TOMMY STEELE TO VISIT N.Z.

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28435, 15 November 1957, Page 21

TOMMY STEELE TO VISIT N.Z.

“Britain’s Own Elvis Presley”

I From the London Correspondent of “The Press"] LONDON, Nov. 5. Tommy Stele, the rock ’n’ roll sensation of Britain and that country’s equivalent of Elvis Presley, is planning to make a visit to New Zealand next year. Questioned after the Royal Film Performance about his plans for travelling abroad, Steele said that he intended visiting both New Zealand and Australia some time next year. He could not say exactly when, but indicated that negotiations were under way for securing halls and. theatres in which he could perform. ’ This lean, blonde 21-year-old Cockney from Bermondsey, a suburb in the East End of London. has had phenomenal success in Britain in the last year, and has swept to the popularity heights with teenagers on the crest of the rock ’n’ roll craze. Unlike Presley, who relies mainly on leg movements for the success of his acts, Steele jolts his whole body and head in his numbers. The night Steele was presented to the Queen was a year to the night he made his stage debut in Sunderland. In the 12 months ht has become Britain’s highest paid variety artist. He has already earned £25,000 from royalties on his records, and some £lOO,OOO from his film, ‘The Tommy Steele Story.” Before capitalising on rock ’n’ roll, he was a merchant seaman earning £7 a week. Steele has appeared regularly in the 8.8. C. television programme six-five special on Saturday evenings, which is devoted to rock ’n’ roll, skiffle and jazz. It has been mainly through this medium that his particular style of rock ’n’ rolling has captured the enthusiasm of so many of Britain’s teenagers. His presentation to the Queen at the Royal Film Performance this week proved one of the most unsettling moments of his life. Immediately before the Queen ‘appeared in the presentation lounge, he was seen nervously and quickly adjusting his long frontal lock of fair hair in a Grenadier guardsman’s buttons. Steele, who is at present making a new film, ‘‘The Duke Wore Jeans,” was asked by the Duke of Edinburgh: ‘‘Are you stuck in this film business now,” and when he indicated that he was making another film, the Duke replied with a beam that he hoped he was not going to stop making records. Immediately after the performance precautions were taken to protect Steele as there has been a threat from one of London’s teddy boy gangs to slash him.

Death for Revenge Killing.— An Igorot (native tribesman in northern Luzon) has been sentenced to life imprisonment for beheading the two-year-old son of a resident of Cervantes, a small town near Vigan in Ilocos Sur Province. A Philippine News Service report said that the Igorot told the court he killed the boy to carry out the last wish of his dying father who wanted to avenge the killing of a relative by some Christians living in Cervantes.—Manila.