He won so many friends just by showing he was a man who didn’t take himself too seriously,” said O’Connor’s fellow entertainer Bruce Forsyth, “He takes his work seriously, of course, and is the consummate professional, but I think what the British like, more than anything else, is a man who can take a joke against himself.”

O'Connor appeared at the Glasgow Empire, MGM Grand, Las Vegas, the Opera House, Sydney, and the O'Keefe Centre, Toronto, and made more than one thousand solo appearances at the London Palladium. [4] In 2001, O'Connor was presented with the Special Recognition Award at the National Television Awards for his contribution to television. Shep Fields and His Rippling Rhythm Orchestra - Vocal Refrain by Bobby Goday REC, The Warner Brothers Studio Orchestra BRDSome 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. 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.

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. 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. Bing Crosby & Marjorie Reynolds [dubbed by Martha Mears] BRD, Bing Crosby with Ken Darby Singers and John Scott Trotter and His Orchestra REC, REL

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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 O'Connor appeared as a guest on The Morecambe and Wise Show a number of times. He was the butt of many a joke by Eric Morecambe, being referred to as "Des – short for 'desperate", and "Death O'Connor". [11] One line, sung to the tune of "Crazy Words – Crazy Tune" was, "Roses are red, violets are blue, Des can't sing, we know that's true!". (O'Connor was actually an old friend of the duo, and even participated in writing many of the "put-downs".) Between 1977 and 2002, O'Connor presented his own chat show series entitled Des O'Connor Tonight which lasted for seven series on BBC Two and later seventeen on ITV. A month after his death, ITV aired a tribute, titled Des O'Connor: The Ultimate Entertainer, on 13 December 2020. 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.

He ascribed his longevity to moderation, a trait he shared with his friend Cliff Richard: “Cliff and I have discussed this. We both eat only one meal a day. I drink very little alcohol; I’ve never smoked and I don’t exercise madly; just a brisk half-hour walk five times a week.”The active participation of the target helped somewhat to neutralise the cruelty, and, suggesting to the audience that he was a sport, further enhanced O’Connor’s reputation as a nice guy. Despite being presented on Morecambe & Wise, to up to 30 million viewers, as a tuneless loser, O’Connor by 1969 was celebrated enough to be a guest on ITV’s top-rating biographical entertainment show, This is Your Life.

Between 1963 and 1971 O'Connor hosted The Des O'Connor Show, a British variety show, for eight series on ITV. This was followed by Des O'Connor Entertains, a show which ran for two series between 1974 and 1976 and featured singing, dancing, and comedy sketches. In 1969, thirteen editions of the show were sold to NBC in the United States, as a summer replacement for the network's Kraft Music Hall. The series was broadcast in more than forty countries. [ citation needed] Adele Dixon, Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers BRD, Eddy Duchin and His Orchestra - Vocal Refrain by Lew Sherwood REC Still Bringing Us Sunshine: Eric and Ernie's best moments". Daily Telegraph. 23 December 2016 . Retrieved 15 November 2020. Peggy Lee with Dave Barbour and His Orchestra REC, Frank Sinatra – Orchestra under the direction of Axel Stordahl RELIn 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] Roy Sone, Marti Webb and The Rita Williams Chorus with The New World Theatre Orchestra conducted by Cyril Stapleton Desmond Bernard O'Connor CBE (12 January 1932 – 14 November 2020) was an English comedian, singer and television presenter.