Lionel Bart (1 August 1930 – 3 April 1999) was a British writer and composer of pop music and musicals.
He wrote Tommy Steele's "Rock with the Caveman", which became the first British pop song to break into the American Top 40, and was the sole creator of the musical Oliver! (1960).
With Oliver! and his work alongside theatre director Joan Littlewood at Theatre Royal, Stratford East, he played an instrumental role in the 1960s birth of the British musical theatre scene after an era when American musicals had dominated the West End.
Best known for creating the book, music and lyrics for Oliver!, he was described by Andrew Lloyd Webber as "the father of the modern British musical".
In 1963 he won the Tony Award for Best Original Score for Oliver!, and the 1968 film version of the musical won a total of 6 Academy Awards including the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Some of his other compositions include the theme song to the James Bond film From Russia with Love, and the songs "Living Doll" by Cliff Richard, "Far Away" by Shirley Bassey, "Do You Mind?" (recorded by both Anthony Newley and Andy Williams), "Big Time" (a 1961 cover by Jack Jones of his "Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be" show tune), "Easy Going Me" by Adam Faith, "Always You And Me" by Russ Conway, and several songs recorded by Tommy Steele ("A Handful of Songs", "Butterfingers" and "Little White Bull").
By the mid 1960s he was as well known for his outlandish lifestyle, his celebrity friends, his excesses, and his parties as he was for his work.
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Documentary on the life of Brian Epstein, the man who brought The Beatles to fame. A Documentary examining the turbulent life and career of Beatles manager Brian Epstein. Gay when homosexuality was illegal, a gambler, shopkeeper and failed actor, he was also pop king with a Midas touch who, in the 60s, was as well known as the band he managed. Broadcast in two episodes on the BBC Series Arena
Musical version of the story in which Dr. Henry Jekyll experiments with scientific means of revealing the hidden, dark side of man and releases a murderer from within himself.
In a remote jungle outpost in the Far Eastern theater of World War II, a hotheaded American soldier murders an allied British sergeant in cold blood. Stalwart American Lt. Colonel Barney Adams (Mitchum) is dispatched to defend him in the ensuing court martial. But when Lt. Adams starts encountering roadblocks in his search for evidence, and his key witnesses start disappearing one after another, he soon realizes he's merely a pawn in a mysterious conspiracy that could extend to the highest levels of military power.
Agent 007 is back in the second installment of the James Bond series, this time battling a secret crime organization known as SPECTRE. Russians Rosa Klebb and Kronsteen are out to snatch a decoding device known as the Lektor, using the ravishing Tatiana to lure Bond into helping them. Bond willingly travels to meet Tatiana in Istanbul, where he must rely on his wits to escape with his life in a series of deadly encounters with the enemy.
Charlie returns to the East End after two years at sea to find his house demolished and wife Maggie gone. Everyone else knows she is now shacked up with married bus driver Bert and a toddler, and they all watch with more than a little interest at the trail of mayhem Charlie leaves as he goes about sorting things out.
A Cockney lad pretends to be a Lord in order to woo a South American princess.