Cuddly Dudley

Dudley Bernal Bancroft Heslop (22 May 1924 – 15 July 2011) was a Jamaican-born British rock & roll singer who rose to fame on the Oh Boy! TV series, and is noted for being "Britain's first black rock & roller".

Early career

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, on 22 May 1924 (although Dudley later pretended to be younger, claiming to be 29 in early 1959, while Allmusic said he was born in the 1930s) he started performing when very young with a "native song and dance act" for tourists. In 1947, he went to Britain where he spent a year in the play Sauce Tartare at the Cambridge Theatre in the West End, before singing in clubs for six months. He then played in Folies Bergeres at the Hippodrome, London and toured Australia in Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate, before joining Sid Milward's Comedy orchestra, The Nit Wits, supporting Max Bygraves.

By the mid-1950s Dudley was recording for Oriole Records, as part of the Charles Ross Orchestra, and adopted the nickname Cuddly Dudley, playing on his slightly round figure. He toured New Zealand and Switzerland with Charles Ross, then joined Mambo bandleader Pérez Prado to tour Italy, before returning to the West End with Plaisirs de Paris at the Prince...

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