Singer/songwriter Max Bygraves was enormously popular in postwar England, releasing a steady stream of popular "singalong" records while being widely seen and heard on television, radio, and in the movies. His most famous catch phrase was "I wanna tell you a story!"; his own story is a real-life tale of rags to riches.
Walter William Bygraves was one of six children of Battling Tom Smith, a flyweight professional boxer and occasional dockworker, in a rough part of London. Bygraves showed his talent early, singing and doing impersonations for customers along his paper route an...