From the East End of London, Anthony Newley started his career as a child actor,
who transformed himself into a matinee idol, pop star and song and dance man. He
left school at 14 to be an office boy at an insurance company before talking his
way into a job at the Italia Conti Stage School in London, earning £1.50 a week.
His interest in the theatre grew, along with the idea of being a performer,
landing his first proper film role in Peter Ustinov's Vice Versa in 1948 and
followed it the same year by playing the Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist, directed
by David Lean. Newley's main...