Success Began at Forty

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 652, 4 January 1952, Page 7

Success Began at Forty

VEN with old Man Crosby to remember, a crooner who is fortythree years old and yet a bobbysoxers’ idol is something of a phenomenon, par-ticularly-and here we come to Donald Peers-when he is only 5 feet, 744 inches tall and has, as Peers himself admits, a double chin. However, whether or not his appearance has anything to do with it, there’s no doubt. that Donald Peers has become a sort of British Sinatra. Reserved English-

women become mildly hysterical when he sings his cosy little songs, and although no one has yet done him. the honour of swooning, they make up for it by tearing souvenir buttons off. his jacket whenever he appears in public. So far their New Zealand sisters have not had a chance to make such open demonstrations of their enthusiasm, but they should have a better opportunity of becoming acquainted with Mr. Peers through a new recorded series which the four ZB stations and 2ZA are to broadcast on Sunday evenings at 9.0, beginning on January 6. Called simply and adequately The Donald Peers Show, the new programme is a Towers of London production. It’s probably Peers’s cosiness and familiarity that has. got him where he is. He had spent all his singing lifetwenty years-in the Music Halls before he began to broadcast, getting himself known and remembered (so he says), as a "nice, bright little fellow." Consequently he had something of a following when he arrived at the BBC. That, and an attractive technique with his Welsh voice, made his name. _ But it was a slow business when he Started off as an unknown. At one time he was singing thirty songs a night accompanied by a ukulele-banjo, and getting five shillings for it, Later, a Music

Hall proprietor who promised to pay him what he was worth, gave him half &@ crown when he was hooted off the stage in Canning Town. In 1926 he made his first broadcast, but in 1928 he refused an offer from the BBC to tour their provincial stations and joined. a concert party instead. He spent five years in the army during the war, and then set to work to rebuild his career. Success came when he was given ten weekly half. hours in the BBC’s Light Programme. After his first performance he smiled at the audience and said "Good-night," but before he had a chanée to move a girl called, "More, Donald, more!" He sang another sorig. The following week he was kept’ singing for half an hour after the broadcast ended. Within four weeks he was singing for two hours, and the only way he could get out was by singing his last song in his overcoat. Then the BBC extended his contract, . and he sang in the Albert Hall to a frantic female audience. That night he had to fight his way back to his dressing Toom, but his reputation was made.