| George Formby was born at 3 Westminster Street, Wigan, Lancashire and was named George Hoy Booth, george was the eldest of seven children (four girls and three boys). His father (James Booth) was George Formby, Sr. (1875-1921) one of the great music hall comedians of his day. On the death of his father in 1921, Formby started his own music hall career using his father's material. He originally called himself George Hoy after his maternal grandfather's name.
Formby endeared himself to his audiences with his cheeky Lancashire humour and folksy north of England persona. In film and on stage, he generally adopted the character of an honest, good-hearted but accident-prone innocent who used the phrases: "It's turned out nice again!" as an opening line; "Ooh, mother!" when escaping from trouble; and a timid "Never touched me!" after losing a fistfight. George Formby had been making phonograph records as early as 1926; his first successful records came in 1932 with the Jack Hylton Band, and his first sound film Boots! Boots! in 1934 (Formby had appeared in a sole silent film in 1915). The film was successful and he signed a contract to make a further 11 with Associated Talking Pictures, earned him a then-astronomical income of £100,000 per year. Between 1934 and 1945 Formby was the top comedian in British cinema, and at the height of his movie popularity (1939, when he was Britain's number-one film star of all genres), his film Let George Do It was exported to America. Although his films always did well in Great Britain and Canada, they never caught on in the United States. Columbia Pictures hired him for a series, with a handsome contract worth £500,000, but did not circulate his films stateside.
George Formby died in hospital on 6 March 1961 after suffering his second heart attack, the first of which came in 1952, just a short time after performing in his last recorded concert. His funeral was held in St. Charles' Church in Aigburth, Liverpool and an estimated 100,000 mourners lined the route as his coffin was driven to Warrington Cemetery, where he was buried in the Booth family grave.
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