Blackpool stages were springboards for big star names

Coming across a Gazette showbiz photo from 1968, I thought how similar were the early Blackpool careers of Ken Dodd and Tessie O’Shea.

They are pictured here at a photo call before they opened at the Opera House in The Big Show of 1968.

Doddy (1927-2018) is of joyous recent memory for his marathon Grand Theatre Sunday concerts but Tessie is remembered only by the older lads.

I can almost hear Frank Randle, the ribald Blackpool comedian of the ‘40s and early ‘50s, saying: “By gum, she were a cracker.”

Ken Dodd and Tessie O’Shea were of different generations, of course, but both began with tiny billing at Blackpool variety theatres.

Cardiff-born Tessie first played here on a Palace Theatre weekly bill in July, 1933, and then had five consecutive summer seasons at other theatres.

Liverpool’s Ken Dodd first played here on a Queen’s Theatre variety bill in October, 1954, and then had four consecutive summer seasons at other theatres.

The two stars can be said to be representative of dozens of big names in the business. The road to the London Palladium often began in Blackpool.

I remember my Dad being doubled up with laughter as Tessie sang her saucy songs while knocking eight bells out of her banjulele.

She was a buxom lady and for several years used the song Two Ton Tessie (from Tennessee), said to have been written for her by Lawrence Wright.

It was Wright who engaged Tessie for a supporting spot in his annual On With the Show at the North Pier for the 1934 summer season.

Then Lawrie’s big rival in the song-publishing world, Bert Feldman, booked Tessie for his 1935 season show at Feldman’s Theatre.

Was money or better billing the issue? - for Tessie was back at Feldman’s for the 1936 season.

Lawrence Wright attracted Tessie back to the pier for 1937 and ‘38 and after five successive seasons in Blackpool Tess had clearly come to love the area and bought a cottage at Poulton.

She was now a big star of radio and the variety stage and top producer Tom Arnold booked her on comedian Harry Korris’s 1940 summer show bill at the Grand Theatre.

Tessie was back at the Grand in 1942, as Harry Korris’s guest star, and often appeared at the resort’s Palace Theatre, including a week in July, 1944, when she was billed as Two Ton Tessie.

Tessie (1913-95) was married for a few years in the 1940s to a local Army officer, Captain David Rollo, whose parents ran the Bloomfield Hotel.

The Blackpool summer season bookings kept coming. At the Opera House Tessie shared the billing with Jimmy Jewel and Ben Warriss in 1945’s Hip Hip Hooray.

She occasionally topped an Opera House Sunday concert bill and in July, 1949, her act was summed up by a Gazette reviewer with this nugget: “Large as life and twice as real, Tessie hits a packed house like a cheerful gale. She sang with enormous gusto, she was uproarious, sentimental, confidential. She was great.”

She had another Opera House season in 1950, jointly topping the bill with comedian Nat Jackley in Out of This World. But she missed six weeks after having an operation for appendicitis.

Six summers later she was at the Hippodrome with Nat Jackley in This’ll Make You Laugh.

As the world of touring variety began to fade there were acting opportunities for Tessie. In May, 1958, she was at the Grand Theatre in a tour of the comedy play Sailor Beware and making a big impression as the formidable Emma Hornett.

A Gazette reviewer noted: “In full flight of fury her voice would render a regiment of sergeant majors powerless . . .”

Tessie had played character parts in British films, including a couple with Frank Randle, but Emma Hornett was a demanding stage role.

After selling her Poulton house and opening the Horseshoe room at the Pleasure Beach in 1963, an American career opened for her with a specially written part in Noel Coward’s Broadway musical The Girl Who Came to Supper. It won her a Tony Award.

She had character roles in several Hollywood films, including Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

A return to Blackpool came in 1968, with Ken Dodd at the Opera House (our main photo) and she was back here in 1972 in a summer season of The Good Old Days in the Winter Gardens Pavilion with Ronnie Ronalde, Ben Warriss and Rod Hull with his dreaded Emu.

Tessie’s Blackpool summer show total of 12 was equalled by few other artists. Ken Dodd had 10, including six at the Opera House.