Marty Wilde info from his Website
Marty Wilde was born Reginald Leonard Smith in a nursing home in Blackheath on April the 15th 1939, he was the only son of Reginald and Jessica Smith.
Marty lived in Greenwich until he and his mother moved to different parts of the country to follow Reg senior who was a Sandhurst trained Sergeant and was posted to Devon – and then on to Capel Curig North Wales to help train new army recruits for the war effort, and Marty attributes his time spent in these beautiful areas to the great love he has for the countryside.
When the war finished, Marty and family moved back again to Greenwich, and Marty began school at Halstow Road Primary School. He was there for several years before he went on to Charlton Central Secondary Modern School, finally leaving at the age of 15, and in his own words “totally unqualified” where he became a messenger boy in the city of London for a firm of brokers in Rood Lane, Eastcheap, and for a couple of years got to know Eastcheap pretty well.
Whilst running from office to office in the day time with the latest market prices of pepper and rubber, he would day dream about his future and window gaze in all the expensive tailor shops windows just hoping something exciting might happen for him and that one day he might be able to afford them – since he desperately wanted to become a singing star. He was fortunate enough to have learned to play the ukulele at a young age and this was later to prove fortuitous as the uke has the same tuning as a guitar, so, making it easy for him to move on and play the teenagers favourite instrument of the time. Marty formed a group with some of his local friends called Reg Smith and the Hound dogs, and he and the group would eventually play with some success at local gigs in the South of England, until eventually, bit by bit, word got around about this new band. As news about the new band began to filter to London, Marty was approached by Joe Brunnely, a music publisher.
Joe offered Marty two weeks work as a solo artist in the West End of London. One week would be at the Blue Angel night Club, and the second week being at the Condor club which was in Soho. The Condor Club attracted lots of the personalities and stars of the day, such as Sterling Moss, and it was also rumoured – Princess Margaret. Whilst earning £1 a night plus a bowl of spaghetti, Marty was noticed by Larry Parnes, who, as Tommy Steele’s manager, was the most powerful manager in the UK, but when Larry went back stage to speak to Marty, he was told Marty had gone home rather swiftly, as he had to catch the last bus home to Greenwich. Marty had no idea that he had been spotted by the countries number one manager. However, Larry, being the business man he always was managed to obtain Marty’s address from the owners of the club, and the following day he headed down to Greenwich with a contract in his pocket and approached his parents to sign Marty up. Marty was under age to sign for himself.
The contract was signed and the career of Marty Wilde had begun….
