- IVOR EMMANUEL
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- Very Welsh
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 A fine,
strapping fellow, handsome and Welsh, Ivor Emmanuel was born
in the village of Pontrhydfen, near Swansea. Being Welsh and
working-class, there seemed nothing to be done but work in the
mines, and when he left school he worked in the mines. He was
advised by a fellow Welshman, Richard Burton, to try his luck
as a singer, and as a result Emmanuel auditioned for a take-over
role in Oklahoma! at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and got the
part. His manly look and ringing tones made him a natural for
beefy American musicals, of which he became a regular component,
but it took a fair time for him to progress beyond small roles
that wouldn't get noticed.
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- In 1951 he played Sgt. Kenneth Johnson in South Pacific at
the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, a theatre whose boards he would
come to know very well. His third Rodgers and Hammerstein musical
in Britain was The King and I in 1953, but by 1956 he was still
stuck in minor roles, when he was cast as 'Another Man' and 'State
Trooper' in Plain and Fancy, again at the Theatre Royal, Drury
Lane. In 1957 he began to get parts that were worthy of him.
He played the male lead, baseball player Joe Hardy, in Damn Yankees
at the Coliseum, and when the production folded he was the hero,
Woody Mahoney, of a revival of Finian's Rainbow staged at Liverpool.
Emmanuel had a good cast with him - it included Shani Wallis
as Sharon and veteran Bobby Howes as her father - but the show
didn't survive its tour.
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- Meanwhile, Emmanuel was making a reputation as a popular
singer, especially on television. From 1958 to 1964 he was well-known
as the star of a series, Land of Song, in which he was often
surrounded by a cutesey childrens' choir. The show helped to
emphasise his Welshness. In 1966 he went to New York to star
as the Protestant minister David Griffith in a fine musical version
of How Green Was My Valley, A Time For Singing, for which he
was joined by fellow-stars Tessie O'Shea and Shani Wallis. The
Welsh mining village setting made this the most appropriate engagement
of his musical theatre career. Despite the exceptionally fine
cast (it also included Laurence Naismith) and its lovely score,
A Time For Singing only managed 41 performances, and Emmanuel's
Broadway career was done with. The following year he was third-billed
below Inga Swenson and American Stephen Douglass in 110 In The
Shade, an American show (with shades of Oklahoma!) that signally
failed to catch on at the Palace Theatre. It closed up Emmanuel's
West End career, too. A pity, because he seemed a nice enough
sort of chap, and he was Welsh.
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- Selected discography
Original cast recordings of:
South Pacific
Plain and Fancy
A Time For Singing [Broadway]
110 In The Shade [I song only]
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