Career Beginning
Moving to Mansfield, Nottinghamshire at a young age, he attended the Southwell Minster Collegiate Grammar School (now Southwell Minster School) as a boarder. He made his stage debut in pantomime at the age of four.
In the early 1960s, Shane Fenton and The Fentones were an unknown teenage band who recorded a demo tape and mailed it in to a BBC programme with the hope of being picked to appear on TV. While awaiting a reply from the BBC, the band's 17-year-old singer Shane Fenton (born John Theakstone, 1944–1961) died as a result of the rheumatic fever he had suffered in childhood. The rest of the band (guitarists Jerry Wilcox and Mick Hay, bassist William "Bonny" Oliver and drummer Bobby Elliott) decided to break up, but then unexpectedly received a letter from the BBC inviting them to come to London to audition in person for the programme. Theakstone's mother asked the band to stay together, and to keep its name, in honour of her son's memory. Jewry, who was a roadie with the group at the time, was asked to become the new Shane Fenton. The combo had a handful of hits in the UK Singles Chart, basing their sound on that of The Shadows. Jewry later also appeared in Billy Fury's movie, Play It Cool. He was managed by Larry Parnes.
Read more about this topic: Alvin Stardust
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