SHAZAM

George Formby Sr. was the prototype of the northern comedy act, and passed on much of what he learned to his son, who became an even brighter star in the British music hall than his father. Born in 1877, the elder Formby spent much of his youth working in a Manchester iron foundry and there developed a harsh cough he later made part of his act. The catch phrase "coughing better tonight" made him a working-class hero for those who shared his condition (and would later die of bronchitis, as he did). Formby specialized in the character of the henpecked husband, a northern archetype, and recorded several times before his early death in 1921. Though he had been reluctant to see his son enter the business, the younger Formby, still just a teenager, began performing after his father's death, initially reprising several of his father's routines. ~ John Bush, Rovi