When he began singing professionally, that merchant seaman would take a new name, Tommy Steele, which was based on the first part of his full family name, Still-Hicks.

Back in England on shore leave, Tommy met Lionel Bart and Mike Pratt at a party in Soho, after which the three of them began writing songs together.

Like several major singers from the mid- to late 1950s, Bermondsey’s Tommy Steele was discovered at the 2i’s Coffee Bar on Old Compton Street, considered to be the nursery of British rock and roll. He had a string of hits and was considered the country’s first rock and roller, topping the UK chart with ‘Singing the Blues’. Such was his meteoric rise to fame that the film The Tommy Steele Story hit the cinemas before Tommy was 21. ‘A Handful of Songs’, which he co-wrote, won an Ivor Novello Award for ‘Outstanding Song of the Year’ in 1958, as another film, The Duke Wore Jeans, hit the silver screen. In 1959 his third film, Tommy the Toreador, featured his big hit ‘Little White Bull’.

When asked, as many musicians have been, which direction they think Buddy would have taken musically, Tommy simply answers, ‘The same … why mess with perfection?’

In the 1960s he developed into what became known as an ‘all-round entertainer’, as the music industry then didn’t believe in the sustainability of rock and roll. He starred in stage shows in the West End and on Broadway, including Half a Sixpence, Singin’ in the Rain, She Stoops to Conquer, Hans Christian Andersen and Meet Me in London, as well as appearing in more films, such as The Happiest Millionaire and Finian’s Rainbow. In 1981 he had two books published: The Final Run, a Second World War novel dealing with the Dunkirk evacuation, and Quincy, a children’s book based on Tommy’s TV film Quincy’s Quest.

Rock and roll pioneer, songwriter, film star, stage actor, novelist, sculptor and artist, Tommy has even been exhibited at the Royal Academy. He was awarded the OBE in 1979 and the Freedom of the City of London in 2019 and was knighted in 2020 for services to entertainment and charity. He was presented with his Buddy Holly guitar by Mike Read at the London Palladium where Tommy has headlined more productions than any other artist. A plaque to that effect is prominently displayed in the theatre’s Cinderella Bar. 

Mike Read