Trivia

Made British television history as the first black person to appear regularly on a British television series, singing topical calypsos.

In 1974 founded Drum as Britain's first arts centre to showcasing black actors.

He was the great-grandson of a slave, one of seven children born to a Moravian minister and a music teacher.

Guyanese-British singer and guitarist.

He served in the RAF during WWII, and qualified as a barrister, before becoming interested in acting.

During World War II he was commissioned into the RAF and served as a Lancaster navigator in bomber command. On only his third mission his aircraft was shot down and he parachuted into the Netherlands where he was captured by the Germans and sent to Stalag Luft III, best known as the location of the 'Great Escape'.

Sang the original version of the worldwide hit "Feeling Good" (later made even more famous by Michael Buble) in the Anthony Newley-Leslie Bricusse stage play The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd, opening at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, UK, August 3, 1964.