There is something not entirely inappropriate about Christmas also being the birthday of Baron Lew Grade (Lev Winogradsky, 1906-1998). After all, the British TV mogul headed up the Independent Television Company (ITC) which brought us The Muppets (not to mention The Prisoner, Thunderbirds, and Space 1999). Before he was a producer, Grade was a show biz agent (see the big cigar?) and before that? Before that, my friends, Grade was a hoofer in music hall and vaudeville.
Ukrainian by birth, Grade grew up in London’s working class East End. At the age of 20, he won a nationwide dance contest (judged by Fred Astaire) and went professional. Billed as “The Man With the Musical Feet” he danced on British stages for eight years, before he developed water on the knee and sought work behind the scenes. His first partner was Joe Collins, father of Joan and Jackie Collins.
To learn more about vaudeville, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.
(Travalanche) 
[…] One of those heads was more than most likely Lord Lew Grade (Pictured on the right and courtesy of Travalanche.) himself, who reportedly frowned upon the overall idea of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). The […]
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