He was born in Jarrow, County Durham, but within a few weeks of his birth moved to South Shields where his father owned a pawnbroker's shop.

[2] For much of his career he was guided and managed by his mother, Georgina (née Wood), and by his teens he had become the family's main earner.

[5] However, according to music hall historian Roger Wilmut, Wood's material "is difficult to take today – such humour as there is is swamped by a treacly sentimentality...".

[7] He was considered to have been one of the most successful pantomime stars of his era and remained a popular performer through the 1920s and 1930s, though his style became increasingly outdated and it became more difficult for him to act the part of a child.

[2] He married an American entertainer, Ewing Eaton, on 7 April 1933,[8] though the marriage was brief and in later years Wood refused to speak of it.

Wood never forgot the remark; reportedly he could never recount the story without bursting into tears, though with age and experience, "he learned to treat his shortness with a degree of humour".

He is also mentioned in the High & Dry episode "The Pier", in which Trevor suggests that they could hire Wee Georgie Wood at the pier theatre, and in the Last of the Summer Wine episode "A Short Blast of Fred Astaire" in which Pearl tells her husband Howard he's not "big enough to be Wee Georgie Wood!