Larry Parnes

Today we'll be presenting a gay man who was not an artist himself, but his influnce in music is unquestionable. Before the Beatles came and swept everything away, he was the manager of everybody who was anybody in the British Rock 'N' Roll scene, save for Cliff Richard and Adam Faith. Except he could have had both Cliff Richard and the Beatles, but he declined taking up their management when he had the chance. As Joe Brown said in Some Like It Hot: "nobody's perfect."

Cliff Roberts, Billy Fury and Larry Parnes at a Beatles concert in 1960

He was one of a number of gay Rock managers in the UK at the time. There was the Beatles' Brian Epstein, of course, whom we'll be presenting in a couple of days. Then there was Simon Napier-Bell (the Yardbirds and later Wham!), and Kit Lambert (the Who).

And then there were the managers who, while not necessarily gay themselves, simply saw the promotional value of playing the gay card, encouraging campness and flamboyance in their charges: Andrew Loog Oldham, who was fascinated with gay culture, is credited with encouraging such qualities in the Stones. Ken Pitt did a similar thing with David Bowie, introducing the singer to the work of the Velvet Underground and the dancer Lindsay Kemp, whose troupe Bowie ended up joining.

But we digress. Back to Larry Parnes: he was born Laurence Maurice Parnes, 1930, in Willesden, London and died 4 August, 1989, in London, from meningitis.

Larry left school at sixteen and worked in various shops in the clothing industry. By the age of 18 he was running his own women's clothing shops in Romford, Essex. His family, also in the clothing business, had helped with the finance to purchase three shops but only one proved to be successful and he got into debt.

One evening a friend took him to La Caverne, a bar in Romilly Street in the West End of London. At the end of the evening Larry Parnes intervened in a heated argument between the two owners of the bar and discovered that the two could not work together. He offered to buy one of them out. In fact he had no money but one of the owners was so keen to get out of the business that he sold his share for £500 to be paid in instalments. The bar was frequented by theatrical agents and producers. Larry Parnes had been teetotal but took to drinking whisky. After a whisky-drinking contest he discovered that he had been persuaded to invest in a play entitled 'The House of Shame'. The play toured during 1955 and was making a loss until ace publicist John Kennedy was recruited. The play's name was changed to 'Women of the Streets' and two actresses were persuaded to stand outside the theatre dressed as prostitutes during the interval. They were arrested, and after the national press picked up the story the play took off and eventually broke even.

Larry Parnes bumped into John Kennedy again in The Sabrina, a coffee bar in Soho and was persuaded to go to see the singer Tommy Hicks perform in the Stork Room in Regent Street. After the performance Parnes agreed to become Tommy's joint-manager alongside John Kennedy, and a contract was signed in September 1956. Tommy Hicks adopted the stage name Tommy Steele and became Britain's first Rock'n'Roll celebrity, a status which included being immortalised in wax at Madame Tussaud's. Lionel Bart co-wrote several of Tommy Steele's hits. Parnes aim was to 'legitimise' his discoveries by turning them into 'all-round entertainers' and, in the case of Tommy Steele, he can be said to have succeeded. Steele moved on to stage musicals like 'Half A Sixpence' and then to Hollywood, where he starred in movies like 'The Happiest Millionaire' and 'Finian's Rainbow'.

Here's Tommy Steele's #1 hit, his cover of Singing The Blues:

We've heard the Lionel Bart penned Tommy Steele hits a couple of days ago, so here's his last Top 5 hit in the UK, a Music Hall number called What A Mouth (#5):

Encouraged by the success of Tommy Steele, Larry scoured the coffee bars and dance halls for another star. Lionel Bart informed him of Reg Smith who was performing at the Condor Club above The Sabrina coffee bar. In fact Larry Parnes missed his performance but went round to his house and signed him up on the basis of Lionel Bart's testimonial. He was given the name Marty Wilde and had a string of UK hits. By the way, he is the father of 80s Pop star Kim Wilde.

1959 was Wilde's best year: he had three Top 3 hits. First there was Donna (#3):

Then came A Teenager in Love (#2):

Finally, there was Sea of Love (#3):

Larry Parnes developed a network of contacts with the larger record companies, including the A&R managers Hugh Mendl and Dick Rowe at Decca, Norrie Paramor at Columbia, and Johnny Franz and Jack Baverstock at Philips. TV producer Jack Good was also keen to benefit from the flow of new teenage talent provided by Larry Parnes and songwriters like Lionel Bart provided original material for Larry's growing stable of artists. However, he didn't always make the right decision - he turned down Cliff Richard after an audition.

In 1958 he took on the management of Roy Taylor and gave him the name Vince Eager, but he failed to have any hits, although he became a household name through a regular starring role on the BBC TV programme 'Drumbeat'. In September 1958 Ron Wycherley walked into Marty Wilde's dressing room at the Essoldo Cinema, Birkenhead, and asked to play a few songs. Larry Parnes was impressed and signed him on. He was given the stage name Billy Fury and he became one of the most important figures in the British Rock'n'Roll scene. (In February 1962, Parnes was also responsible for signing the Tornados as Billy's backing band prior to their world-wide hit with 'Telstar' later that same year).

Colette was Billy's first Top 10 hit (#9), in 1959:

Fury's peak year was 1961. Halfway To Paradise was a #3 hit:

Jealousy was his biggest hit, peaking at #2:

His last Top 5 hit, peaking at #5, came in 1963. It was called In Summer:

Parnes' approach was to choose attractive young people and groom them to make them appealing to other teenagers. He also gave them new stage names, which were rumoured to reflect what he considered to be their sexual characteristics. Others that he managed with varying degrees of success included Dickie Pride (Richard Knellar), Duffy Power (Ray Howard), Johnny Gentle (John Askew), Sally Kelly, Terry Dene (Terence Williams), Nelson Keene (Malcolm Holland), Peter Wynne, Tommy Bruce and Georgie Fame (Clive Powell). He wanted to give guitarist Joe Brown the name Elmer Twitch but Joe refused. Parnes also managed the Viscounts who included Gordon Mills, later to manage Tom Jones. The BBC television programme 'Panorama' included a feature on Larry Parnes as a 'beat svengali' and the press gave him the nickname 'Mr. Parnes, Shillings and Pence'.

Parnes sometimes initially employed his charges himself paying them a weekly wage, rather than being employed by them. An indication of the fractious relationship that Parnes enjoyed with many of his protégés, is indicated by the following extracts:

"The contract Dickie [Pride] signed with Parnes guaranteed him sixty pounds a week by the fourth year, a fortune in those days, but in fact Parnes reneged on almost all the contracts, which were in any case so tightly drawn that Parnes could do almost anything he wanted."

"Vince [Eager] began to wonder why he had never received any record royalties. "You're not entitled to any," Larry Parnes told him. "But it says in my contract that I am," Eager protested. "It also says I have power of attorney over you, and I've decided you're not getting any," Parnes replied."

In addition to managing various aspiring Rock'n'Rollers, Larry was prominent in the promotion of touring concerts. It was Parnes who organised the ill-fated 'Anglo-American Beat Show' starring Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran. On 17 April, 1960, after hurriedly leaving a Bristol show, Eddie was killed in a car accident in Chippenham, Wiltshire.

Parnes missed two opportunities to manage the Beatles. At a time when they were called the Silver Beatles he used them to back his singer Johnny Gentle on a tour of Scotland in 1960. He was also given the opportunity to sign them up as their sole promoter in 1962 but he declined. Larry Parnes' influence in the world of R&R And Pop music came to an end in the mid 1960s when a new style of manager - Brian Epstein of the Beatles and Andrew Oldham of the Rolling Stones - followed his trail-blazing path. In 1967 he announced that he had outgrown the world of Pop and would be devoting himself to the theatre. In 1968 he put on 'Fortune' and 'Men's Eyes', a play about homosexuality in a Canadian prison, but he lost £5000 on the venture. In 1972 he bought a 12-year lease of the Cambridge Theatre and he put on the musicals 'Charlie Girl' and 'Chicago'. During the 1970s he administered the business affairs of the ice-skater John Currie.

Larry Parnes developed meningitis and retired in 1981. He won a substantial out-of-court settlement from the BBC for an alleged libel by Paul McCartney on the radio programme Desert Island Discs. He died in August 1989. From his Daily Telegraph obituary: "Parnes is said to have renamed some of his stars for their sexual potential, but though he undoubtedly adored the company of young men he was circumspect about mixing business with pleasure. The greatest loves of his life were two Alsatian dogs, Prince and Duke, whose cremated remains were prominently displayed in his South Kensington penthouse."