Sir Thomas Hicks (born 17 December 1936), known professionally as Tommy Steele, is an English entertainer, regarded as Britain's first teen idol and rock and roll star.

[1][2] After being discovered at the 2i's Coffee Bar in Soho, London, Steele recorded a string of hit singles including "Rock with the Caveman" (1956) and the chart-topper "Singing the Blues" (1957).

As an actor, he notably appeared in the films The Happiest Millionaire (1967) and Finian's Rainbow (1968) and as the lead in several West End productions of Singin' in the Rain.

[3] His father, Thomas Walter Hicks, was a racing tipster and his mother, Elizabeth "Betty" Ellen Bennett, worked in a factory; they had married in 1933, in Bermondsey.

[7] Whilst working as a merchant seaman, Steele learned to play guitar and began performing country and calypso music, inspired most by Hank Williams.

[4] Usually with the Cavemen, Steele began playing in Soho bars, including "Blue Suede Shoes" and "Heartbreak Hotel" alongside country songs in his set.

[13] A performance backed by members of the Vipers Skiffle Group at the 2i's Coffee Bar was seen by John Kennedy, a photographer and publicity man who, within two weeks, got Steele a deal with Decca.

[5][14][3] With impresario Larry Parnes, Kennedy arranged a publicity stunt in which Steele performed at a staged debutante ball, getting the singer his first national press in The People under the headline "Rock 'n' roll has got the debs too!".

[5][18] He promoted the single with his first television appearance, on bandleader Jack Payne's BBC series Off the Record, and quickly became a national teen idol.

[32] By the end of 1957, Steele had bought a four-bedroomed house in South London for his parents[33] and was reported to be earning more than British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.

[34] Steele made several appearances on the BBC programme Six-Five Special (1957–58), though agent Ian Bevan restricted the singer's bookings in the belief that television "tends to cheapen an artist of that nature".

[5] In May 1958, Steele was hospitalised after being mobbed by fans at a concert at Caird Hall, Dundee, having had his right arm hurt, chunks of his hair pulled out and his shirt ripped off.

[5] In September 1958, he appeared in the first episode of Oh Boy!, Jack Good's ITV series which featured several new British rock and roll stars, including Cliff Richard and Marty Wilde.

[14] In his 1970 book Revolt into Style: The Pop Arts in Britain, George Melly derided Steele’s films of being emblematic of the "castration of early rock and roll".

[47] In 1960, a tour of Australia had not been particularly successful and upon his return to England he received two offers, one to star in the play Billy Liar, the other to join the Old Vic Company.

In 1978, Steele performed in a TV movie version of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard (misspelt as "The Yeoman..."), singing the role of the hapless jester Jack Point.

When Steele lived in Montrose House, Petersham, Surrey, his life-sized sculpture of Charlie Chaplin as "The Tramp" stood outside his front door.

Steele co-wrote many of his early songs with Lionel Bart and Mike Pratt, but he used the pseudonym of Jimmy Bennett, using his mother's maiden name, from 1958 onwards.

Announced via a specially recorded video during the COVID-19 lockdown, Breakheart was a seven-episode audio thriller, written by Steele and set during the Second World War.

In June 2021, to celebrate his 65 years in the entertainment industry, his authorised biography, A Life in the Spotlight, was published by FontHill Media, written by fan and archivist Sebastian Lassandro.

Steele and Winifred Ann Donoghue or Donoughue (born 1936) married at St Patrick's Catholic Church, Soho Square, London, in spring 1960.

[63] Steele's rise to fame was satirised in the 1958 West End musical Expresso Bongo and its 1959 film adaptation starring Cliff Richard.