The Val Parnell Story: They called his father ‘Variety’s first gentleman…’
As managing director Val Parnell retires, ATV’s staff newspaper looks back at his long career
VAL PARNELL gives up his post as our Managing Director this month and will be succeeded by Mr Lew Grade, his Deputy.
He has had a remarkable career — rising from a 5/- a week office boy to holding Managing Directorships of two of Britain’s biggest entertainment organisations — Moss Empires and then ATV.
He built up Moss Empires into the world’s biggest theatre circuit — at one time controlling 30 theatres and music halls.
He has brought the public — first in theatres and then on television — the world’s greatest entertainers. Many of them were unknown performers till “V.P.” gave them their first chance.
He came into commercial television at the start. In 1957 he took over as full time Managing Director of ATV and turned our £1,500,000 losses into a profit.
He will still continue his association with the Company — as Executive Producer of “Sunday Night at the London Palladium” and as a Director of ATV.
But now, for the first time in 57 years, “V.P.” will no longer arrive in a theatrical or television office in the morning for the start of a day’s work …
VAL PARNELL was born into show business.
His father was Fred Russell, a famous top of the bill entertainer and the pioneer of ventriloquism as it is known today.
Fred Russell was the first “vent” to face an audience with a single dummy. Till then, ventriloquists worked with as many as a dozen dolls. Arthur Worsley, Peter Brough and all the others have followed in his footsteps.
REVOLUTIONISED
Years later, it was his son who revolutionised the British Music Hall by streamlining running orders, cutting artistes’ time on the stage and presenting, for the first time. “High Speed Variety” as we know it today.
Val Parnell, born on St Valentine’s Day, was two years old when his father gave up the editorship of the Hackney Gazette to become a full time entertainer with his Pearly King dummy “Coster Joe”.
He had been given a tryout at the Palace Theatre — for £10 [about £1,100 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed]. He did so well he stayed 20 months.
At that time, Victorian England was rocked with a sensational divorce case involving an Irish politician named Parnell and Kitty O’Shea, a married woman. To avoid confusion, Thomas Frederick Parnell became Fred Russell.
For the next 40 years Fred Russell was a star. He was a contemporary of Marie Lloyd, Little Tich, Charles Chaplin—all the great entertainers in the lush golden hey-day of British music-hall.
But conditions were very different to those today. Artistes had little or no protection. There was no standard contract between managements and performers. Fred Russell saw the need for variety performers to organise themselves.
With the help of a few fellow performers he organised a trade union — the Variety Artistes’ Federation. And Fred Russell became its first chairman.
BRIEF STRIKE
Managements, however, didn’t take too kindly to the idea. And although, after a brief strike, the music-hall performers won the right to negotiate conditions of employment and obtained a standard contract which, with modifications, is still in use today, Fred Russell found himself ostracised.
For four years he was unable to secure any worthwhile bookings in this country. So, instead, he embarked on World tours visiting America, Australia, Canada, South Africa and other countries — anywhere where they spoke English.
The postscript to this, of course, is that earlier this year his son found himself in dispute with the same union his father founded. But, fortunately for all, the disagreement was short lived.
Fred Russell died in 1957 — aged 95. And there is a bronze bust to “Variety’s First Gentleman” in the foyer of the London Palladium.
TOY THEATRES
With this background, it is no surprise that his son’s first playthings were toy theatres.
At 13, Val Parnell ran away from boarding school in Margate, to enter show business. But he never thought of himself as a performer. It was the managerial side that attracted him.
His first job — as a 5/- [25p in decimal, about £26 now] a week office boy with Sir Walter de Frece, husband of Vesta Tilley, who ran a theatrical company and a few small theatres. At night, he went to Pitman’s to learn shorthand.
When he was 15, he added 12/6d [62½p in decimal, about £64 now] to his 7/6d [37½p in decimal, about £38 now] a week wages by going from his day time office job to sell tickets at night at the box office at the Metropole Theatre, Camberwell.
BOOKING ACTS
A couple of years later he was booking acts for four small provincial theatres.
The end of 1914 saw Parnell in the army and he served overseas until 1919 when he returned to England to resume his employment with Sir Walter de Frece.
When de Frece sold out to the Charles Gulliver circuit, Val Parnell became booking manager for 10 of Gulliver’s provincial theatres — one of these was the newly opened Birmingham Hippodrome.
Here, Val Parnell found himself in opposition to two Moss Theatres in the same town. Both were regarded as No. 1 dates.
The stars naturally preferred working for the well established Moss circuit. And, just to make things more difficult, all Moss contracts had a barring clause against appearances at Birmingham Hippodrome.
Parnell, finding he couldn’t get headline attractions, decided on a new policy. For a start, he booked many more acts per bill. He cut their time, streamlined their routines. And at Birmingham Hippodrome, modern fast moving variety was born.
In 1928, the Gulliver circuit was sold to The General Theatre Corporation and Val Parnell took over the booking of the whole chain of theatres, including the London Palladium. In 1931 the newly formed General Theatre Corporation took over the management of The Moss Empire Chain of Theatres and Val Parnell became General Manager and in complete charge of the booking of all artistes and attractions.
NEXT TIME: His battle with Sir Oswald Stoll . . . The start of the Crazy Gang . . . When Tessie O’Shea fell off an elephant . . . How Jerry Allen of “Lunch Box’’ got his start.
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