julian_craster

You may recall that Winifred played the piano for John Mills in the pub
scenes, in the British comedy musical 'It's Great to Be Young' (1956).....

Winifred Atwell (from the DNB, Oxford University Press) by Stephen Bourne

Winifred Atwell (c.1913-1983), pianist and entertainer, was born on
27 April c.1913 in Jubilee Street, Tunapuna, near Port of Spain, Trinidad,
the only child of a chemist, Frederick Monroe Atwell (d. 1958), and a
district nurse, Sarah Elizabeth (d. 1962). Winifred began playing the piano
at the age of four and within a couple of years she was giving Chopin
recitals at charity concerts. As a young woman she worked in her father's
chemist shop, and he insisted that she took a degree in pharmacy. However,
in her spare time she entertained friends and continued to take part in
charity concerts.

After performing in Trinidad's Services Club during the war, Winifred went
to New York to study piano technique with the celebrated classical pianist
Alexander Borovsky. In 1946 she went to Britain, determined to become a
concert pianist, and studied at the Royal Academy of Music. She supported
herself by working in the evenings playing the piano in dance-halls and
clubs. On 9 June 1947 she married Reginald (Lew) Levisohn, a variety artiste
who gave up his stage career to become her manager. Encouraged by Lew,
Winifred turned her attention to playing ragtime music and became one of
Britain's most popular entertainers.

Winifred's breakthrough came in 1948 at a charity concert at the London
Casino. She was almost completely unknown before the curtain rose but, after
captivating the audience with her ragtime music, she found herself taking
several curtain calls. In 1951 she signed a contract with Decca, and in 1952
she appeared in the first royal variety performance for the new queen,
Elizabeth II. To a rapturous reception Winifred closed her act with
'Britannia Rag', a number she had composed specially for the occasion and
which reached number five in the pop charts.

In the bleak post-war years a party was not complete without Winifred's
records being played, and they sold in their millions. In 1954, when she
topped the British pop charts with 'Let's have another Party', she became
the first black recording artist to reach number one. By 1954 she had also
become the first artiste from Britain to have three million-selling hits:
'Black and White Rag' (1952), 'Let's have a Party' (1953), and 'Let's have
another Party' (1954). Between 1952 and 1960 she had no less than eleven top
ten hits and at the end of the twentieth century she was the most successful
female instrumentalist ever to have featured in the British pop charts. At
the peak of her popularity her hands were insured at Lloyds for 40,000-a
vast sum in the early 1950s-and her fan club had more than 50,000 members.
She was also one of the few entertainers to have their own television series
on both the BBC and ITV.

Winifred never made a secret of the fact that her heart lay with classical
music. Despite her success with ragtime music, she never lost sight of her
original ambition to become a concert pianist. In 1954 her exquisite
recording of the eighteenth variation from Rakhmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme
of Paganini reached number nine in the pop charts. On 28 November 1954
Winifred packed the Royal Albert Hall as a soloist, accompanied by the
London Philharmonic Orchestra, playing Grieg's piano concerto and George
Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

Though Winifred attempted to keep up with a new trend in popular music-rock
and roll-it hastened the end of her career in the charts. Also, by the
mid-1950s, she faced competition from other successful (white) pianists,
including Joe 'Mr Piano' Henderson, Russ Conway, and Mrs Mills. However, she
was one of the most successful and beloved entertainers of her time, as well
as the first Caribbean artiste to become a household name in an era when
black performers in Britain had more chance of success if they were
American.

In the 1950s Winifred Atwell's carefree, happy-go-lucky records were always
being played. In the severity of the post-war years she was one of Britain's
most successful and best-loved entertainers. Her warm personality and
glamour were just what the British public needed, and she was always
consistent, rarely attempting to do anything outside her speciality.
Audiences knew what to expect from her, and she never let them down.

By the 1960s tastes in popular music had changed rapidly and Winifred's
manic style of piano playing, with its famous 'tinny' bar-room sound, went
out of fashion. Happily, Winifred had become well known abroad. Her first
Australian tour in 1958-9 lasted thirteen months. Her popularity with
Australian audiences was so great that, when her record sales began to fall
in Britain, she emigrated to that country with her husband. Winifred never
completely recovered from the death of Lew in 1978. Three years later she
became an Australian citizen; she died from a heart attack in Sydney on 27
February 1983.

Stephen Bourne

Sources S. Bourne, Black in the British frame: black people in British film
and television, 1896-1996 (1998) + m. cert. + CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1985) + C.
Larkin, ed., The Guinness encyclopedia of popular music, 4 vols. (1992) + D.
Clarke, ed., The Penguin encyclopedia of popular music (1998) + J. Murrells,
The book of golden discs: the records that sold a million (1978)
Likenesses photograph, c.1950, Hult. Arch. · T. Hopkins, photograph, 1953,
Hult. Arch. · B. Hardy, photographs, 1954, Hult. Arch. · A. Meek,
photograph, 1956 (with Wladziu Valentino Liberace), Hult. Arch. · L. Tracey,
photographs, 1957, Hult. Arch. · D. Wedgbury, photograph, 1960, NPG [see
illus.]
Wealth at death 7827-in England and Wales: Australian probate sealed in
England, 17 June 1985, CGPLA Eng. & Wales

theuofc

Dear Julian_Craster:

Thanks for posting this interesting DNB biography of Winifred Atwell. As for her fellow actor, Sir John Mills, the film title "It's Great to be Young" fits him. Sir John stayed young and was active in his career right up to the last in 2005. Here is a warm and respectful nod to the great man whose birthday, 22 February, was just a few days ago.

Best,

Barbara

Freddy

Many thanks for that Julian, much appreciated, and may I join with Barbara in a warm and respectful nod to the great man.

Freddy

The world wags on.

theuofc

Hi, Freddy,

So happy to have you join me in the nod to Sir John. I didn't realize until years later what a fine song and dance man he was and an athlete to boot. An amazingingly multi-talented man. The documentary "Moving Memories," put together by his son, is a lovely visual retrospective of Mills' life and performances with many clips taken over the years by the camera buff Mills Sr. A very enjoyable watch.

I keep forgetting to ask...what's your avatar? Great car.

Best,

Barbara