The Sunday Times , London), this is a unique and comprehensive guide for all researchers concerned with the history of British film.

340 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 1998

About the author

Denis Gifford was a British writer. He specialized in the history of popular entertainments such as comic books and horror films. In his lengthy career, he wrote and drew for British comics; wrote more than fifty books on various topics; devised, compiled and contributed to popular programmes for radio and television; and other, related work, including film.

In addition to being a regular at comics conventions, Gifford helped established the genre in Britain with Comics 101 in 1976, attended by dealers and comic artists. In 1978 he established the Association of Comics Enthusiasts (ACE), which ran for 14 years proper and, in reprint form in the British Comics Journal, until his death.

As a 14-year-old at Dulwich College, Gifford began drawing for Dandy, after sending a comic strip to its publisher D. C. Thomson of Dundee. His efforts caught the imagination of Bob Monkhouse, in the school year below, and they became friends and collaborators. They toured in the South East, giving charity performances with Monkhouse as the “straight man”.

After RAF service during WWII, Gifford drew cartoons for the London Evening News, Empire State News and Sunday Dispatch. He was a writer as well, not only completing the first TV series by Morecambe and Wise (for which the initial scripts had been criticised), but also providing material for the opening night of ITV and the first comedy show to be screened by BBC2, in 1955 and 1964 respectively. He wrote for Junior Showtime and contributed to The Generation Game by designing stunts.

Gifford also compiled a comprehensive list of British-made films, along with primary cast: The British Film Catalogue. It was a labor of many years, as Gifford tracked down retired industry professionals and pored through back issues of trade publications.

His collection of more than 20,000 comics and other paper ephemera (including books, popular magazines and sheet music) dominated his lifestyle and his habitat, once described in one of the colour supplements as the den of “a boy who had run away from home” and never returned. His walls were lined with bookshelves, with other bookshelves installed at right-angles to these. As well as being unable to use the oven, he could reach neither his radiators, nor a broken curtain rail. At least once he fell, due to boxes of ephemera narrowing his way upstairs to bed.

Despite hints that he might bequeath this vast collection “to the country”, via the Victoria and Albert Museum or similar, this was broken up and sold off after his death, having been rescued from the black bags of a non-specialist house clearance company.