As a result of his performance, he got his first stage gig at the Palace theatre in Newcastle. “I’m not saying people should lie,” O’Connor reflected later, “but sometimes I think you have to make things happen when you’re in show business.” In 1958 he, along with Robert Morley, Pete Murray and Ted Ray, became one of the regular hosts of Spot the Tune, the Granada TV game show in which contestants named a popular song after hearing a few bars of music. After five years, Granada TV hired him to headline his own variety show. His divided parental inheritance allowed the joke that he was “the only O’Connor to have had a bar mitvah”, although he drew musically more on his patrimony, not only in 1-2-3 O’Leary but also recordings of Danny Boy. Les Reed was in Wessex Studios and had just finished a session with Quincy Jones when he met O'Connor coming into the studio to record a jingle. O'Connor asked Reed and Barry Mason write a song for him, which the duo complied and wrote "I Pretend" in an hour. They gave the song to O'Connor, who then asked Geoff Love to arrange the song so he could record it in two days' time. [6] a b Jeffries, Stuart (15 November 2020). "Des O'Connor obituary". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 16 November 2020.

He kept working until late into his life, on stage and screen, and touring with a one-man show. In 2011 he made his West End musical debut in Dreamboats and Petticoats, and joked: “I’m hoping to win a most promising newcomer award.” All three of his biggest-selling records were sad ballads, a man lamenting a love lost for some reason, and this helped to establish, for his fans, a sympathetic, self-deprecating, likeable image that lasted throughout his career. Morecambe and Wise rip into Des O’Connor on their sketch show. It turned out O’Connor was in on the joke

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Book Des O'Connor – Celebrities from The Mcleod Agency". The Mcleod Agency. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014 . Retrieved 15 November 2020. a b c d " 'Ultimate entertainer' Des O'Connor dies aged 88". BBC News . Retrieved 15 November 2020. Confirmed: Des O'Connor to Star as The Wizard in THE WIZARD OF OZ from May 22; Show to Close in September", BroadwayWorld, 22 May 2012, accessed 21 February 2021 Still Bringing Us Sunshine: Eric and Ernie's best moments". Daily Telegraph. 23 December 2016 . Retrieved 15 November 2020.

Roy Sone, Marti Webb and The Rita Williams Chorus with The New World Theatre Orchestra conducted by Cyril Stapleton The One and Only Des O'Connor". ITV. 19 March 2012. Archived from the original on 26 June 2012 . Retrieved 15 November 2020. Some of this was wordplay (“Des, short for desperate,” the comedian used to say), but, although Morecambe liked to claim that the hostility towards the performer was humorously fake, showbiz snobbery may have been involved. Comics, who saw their art as the hardest interaction with an audience, could be dismissive of song-and-dance men (Bruce Forsyth also faced some of this), and O’Connor was also part-Irish (on his father’s side, his mother being Jewish) in an era when racist jokes about people from Ireland were a staple of English comedy. However, there was no sympathy or liking, at least publicly, from Eric Morecambe. Almost from the time the men first encountered each other on the theatre variety circuit in the 1950s, Morecambe cultivated an on-stage joke about O’Connor being an allegedly terrible singer and second-rate act. Desmond Bernard O'Connor CBE (12 January 1932 – 14 November 2020) was an English comedian, singer and television presenter.

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In late 2011, O'Connor starred in Dreamboats and Petticoats at the Playhouse Theatre. [ citation needed] The song was released and it reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart in July 1968. [7] His recording was released in the United States on Diamond Records; however, it failed to chart. Original Cast [Half a Sixpence, London, 1963] PRF, REL, Tommy Steele, Beverley Cross, David Heneker & the Rita Williams Singers REC Des O'Connor – Half the things you worry about aren't going to happen". Belfast Telegraph. 5 December 2014 . Retrieved 15 November 2020.

O'Connor was the first subject of the second incarnation of the long-running television programme This Is Your Life, when the show returned to screens after a five-year absence, produced by Thames Television. He was surprised live on the stage of the London Palladium by Eamonn Andrews in November 1969. [4] Shep Fields and His Rippling Rhythm Orchestra - Vocal Refrain by Bobby Goday REC, The Warner Brothers Studio Orchestra BRD Caroline Cleaveley (2010). Memories of United Counties Part 1: Northampton. Silver Link Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85794-343-6. In April 2012, ITV aired The One and Only Des O'Connor, a one-off show that celebrated O'Connor's 80th birthday, with guests including Katherine Kelly, Olly Murs, Robert Lindsay, and Melanie Sykes. [10] In May 2012, O'Connor replaced Russell Grant in the West End musical, The Wizard of Oz, at the London Palladium, as Professor Marvel, Doorman at the Emerald City, Tour Guide, and The Wizard. [7]

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a b Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19thed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p.403. ISBN 1-904994-10-5. O’Connor’s first marriage, to Phyllis Gill, a fellow redcoat at Butlin’s whom he married in 1953 and with whom he had a daughter, Karen, ended in divorce in 1960. That year he married the ballerina and actor Gillian Vaughan, with whom he had two daughters, Tracey Jane and Samantha, before their divorce in 1982. Three years later he married the model Jay Fufer and they had a daughter, Kristina, but divorced in 1990.