Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Also by Sean Smith Dedication Part One: Tommy Woodward 1 The Show-Off 2 The Prisoner of Laura Street 3 A Teenager in Love 4 The Making of a Man 5 The Girl with the Red Dress On 6 Senator Tom 7 The Green Fly Boys Part Two: Tom Jones 8 The Black Hole 9 It’s Not Unusual 10 Pussycat 11 Green, Green Grass 12 A Love Supreme 13 This Is Tom Jones 14 On Top of Miss World 15 The King and I 16 The Slump Part Three: Sir Tom 17 Kiss-Off 18 You Can Leave Your Hat On 19 My Best Friend’s Funeral 20 Reloading 21 In Search of Credibility 22 The Road 23 The Voice Last Thoughts Tom’s Stars Acknowledgements Select Bibliography List of Searchable Terms Picture Section About the Publisher
Copyright Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Also by Sean Smith Dedication Part One: Tommy Woodward 1 The Show-Off 2 The Prisoner of Laura Street 3 A Teenager in Love 4 The Making of a Man 5 The Girl with the Red Dress On 6 Senator Tom 7 The Green Fly Boys Part Two: Tom Jones 8 The Black Hole 9 It’s Not Unusual 10 Pussycat 11 Green, Green Grass 12 A Love Supreme 13 This Is Tom Jones 14 On Top of Miss World 15 The King and I 16 The Slump Part Three: Sir Tom 17 Kiss-Off 18 You Can Leave Your Hat On 19 My Best Friend’s Funeral 20 Reloading 21 In Search of Credibility 22 The Road 23 The Voice Last Thoughts Tom’s Stars Acknowledgements Select Bibliography List of Searchable Terms Picture Section About the Publisher
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First published by HarperCollins Publishers 2015
FIRST EDITION
© Sean Smith 2015
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Source ISBN: 9780008104450
Ebook Edition © March 2015 ISBN: 9780008104528
Version: 2015-07-10
Also by Sean Smith Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Also by Sean Smith Dedication Part One: Tommy Woodward 1 The Show-Off 2 The Prisoner of Laura Street 3 A Teenager in Love 4 The Making of a Man 5 The Girl with the Red Dress On 6 Senator Tom 7 The Green Fly Boys Part Two: Tom Jones 8 The Black Hole 9 It’s Not Unusual 10 Pussycat 11 Green, Green Grass 12 A Love Supreme 13 This Is Tom Jones 14 On Top of Miss World 15 The King and I 16 The Slump Part Three: Sir Tom 17 Kiss-Off 18 You Can Leave Your Hat On 19 My Best Friend’s Funeral 20 Reloading 21 In Search of Credibility 22 The Road 23 The Voice Last Thoughts Tom’s Stars Acknowledgements Select Bibliography List of Searchable Terms Picture Section About the Publisher
Kylie
Gary
Alesha
Tulisa
Kate
Robbie
Cheryl
Victoria
Justin: The Biography
Britney: The Biography
J. K. Rowling: A Biography
Jennifer: The Unauthorized Biography
Royal Racing
The Union Game
Sophie’s Kiss (with Garth Gibbs)
Stone Me! (with Dale Lawrence)
Dedication Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Also by Sean Smith Dedication Part One: Tommy Woodward 1 The Show-Off 2 The Prisoner of Laura Street 3 A Teenager in Love 4 The Making of a Man 5 The Girl with the Red Dress On 6 Senator Tom 7 The Green Fly Boys Part Two: Tom Jones 8 The Black Hole 9 It’s Not Unusual 10 Pussycat 11 Green, Green Grass 12 A Love Supreme 13 This Is Tom Jones 14 On Top of Miss World 15 The King and I 16 The Slump Part Three: Sir Tom 17 Kiss-Off 18 You Can Leave Your Hat On 19 My Best Friend’s Funeral 20 Reloading 21 In Search of Credibility 22 The Road 23 The Voice Last Thoughts Tom’s Stars Acknowledgements Select Bibliography List of Searchable Terms Picture Section About the Publisher
To HB
Cover
Title Page Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Also by Sean Smith Dedication Part One: Tommy Woodward 1 The Show-Off 2 The Prisoner of Laura Street 3 A Teenager in Love 4 The Making of a Man 5 The Girl with the Red Dress On 6 Senator Tom 7 The Green Fly Boys Part Two: Tom Jones 8 The Black Hole 9 It’s Not Unusual 10 Pussycat 11 Green, Green Grass 12 A Love Supreme 13 This Is Tom Jones 14 On Top of Miss World 15 The King and I 16 The Slump Part Three: Sir Tom 17 Kiss-Off 18 You Can Leave Your Hat On 19 My Best Friend’s Funeral 20 Reloading 21 In Search of Credibility 22 The Road 23 The Voice Last Thoughts Tom’s Stars Acknowledgements Select Bibliography List of Searchable Terms Picture Section About the Publisher
Copyright
Also by Sean Smith
Dedication
Part One: Tommy Woodward
1 The Show-Off
2 The Prisoner of Laura Street
3 A Teenager in Love
4 The Making of a Man
5 The Girl with the Red Dress On
6 Senator Tom
7 The Green Fly Boys
Part Two: Tom Jones
8 The Black Hole
9 It’s Not Unusual
10 Pussycat
11 Green, Green Grass
12 A Love Supreme
13 This Is Tom Jones
14 On Top of Miss World
15 The King and I
16 The Slump
Part Three: Sir Tom
17 Kiss-Off
18 You Can Leave Your Hat On
19 My Best Friend’s Funeral
20 Reloading
21 In Search of Credibility
22 The Road
23 The Voice
Last Thoughts
Tom’s Stars
Acknowledgements
Select Bibliography
List of Searchable Terms
Picture Section
About the Publisher
Part One
Even as a small boy, it was always about the voice. Tom calls it his ‘God-given gift’. Freda Woodward believed her son was musical as a baby when she held him in her arms: ‘As soon as music came on the radio, he would start to move like a jelly. And if you left him in his cot, he would make musical sounds at the top of his voice. I remember thinking, “What’s eating this boy?”’
Tom’s first memory of impressing his mother was when he was a blond, curly-haired five-year-old and she heard him singing the popular wartime novelty song ‘Mairzy Doats’. She asked him to sing it again, and when he had finished, she told him, ‘You’ve got a lovely voice.’ That parental approval was all the encouragement Tom needed to believe that he would be a singer one day. ‘I had this voice and the love of it. So any chance I could get, I wanted to get up and sing.’
Tommy Woodward liked an audience as a little lad. His first cousins, Jean and the twins Ada and Margaret, would come over to his parents’ house on Laura Street for a concert. There would just be time to have a fight with Margaret, which Tommy usually started by trying to stick a spider down the back of her neck, before it was showtime. His doting mother Freda knew the routine, because he used to pester her almost daily to announce him dramatically, in a proper show business fashion.
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