David Heneker

David Heneker was born in Southsea, Hampshire on 31st March 1906.  He was a British lyricist best-known for his score of the hit musical Half a Sixpence, and the winner of three Ivor Novello Awards (given to outstanding British songwriters and composers). Heneker's musical career didn't truly get going until after World War II, when he began playing piano in London clubs on a regular basis, as well as writing and recording his own original compositions. His first scores for a musical came in 1958, when he collaborated with Monty Norman on the satire on London lowlife Expresso Bongo, following it up shortly thereafter with Irma la Douce (a collaboration with Norman and Julian More), which turned out to be a big hit on the West End of London. It eventually opened in the US, becoming a hit on Broadway in 1960, and was made into a movie starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine in 1963. But it was Half a Sixpence that became Heneker's tour de force. First performed in 1963 in London, it featured Tommy Steele when it opened on Broadway in 1965 and also became a film in 1967. Heneker also wrote the music for Charlie Girl (1965), The Biograph Girl (1980) and Peg (1984).  Heneker died near Cardigan, Wales, in 2001 at the age of 94.