Biography
Anthony Newley emerged as one of entertainment's true triple threats, thriving as an actor, vocalist, and songwriter who built a worldwide audience while displaying equal command and output in each discipline. He further succeeded as a performer across realms as contrasting as rock & roll and the legitimate theater. Even more striking, he accomplished this through a working-class Cockney identity that seemed unlikely to resonate far beyond England. For three decades he counted among the most commanding talents to arise from England in the period following the Beatles.
Anthony George Newley entered the world on September 24, 1931, in Hackney, a working-class district of London, as the child of George Anthony Newley and Frances Grace Newley. His parents held no connection to performing or music, and only the chain of circumstances triggered by World War II guided him into those arenas. The German blitz cut short his schooling, prompting evacuation to a foster household in the countryside. With several companions he eventually reached Brighton and the residence of George Pescud, a retired music hall performer who acquainted Newley with the stage by having him sing in the local choir and join in skits. Pescud exposed Newley and his friends to music, writing, and painting, pursuits he might never have encountered otherwise.
Still short of fourteen when the war ended, Newley chose to stay independent rather than return to his mother's household following his parents' divorce in the 1930s. He moved through various jobs before focusing on acting training. Lacking funds for the school where he auditioned, he took a position there as an office boy with the aim of working his way through the program. Within three weeks, however, movie director Geoffrey de Barkus, then preparing The Adventures of Dusty Bates, noticed the youth and cast him in the lead role.
Newley lacked polished technique yet photographed effectively, and in parts that avoided heavy demands he appeared convincing on screen. He improved steadily across successive roles in the following years. In 1948 David Lean selected him for one of his strongest boyhood performances, the Artful Dodger in the screen version of Oliver Twist. Though distributors delayed the American release for three years because of objections to Sir Alec Guinness's portrayal of Fagin, the ambitious and debated adaptation proved a breakthrough for several cast members. Newley delivered one of the film's highlights, contributing memorable scenes and a strong closing performance.
He reached prominence as an actor precisely when military service called in 1949, yet he struggled to adapt to army life. An Army psychiatrist recommended his release in 1950. He resumed screen work without interruption, appearing in a series of well-crafted British productions that included The Golden Salamander, Above Us the Waves, Cockleshell Heroes, and X the Unknown, spanning wartime dramas and science-fiction thrillers. In 1956 he joined the four-person experimental production Cranks, written by John Cranko and John Addison, which proved popular enough in London to transfer to Broadway. New York critics largely dismissed the show, but Newley, who performed multiple roles, earned strong praise from Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times.
After Cranks closed he returned to films, one of the more distinctive late-1950s appearances coming in Idle on Parade. Loosely inspired by Elvis Presley's draft experience, the British film centered on rock & roll singer Jeep Jones and his own call to service. The picture supplied Newley's first chart-topping single, the rock-styled "I've Waited So Long." That release launched a recording career along with music-hall and British television singing engagements. Between 1959 and 1961 he placed seven additional Top Ten British pop and rock hits, among them "Personality" and "Pop Goes the Weasel," plus the number-one singles "Why" and "Do You Mind."
By 1961 he had issued two albums and appeared headed along the conventional path taken by other English rock & roll acts, despite being nearly a decade older than his peers in the field, as heard on Love Is a Now and Then Thing and Tony. His earlier work in Cranks, however, sparked a desire to pursue more ambitious projects in music and theater. Opportunity arrived in 1961, aided by his chart success that reduced the financial risk, when he received an invitation to create his own stage production. He collaborated with acquaintance Leslie Bricusse, who brought him to New York while Bricusse prepared a new show for Beatrice Lillie. In a concentrated month of writing they developed Stop the World -- I Want to Get Off. The satirical blend of song, dance, pantomime, and dialogue examined the seven ages of man and became a major West End success upon opening July 21, 1961, with Newley starring and directing. Three songs from the show reached the charts: "What Kind of Fool Am I," "Once in a Lifetime," and "Gonna Build a Mountain."
The production reached New York fifteen months later, again featuring Newley, and ran nearly two years including a national tour. Upon returning to England, he and Bricusse ranked among the leading songwriting partnerships; their later credits included the title song for Goldfinger. With his second wife, Joan Collins, and Bricusse, Newley also wrote and recorded the hit comedy album Fool Brittania, drawn from the Profumo scandal. He starred in the film The Small World of Sammy Lee, an expanded version of an earlier stage piece he had performed in 1958.
Although several film projects listing Newley as star and director were announced, including a planned screen version of Stop the World, they did not materialize. In 1965 he and Bricusse returned to the stage with The Roar of the Greasepaint -- The Smell of the Crowd. The British mounting starring Norman Wisdom failed to catch on, yet the American production, headlined by Newley with Cyril Ritchard, enjoyed lengthy previews and a six-month Broadway run. A cast album succeeded commercially, and numerous songs from the score later received covers by diverse pop artists.
Newley then declared his departure from musical theater in favor of other mediums, notably film. He appeared in and co-wrote the score for the 1967 musical Doctor Dolittle starring Rex Harrison, a costly failure that nearly bankrupted Fox. Two years later he directed and starred in the semi-autobiographical Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?, another major commercial disappointment. In 1971 he and Bricusse supplied the score for Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, a box-office hit that produced the early-1970s standard "The Candy Man," a chart success for Sammy Davis, Jr.
That same year Newley and Bricusse wrote songs for an NBC television production of Peter Pan. In 1972 they completed one final stage work, The Good Old Bad Old Days, which enjoyed modest success. From the mid-1970s onward Newley's output yielded fewer major achievements. Films such as It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time made little impact, while the Sammy Davis, Jr. adaptation of Stop the World -- I Want to Get Off, released as Sammy Stops the World, also faltered.
His final collection of new material appeared as the 1978 album The Singer and His Songs. He accepted occasional small acting roles, including a 1982 PBS production of Alice in Wonderland, yet remained largely out of the spotlight. By the 1990s, now in his sixties and regarded as a senior figure in English musical theater, he took on character parts and fresh ventures. A California resident since the 1970s, he also returned periodically to England, assembling the revue Once Upon a Song drawn from his catalog. He portrayed the title character in Leslie Bricusse's musical Scrooge and made occasional cabaret appearances.
Unknown to most observers, Newley had been diagnosed with cancer and fought the disease for years amid these engagements. He died of cancer at his home in Jensen Beach, Florida, on April 14, 1999. In the years following his death his music, particularly his 1960s recordings, attracted a fresh audience in England, with his albums becoming sought-after collectibles after long periods in remainder bins.
Anthony George Newley entered the world on September 24, 1931, in Hackney, a working-class district of London, as the child of George Anthony Newley and Frances Grace Newley. His parents held no connection to performing or music, and only the chain of circumstances triggered by World War II guided him into those arenas. The German blitz cut short his schooling, prompting evacuation to a foster household in the countryside. With several companions he eventually reached Brighton and the residence of George Pescud, a retired music hall performer who acquainted Newley with the stage by having him sing in the local choir and join in skits. Pescud exposed Newley and his friends to music, writing, and painting, pursuits he might never have encountered otherwise.
Still short of fourteen when the war ended, Newley chose to stay independent rather than return to his mother's household following his parents' divorce in the 1930s. He moved through various jobs before focusing on acting training. Lacking funds for the school where he auditioned, he took a position there as an office boy with the aim of working his way through the program. Within three weeks, however, movie director Geoffrey de Barkus, then preparing The Adventures of Dusty Bates, noticed the youth and cast him in the lead role.
Newley lacked polished technique yet photographed effectively, and in parts that avoided heavy demands he appeared convincing on screen. He improved steadily across successive roles in the following years. In 1948 David Lean selected him for one of his strongest boyhood performances, the Artful Dodger in the screen version of Oliver Twist. Though distributors delayed the American release for three years because of objections to Sir Alec Guinness's portrayal of Fagin, the ambitious and debated adaptation proved a breakthrough for several cast members. Newley delivered one of the film's highlights, contributing memorable scenes and a strong closing performance.
He reached prominence as an actor precisely when military service called in 1949, yet he struggled to adapt to army life. An Army psychiatrist recommended his release in 1950. He resumed screen work without interruption, appearing in a series of well-crafted British productions that included The Golden Salamander, Above Us the Waves, Cockleshell Heroes, and X the Unknown, spanning wartime dramas and science-fiction thrillers. In 1956 he joined the four-person experimental production Cranks, written by John Cranko and John Addison, which proved popular enough in London to transfer to Broadway. New York critics largely dismissed the show, but Newley, who performed multiple roles, earned strong praise from Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times.
After Cranks closed he returned to films, one of the more distinctive late-1950s appearances coming in Idle on Parade. Loosely inspired by Elvis Presley's draft experience, the British film centered on rock & roll singer Jeep Jones and his own call to service. The picture supplied Newley's first chart-topping single, the rock-styled "I've Waited So Long." That release launched a recording career along with music-hall and British television singing engagements. Between 1959 and 1961 he placed seven additional Top Ten British pop and rock hits, among them "Personality" and "Pop Goes the Weasel," plus the number-one singles "Why" and "Do You Mind."
By 1961 he had issued two albums and appeared headed along the conventional path taken by other English rock & roll acts, despite being nearly a decade older than his peers in the field, as heard on Love Is a Now and Then Thing and Tony. His earlier work in Cranks, however, sparked a desire to pursue more ambitious projects in music and theater. Opportunity arrived in 1961, aided by his chart success that reduced the financial risk, when he received an invitation to create his own stage production. He collaborated with acquaintance Leslie Bricusse, who brought him to New York while Bricusse prepared a new show for Beatrice Lillie. In a concentrated month of writing they developed Stop the World -- I Want to Get Off. The satirical blend of song, dance, pantomime, and dialogue examined the seven ages of man and became a major West End success upon opening July 21, 1961, with Newley starring and directing. Three songs from the show reached the charts: "What Kind of Fool Am I," "Once in a Lifetime," and "Gonna Build a Mountain."
The production reached New York fifteen months later, again featuring Newley, and ran nearly two years including a national tour. Upon returning to England, he and Bricusse ranked among the leading songwriting partnerships; their later credits included the title song for Goldfinger. With his second wife, Joan Collins, and Bricusse, Newley also wrote and recorded the hit comedy album Fool Brittania, drawn from the Profumo scandal. He starred in the film The Small World of Sammy Lee, an expanded version of an earlier stage piece he had performed in 1958.
Although several film projects listing Newley as star and director were announced, including a planned screen version of Stop the World, they did not materialize. In 1965 he and Bricusse returned to the stage with The Roar of the Greasepaint -- The Smell of the Crowd. The British mounting starring Norman Wisdom failed to catch on, yet the American production, headlined by Newley with Cyril Ritchard, enjoyed lengthy previews and a six-month Broadway run. A cast album succeeded commercially, and numerous songs from the score later received covers by diverse pop artists.
Newley then declared his departure from musical theater in favor of other mediums, notably film. He appeared in and co-wrote the score for the 1967 musical Doctor Dolittle starring Rex Harrison, a costly failure that nearly bankrupted Fox. Two years later he directed and starred in the semi-autobiographical Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?, another major commercial disappointment. In 1971 he and Bricusse supplied the score for Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, a box-office hit that produced the early-1970s standard "The Candy Man," a chart success for Sammy Davis, Jr.
That same year Newley and Bricusse wrote songs for an NBC television production of Peter Pan. In 1972 they completed one final stage work, The Good Old Bad Old Days, which enjoyed modest success. From the mid-1970s onward Newley's output yielded fewer major achievements. Films such as It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time made little impact, while the Sammy Davis, Jr. adaptation of Stop the World -- I Want to Get Off, released as Sammy Stops the World, also faltered.
His final collection of new material appeared as the 1978 album The Singer and His Songs. He accepted occasional small acting roles, including a 1982 PBS production of Alice in Wonderland, yet remained largely out of the spotlight. By the 1990s, now in his sixties and regarded as a senior figure in English musical theater, he took on character parts and fresh ventures. A California resident since the 1970s, he also returned periodically to England, assembling the revue Once Upon a Song drawn from his catalog. He portrayed the title character in Leslie Bricusse's musical Scrooge and made occasional cabaret appearances.
Unknown to most observers, Newley had been diagnosed with cancer and fought the disease for years amid these engagements. He died of cancer at his home in Jensen Beach, Florida, on April 14, 1999. In the years following his death his music, particularly his 1960s recordings, attracted a fresh audience in England, with his albums becoming sought-after collectibles after long periods in remainder bins.
Albums
Anthology: The Deluxe Collection
2020
Why?
2011
Fool Britannia
2008
Stop the World!
2003
The Magic Of Anthony Newley
1997
For You
1970
Anthony Newley Sings The Songs From "Doctor Dolittle"
1967
Newley Recorded
1966
Who Can I Turn To
1965
Peak Performances
1963
Singles
Live
