Dai Francis; star of The Black and White Minstrel Show
Hyfler/Rosner
(Filed: 11/12/2003) Telegraph
Dai Francis, who has died aged 73, was a star of The Black and White
Minstrel Show, George Mitchell's song and dance spectacular which beat Fred
Astaire and the Kirov Ballet to win the Golden Rose (for Best Television
Show in the World) at the first Montreux Festival in 1961 and dominated
television variety for two decades, regularly attracting audiences of 15
million.
With his fellow bass-baritone Tony Mercer and tenor John Boulter, Francis
was one of the Minstrels' excellent trio of lead vocalists. Although he is
best remembered for his renditions of Al Jolson, his joie de vivre and
energy were such that he gave an instant lift to any scene in which he
appeared.
Dai Francis was born at Swansea in 1930. His father was a music hall
performer who at one time knew more than 200 Dixieland songs. His knowledge
and singing ability rubbed off on young Dai, and before the age of 10 the
boy was "blacking up" his face with burnt cork to sing at jazz band
processions for local village carnivals. At 14 he left school and began work
as a wages clerk at the Neath Valley colliery.
During his National Service (1946-49) at the RAF's Head Record Office,
Gloucester, he took part in a Carroll Levis talent competition at Cheltenham
and won first prize with his impression of Al Jolson, which he had learned
from his father.
After leaving the RAF, Francis toured for four years in the Zuyder Zee show,
singing, giving impressions and playing the trumpet. The show's organist was
Elsie Monks, whom he married in 1952; they had a daughter, Cheryl Maria.
For a while Francis worked in nightclubs, and was featured at the Pigalle in
London for a year with the Woolf Phillips Band, as well as at the Embassy
Club, as a singer and trumpeter, before joining the George Mitchell Singers
in 1954. He started in the singing chorus, but had risen to soloist by 1957,
when the first Black and White Minstrel Show was staged by George Mitchell
and George Inns for BBC Television.
Francis went on to appear in every Minstrel Show throughout its 21-year
television run, and in almost 6,500 performances over 10 years at the
Victoria Palace Theatre, for which seven million tickets were sold. The
Black and White Minstrels were the only artists to hold first, second and
fourth places simultaneously in the Top Ten LP ratings.
The television show was eventually axed in 1978 on the grounds that the
blacking up, a long tradition in the theatre, was racially offensive. A
subsequent series of the shows in which the performers did not black up
failed to pull in the viewers. Thereafter, Francis continued to appear in
summer shows and provincial tours, and to do Al Jolson impressions.
Each year the surviving Minstrels and Television Toppers (their sequinned
female companions) would gather at a country club outside Wolverhampton to
share memories over lunch; the tables were decorated with black and white
balloons.
Dai Francis, who died on November 27, was separated from his wife and is
survived by his daughter.
Brian Watson
"Hyfler/Rosner" <rel...@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:3fd7e13c$0$14956$61fe...@news.rcn.com...
The extraordinary thing about this extraordinary show was that for most/all
of its run it was broadcast in black and white, not colour.
Though the sets were pretty lavish and the girls were all dressed in showy
costumes, we knew no better and expected no more and took it all in with
what now appears to be incredible naivety.
No-one until the end seemed to take the blacking up as offensive - it was
just continuing a traditional style of performance.
--
Brian (You may remember me as The English guy on "The Bonfire Of The
Vanities")