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      Michael Apted, Versatile Director Known for ‘Up’ Series, Dies at 79

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMichael Apted, Versatile Director Known for ‘Up’ Series, Dies at 79His output included “Coal Miner’s Daughter” and a James Bond film. But he was best known for his long-running documentary series about life in Britain.The director Michael Apted with, from left, Jackie Bassett, Lynn Johnson and Susan Davis, three of the subjects of his documentary “28 Up” (1984), the fourth in a series that began with “Seven Up!” in 1964 and followed the lives of a group of British people in roughly seven-year intervals. (Ms. Johnson died in 2013.)Credit…Granada TelevisionJan. 8, 2021, 7:01 p.m. ETMichael Apted, a versatile director whose films were as varied as the James Bond picture “The World Is Not Enough” and the biographical dramas “Gorillas in the Mist” and “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” and who made his most lasting mark with the “Up” documentary series, which followed the lives of a group of British people in seven-year intervals for more than a half century, died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 79.His agent in the United States, Roy Ashton, confirmed the death but did not specify a cause.Mr. Apted, who was British, was a researcher at Granada Television in England when he helped pick the 14 children, all of them 7, who became the subjects of “Seven Up!,” the initial documentary in the “Up” series, which was directed by Paul Almond and shown on British television in 1964.The film was intended as a one-off, but Mr. Apted picked up the ball seven years (more or less) later, acting as director of “7 Plus Seven,” broadcast in England in late 1970, in which he interviewed the same children, now at a more developed stage of life.Then came “21 Up” in 1977, “28 Up” in 1984 and so on, with new installments arriving every seven years, all directed by Mr. Apted. “63 Up” was released in 2019.Collectively, the films became a serial portrait of a group of ordinary people advancing through life, from childhood through adulthood, charting their different paths, changing perspectives and various fates (one participant, Lynn Johnson, died in 2013). The New York Times in 2019 called it “the most profound documentary series in the history of cinema.”The intent of the original program in 1964 was to look at different segments of Britain’s class system. Thanks to Mr. Apted’s persistence, “Up” became something more.“I realized for the first time, after 20 years on the project, that I really hadn’t made a political film at all,” he wrote in 2000. “What I had seen as a significant statement about the English class system was in fact a humanistic document about the real issues of life.”Mr. Apted in Los Angeles in 2012. His “Up” series, The New York Times said in 2019, was “the most profound documentary series in the history of cinema.”Credit…Robert Yager for The New York TimesManohla Dargis, summarizing “63 Up” in The Times, wrote, “There’s great pleasure in revisiting this series, seeing who turned out just fine and sometimes better than you might have expected or hoped.”While revisiting “Up” periodically across six decades, Mr. Apted worked in television and commercial film.“Agatha” (1979), a fictional drama about the novelist Agatha Christie, starred Vanessa Redgrave in the title role. Mr. Apted had particular success in the 1980s, beginning in 1980 with “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” about the country singer Loretta Lynn, played by Sissy Spacek, who won the best-actress Oscar.Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn in Mr. Apted’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter” (1980). She won an Oscar for her performance.Credit…Universal StudiosThe next year he directed the John Belushi-Blair Brown comedy “Continental Divide”; two years later came the crime drama “Gorky Park,” based on the Martin Cruz Smith novel, starring William Hurt. In 1988 there was “Gorillas in the Mist,” the story of the naturalist Dian Fossey; its five Oscar nominations included one for Sigourney Weaver, who played Ms. Fossey.Mr. Apted’s 1990s films included “Thunderheart” (1992), a thriller with Val Kilmer, and the drama “Nell” (1994), a vehicle for Jodie Foster. Then came his entry in the James Bond franchise — “The World Is Not Enough” (1999), with Pierce Brosnan as agent 007.In a 2010 interview with The Times, Mr. Apted reflected on his one regret about the “Up” series — that his initial choice of children was unbalanced, 10 boys but only 4 girls — and how his choices of mainstream films might have been a way to compensate for that.“The biggest social revolution in my life, growing up in England, has been the change in the role of women in society,” he said. “We didn’t have civil rights and Vietnam in England, but I think that particular social revolution is the biggest thing, and I missed it by not having enough women. And because I didn’t have enough women, I didn’t have enough choice of what options were in front of women who were building careers and having families and all this sort of stuff.”He continued: “Looking at everything from ‘Agatha’ through ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter,’ from ‘Nell’ and “Continental Divide,’ they’re all to do with women’s role in society and what women have to do to have a role in society, or the choices women have to make to stay in society or have a voice in society, in both straightforward and eccentric ways. That’s always interested me. And that, I think, stems from the feeling that I slightly missed out.”Alex Traub contributed reporting.A complete obituary will appear shortly.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Lee Breuer, Adventurous Theater Director, Dies at 83

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyLee Breuer, Adventurous Theater Director, Dies at 83One of the founders of Mabou Mines, he reveled in being an outsider even when his celebrated “The Gospel at Colonus” reached Broadway.Lee Breuer, the director of “Peter and Wendy,” in 1997 with two of the puppets featured in that production.Credit…Suzanne DeChillo/The New York TimesPublished More

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      William Link, Co-Creator of ‘Columbo’ and ‘Murder, She Wrote,’ Dies at 87

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeHoliday TVBest Netflix DocumentariesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWilliam Link, Co-Creator of ‘Columbo’ and ‘Murder, She Wrote,’ Dies at 87With his writing partner, Richard Levinson, Mr. Link helped shape the crime-drama genre on television for decades.William Link at his office in 2010. With his writing partner, he created the TV series “Mannix,” “Murder, She Wrote” and “Columbo.” Credit…Bob Chamberlin/Los Angeles Times, via Getty ImagesJan. 5, 2021, 2:56 p.m. ETWilliam Link, a prolific screenwriter who created classics of American television like “Columbo” and “Murder, She Wrote,” doing so in a writing partnership with a friend from junior high school that lasted nearly 40 years, died on Dec. 27 in Los Angeles. He was 87.His wife, Margery Nelson, confirmed the death, at a hospital.Mr. Link’s stories about unkempt detectives and persistent private eyes shaped the mystery and crime-drama television genre. With his partner, Richard Levinson, he also created shows like “Mannix,” “Jericho” and “Blacke’s Magic.”“Murder, She Wrote” starred Angela Lansbury as a mystery writer who solves crimes in the fictional Maine town of Cabot Cove. Network executives were initially skeptical of the idea of a female protagonist who wears reading glasses.But after they were sold on it, the series became one of the longest-running in television history and remains in syndication today. (Peter S. Fischer was also credited as a creator.)Angela Lansbury in “Murder, She Wrote,” which Mr. Link created with Richard Levinson and Peter S. Fischer.Credit…Corymore ProductionsAnother Link-Levinson production, “Tenafly,” starring James McEachin, was one of the first detective series to feature a Black lead actor.Their television movies also broke ground: “That Certain Summer” (1972), a drama that generated wide publicity, starred Martin Sheen as a divorced father who struggles to reveal his homosexuality to his 14-year-old son. “My Sweet Charlie” (1970), adapted from a novel and play by David Westheimer, depicted the friendship that forms between a Black New York lawyer (Al Freeman Jr.), who is falsely accused of murder, and a white pregnant teenager (Patty Duke), whom he encounters while on the run in Texas. The movie brought Mr. Link and Mr. Levinson an Emmy Award for outstanding writing in a drama.“Each time out, we tried to do something that hadn’t been seen before,” Mr. Link told The New York Times in 1987. “Something that would touch an emotional or social chord.”He met Mr. Levinson in junior high school in Philadelphia in 1946. After discovering that they both liked detective stories, they hit it off. “I was told to find a tall guy who liked to do magic and read mysteries,” Mr. Link told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1987, “and he was told, ‘There’s a short guy who reads mysteries and does magic.’”They began writing radio scripts and stories together as they discussed their mutual admiration of the director Billy Wilder. After graduation, they both attended the Wharton business school at the University of Pennsylvania.They sold their first short story, to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, in 1954. When Mr. Link was drafted into the Army and sent to Germany in the late 1950s, they continued collaborating on stories by airmail. In the 1960s, they decided to try their luck in Hollywood.As they started writing episodes for shows like “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and “The Fugitive” and creating their own, like “Mannix,” they became a prolific unit: rising early, brewing coffee and pounding out scripts to send to studios. (Mr. Link paced while Mr. Levinson typed.)They first brought the scruffy Lieutenant Columbo to life in a 1960 episode of the anthology series “The Chevy Mystery Show.” He appeared again in a play by Mr. Link and Mr. Levinson and later in a television movie they wrote, “Prescription: Murder.” The “Columbo” series, starring Peter Falk, began airing on NBC in 1971 and ran until 1978. The pair won an Emmy for their work, and the show was later revived on ABC.The first episode of the “Columbo” series, titled “Murder by the Book,” was directed by a 25-year-old Steven Spielberg. (In it, one member of a mystery writing team kills the other.)“Bill was one of my favorite and most patient teachers, and, more than anything, I learned so much from him about the true anatomy of a plot,” Mr. Spielberg said in a statement. “I caught a huge break when Bill and Dick trusted a young, inexperienced director to do the first episode of ‘Columbo.’”Mr. Link with Peter Falk, who portrayed the detective in “Columbo.” Mr. Link said of the character: “He’s a regular Joe: He’s the kind of guy you sit down, have a drink, a cup of coffee with.”William Theodore Link Jr. was born on Dec. 15, 1933, in Philadelphia and was raised in Elkins Park, a suburb. His mother, Elise (Rorecke) Link, was a homemaker. William Sr. was a textile broker who grew up in Hell’s Kitchen.Bill enjoyed drawing comic strips and began writing short mystery stories while still a boy. He and his Cub Scout friends recited his tales into a wire recorder and acted them out as if they were plays.“He loved reading Variety as a boy,” Ms. Nelson, his wife and only immediate survivor, said. “In Los Angeles, babies come out of the womb reading Variety, but he was probably the only kid in Philly reading Variety regularly in the 1940s.”Mr. Link graduated from Cheltenham High School in the early 1950s and earned a bachelor’s degree from Wharton in 1956. He married Ms. Nelson, an actor, in 1980.Mr. Levinson, who was a three-pack-a-day smoker, died of a heart attack in 1987. Afterward, Mr. Link experienced writer’s block and began seeing a psychiatrist to process the loss of his friend. The death led to his writing the television movie “The Boys” (1991), which starred John Lithgow and James Woods as two writers who develop a long partnership.“I had never written by myself; I had a fear I couldn’t write solo,” Mr. Link told The Philadelphia Inquirer that year. “I wrote the whole script in eight days. It usually took Dick and me a month. It poured out, like automatic writing. I felt like Dick was still in the room with me.”Mr. Link wrote well into his 80s, waking up early each morning to put words onto the page, and he contributed stories to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. In 2010, he published a book of original short stories about Lieutenant Columbo, bringing his best-known television character back to life years after the rumpled detective had been retired from the screen.In an interview with Mystery Scene Magazine at the time, Mr. Link reflected on the lasting adoration that people have for his cigar-chomping creation.“He’s a regular Joe,” he said. “He’s the kind of guy you sit down, have a drink, a cup of coffee with. He’s the regular working-class guy — who’s got a brilliant mind but doesn’t really tout it, you know? He’s humble, even to the murderer! And people identify with that. They like that.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Tanya Roberts, a Charlie’s Angel and a Bond Girl, Is Dead at 65

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeHoliday TVBest Netflix DocumentariesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTanya Roberts, a Charlie’s Angel and a Bond Girl, Is Dead at 65After finding stardom in the 1980s, she fell out of the spotlight until re-emerging in 1998 in the sitcom “That ’70s Show.”Tanya Roberts with Roger Moore in the 1985 James Bond film “A View to a Kill.” She had earlier starred in the last season of “Charlie’s Angels.”Credit…Alexis Duclos./Associated PressJan. 5, 2021Updated 1:30 p.m. ETTanya Roberts, the breathy-voiced actress who found fame in the 1980s as a detective on “Charlie’s Angels” and as a brave earth scientist in the James Bond film “A View to a Kill,” died on Monday night in Los Angeles. She was 65.Her death, at Cedars-Sinai Hospital, was confirmed on Tuesday by her companion, Lance O’Brien. Her publicist, who was given erroneous information, had announced her death to the news media early Monday, and some news organizations published obituaries about her prematurely.The publicist, Mike Pingel, said Ms. Roberts collapsed on Dec. 24 after walking her dogs near her Hollywood Hills home and was put on a ventilator at the hospital. He did not give the cause of death, but said it was not related to Covid-19. He said she had not been noticeably ill before she collapsed.Ms. Roberts’s big acting break came in her mid-20s, when she was cast in the fifth and last season of “Charlie’s Angels,” the ABC drama series that, trading on its stars’ sex appeal, followed the exploits of three attractive former police officers who often fought crime wearing short shorts, low-cut blouses and even bikinis.The show was an immediate hit in 1976, but Farrah Fawcett, its breakout star, left after one season, replaced by Cheryl Ladd. Kate Jackson quit in 1979, and her replacement, Shelley Hack, was gone after just one season. Ms. Roberts replaced Ms. Hack. Jaclyn Smith appeared throughout the series run.There were high hopes for Ms. Roberts when she joined the cast. Her character, Julie, had some of Ms. Jackson’s character’s streetwise attitude; Julie was known to knock a handgun right out of a tough criminal’s hand. Her part couldn’t save the show’s plummeting ratings, but it did lead to an active decade for her in Hollywood.Ms. Roberts, second from left, starred in “Charlie’s Angels” in its fifth and final season. The other “angels” in this 1980 photo were Cheryl Ladd, left, and Jaclyn Smith, right. Second from right is Patti D’Arbanville, who appeared in an episode.Credit…Getty ImagesMost notably, she was a “Bond girl,” playing a geologist threatened by a microchip-monopolist madman (Christopher Walken) in “A View to a Kill” (1985), Roger Moore’s last appearance as Agent 007.Ms. Roberts also appeared in “The Beastmaster” (1982), a fantasy film. And she played the title role in “Sheena” (1984), a highly publicized adventure film inspired by a queen-of-the-jungle comic book character. Sheena, a female Tarzan type, wore skimpy fur outfits with décolletage, rode a zebra, talked to animals and shape-shifted. The film flopped at the box office, and Ms. Roberts began fading from public view.She returned to the spotlight in 1998 on the sitcom “That ’70s Show” as the glamorous, youngish Midwestern mom of a teenage girl (Laura Prepon). In that role she was beautiful, slim and sexy — and delightfully dimwitted. The comic mystery, year after year, was how her short, dumpy husband, played by Don Stark with frighteningly overgrown sideburns, had ever won her heart. Ms. Roberts appeared on the show for three seasons and later made guest visits.She was born Victoria Leigh Blum in the Bronx on Oct. 15, 1955, the second of two daughters of Oscar Maximilian Blum, a fountain pen salesman, and Dorothy Leigh (Smith) Blum. According to some sources, Tanya was her nickname. She spent her childhood in the Bronx and lived briefly in Canada after her parents’ divorce. She began her career by running away from home to become a model when she was 15.Back in New York, she studied acting, appeared in some Off Broadway productions and worked as a model and a dance instructor to make ends meet. Her modeling career included work for Clairol and Ultra-Brite toothpaste. She made her screen debut in the horror thriller “The Last Victim” (1976), about a serial rapist-murderer.Ms. Roberts, right, in 1999 in a scene from the sitcom “That ’70s Show” with Laura Prepon, another star of the show. Ms. Roberts had kept a low profile for many years until re-emerging in the show.Credit…Frank Carroll/FoxAfter “Charlie’s Angels,” Ms. Roberts acted in both television and films. Her roles included the private eye Mike Hammer’s secretary in the television movie “Murder Me, Murder You” (1983), a detective working undercover at a sex clinic in “Sins of Desire” (1993) and a talk-radio host on the erotic anthology series “Hot Line” (1994-96). Her final screen appearance was on the Showtime series “Barbershop” in 2005.Even in her heyday, Ms. Roberts appeared not to enjoy being interviewed. Chatting with Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show” in 1981, she laughed nervously, gave short answers and flirted with Michael Landon, her fellow guest. At one point, Mr. Carson mentioned a cover article about her in People magazine, prompting Ed McMahon, the host’s sidekick, to suggest, “Maybe there’s something in the magazine that’d be interesting.”Ms. Roberts was a teenager when she married in 1971, but the union was quickly annulled at the insistence of her new mother-in-law. In 1974, she met Barry Roberts, a psychology student, while both were standing in line at a movie theater. They married that year. Mr. Roberts became a screenwriter and died in 2006 at 60.In addition to Mr. O’Brien, she is survived by a sister, Barbara Chase, who was Timothy Leary’s fourth wife.Ms. Roberts had always insisted that she was a New Yorker at heart, and not just because she hated driving.“L.A. drives you crazy,” she said in the 1981 People magazine article. “I’m used to weather and walking and people who say what they mean.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Gerry Marsden, a Hitmaker With the Pacemakers, Dies at 78

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGerry Marsden, a Hitmaker With the Pacemakers, Dies at 78For a time in the early ’60s, with songs like“Ferry Cross the Mersey,” “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” the Pacemakers rivaled the Beatles.Gerry Marsden, aloft, in a publicity photo with the other members of Gerry and Pacemakers in 1964. They  had the distinction of scoring a No. 1 hit in the U.K. before the Beatles did.Credit…Press Association, via Associated PressJan. 4, 2021Updated 6:49 p.m. ETGerry Marsden, whose band Gerry and the Pacemakers proved to be formidable rivals to the Beatles in the early Liverpool rock scene of the 1960s, scoring smash hits like “Ferry Cross the Mersey,” “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” died on Sunday in the Liverpool area. He was 78.His death, at Arrowe Park Hospital in the Merseyside metropolitan area, was confirmed by his family in a statement. British news outlets said the cause was a heart infection.Gerry and the Pacemakers were the second band signed by the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein, but they earned a No. 1 single on the official United Kingdom singles chart before the Beatles ever did, accomplishing that feat in 1963 with their debut single, “How Do You Do It.” It beat the Beatles’ maiden chart-topper, “From Me to You,” by three weeks.The Pacemakers’ next two singles, “I Like It” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” followed suit, making them the first act to summit the U.K. singles chart with their first three releases. They held that record for two decades, until another Liverpool band, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, matched it.The Pacemakers didn’t write their first burst of hits; the first two were by Mitch Murray, while the band plucked the valiant ballad “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Carousel.” (The Beatles recorded an earlier version of the effervescent “How Do You Do It” at the behest of their producer George Martin, but they weren’t pleased with the song, so it wasn’t released at the time. It didn’t surface until three decades later on the Beatles’ “Anthology 1” collection.)Mr. Marsden’s talent as a songwriter emerged in 1964, first as co-writer, with his bandmates, of “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying,” then as the sole writer of “Ferry Cross the Mersey,” named for the waterway that flows by Liverpool.The melodies in those songs had a grandeur that exuded both melancholy and rapture, enhanced by Mr. Marsden’s billowing voice. While he could nail the bouncy flair of the band’s lighter singles and mirror it with his brisk rhythm guitar work, his soaring range gave him the chops to turn songs like “You’ll Never Walk Alone” into anthems. His group’s version of “Walk Alone” became the signature song of the Liverpool Football Club and was later adopted by sports teams around the world.The Pacemakers took off more slowly in the United States. Their first trifecta of U.K. hits missed the American charts before “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” soared to No. 4 in Billboard magazine and “Ferry Cross the Mersey” got to No. 6. The group had two other U.S. scores, a rereleased “I Like It” and “I’ll Be There,” which each made Billboard’s Top 20 in 1964.After his death, Paul McCartney wrote on Twitter: “Gerry was a mate from our early days in Liverpool. He and his group were our biggest rivals on the local scene. His unforgettable performances of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ and ‘Ferry Cross the Mersey’ remain in many people’s hearts as reminders of a joyful time in British music.”Mr. Marsden in 1964. The Pacemakers’ melodies had a grandeur that exuded both melancholy and rapture, enhanced by Mr. Marsden’s billowing voice.Credit…Keystone/Getty ImagesGerard Marsden was born on Sept. 24, 1942, in the Toxteth section of Liverpool to Fredrick and Mary (McAlindin) Marsden. His father was a railway clerk who played the ukulele, The Guardian once wrote. His parents encouraged both Gerry and his older brother, Fred, to play instruments. Gerry chose guitar; Fred, the drums.The brothers’ first band, Gerry Marsden and the Mars Bars, played skiffle music, a British precursor to rock ’n’ roll. After the Mars company objected to the band’s appropriating the name of their signature chocolate candy, they became Gerry and the Pacemakers, rounded out by Les Chadwick on bass and Les Maguire on piano.The quartet honed their skills in the same clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg, Germany, that nurtured the Beatles. “In 1959, we started playing rock ’n’ roll to the Germans,” Mr. Marsden told the New Zealand television show “The Beat Goes On” in 2009. “We used to play from 7 in the evening until 2 in the morning, with a 15-minute break every hour. It was a great apprenticeship in music.”Mr. Epstein met the group at the record store he ran, NEMS Music. After seeing them play, he signed them and secured a deal with Columbia Records. To Mr. Marsden’s delight, Mr. Martin produced their early recordings. “We had only heard our voices on crummy tape recorders before,” he told the website the Beatles Bible. “We couldn’t believe we sounded so good.”The group’s string of British No. 1’s nearly amounted to four, but their single “I’m the One,” penned by Mr. Marsden, missed the top slot by one position, just behind “Needles and Pins,” by another Liverpudlian band, the Searchers. In 1965, the group played themselves in a movie musical comedy, “Ferry Cross the Mersey,” but it wasn’t popular and drew unflattering comparisons to the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” from a year earlier.“It is mildly funny,” The New York Times wrote. “But we’ve seen it all before.”The group had their final American Top 40 score in September 1966 with “Girl on a Swing.” One month later, they disbanded. Mr. Marsden afterward worked as a solo performer before reforming the Pacemakers in 1974, without chart success.Mr. Marsden sang before a soccer match at Anfield Stadium in Liverpool in 2010. His group’s version of “Walk Alone” became the signature song of the Liverpool Football Club.Credit…Michael Regan/Getty ImagesIn the 1980s, Mr. Marsden reclaimed the No. 1 position twice in the U.K. with re-recordings of his ’60s hits for charitable causes. Following a fire in 1985 at the Bradford Football Stadium in Yorkshire that killed 56 people, he formed a group called the Crowd to cut a new version of “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”Four years later, following a fatal human crush during a football match at Hillsborough Stadium in South Yorkshire, he joined with Paul McCartney, Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood and other artists to rerecord “Ferry Cross the Mersey,” to benefit families of the victims. Mr. Marsden continued to tour the oldies circuit until retiring in November 2018.He married Pauline Behan in 1965, and she survives him, along with their daughters Yvette and Victoria. His brother, Fred, died of cancer in 2006.Even into his later years, the famously humble Mr. Marsden remained surprised by his band’s international success.“I used to believe you had to be something special to have a hit record,” he said on “The Beat Goes On.” “We were just kids from Liverpool.”He recalled that even when his band’s debut single, “How Did You Do It,” took off, his mother wouldn’t let it go to his head: “When I told my mom that the song was going to be No. 1, she said: ‘That’s great. Now finish your fish and chips.’”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More