86/365:Everybody's got a crazy notion of their own

Picked up my GF books from the library on my way home from work. The nice lady in there deserves a medal for not laughing when she got them off the shelf for me :)
 
I'm a Formby convert - I used to dislike him and now I actually like him, quite a lot actually. And to be honest, the more I know about him the more I like him.
 
Why I personally love George Formby:
● He was awarded the Order of Lenin for being the funniest man on the Russian screen (for some reason that tickled me)
● He was extremely modest - about his talent and his fame. He was quoted as saying, "I wasn't very good, but I seemed to have something the public liked." 
● He wasn't motivated by money. In 1942, at the height of his fame, he was asked to perform at the Carnegie Hall in New York (and he could have asked for any fee he wanted at that point - the starting offer was £15,000 for one night!) and he refused because he said, "You see I have this 14 years-old-dog back home and he isn't very well."
● During WW2 he entertained 1000s of troops for which he was awarded an OBE. He turned down many very well-paid engagements during the war years to be with the troops. By 1946 it was estimated that he had entertained 3 million serving men and women.
● When GF toured South Africa in the 1940s he was one of the few performers who refused to perform in racially segregated venues. He was once cheered by a black audience after embracing a small black girl who had presented his wife with a gift. When the National Party leader confronted them to complain Formby's wife Beryl replied, "Why don't you piss off, you horrible little man?"

There were, and always will be, loads of better singers, ukulele players and actors... but there was, and only ever will be, one George Formby.