Grantham’s Roy Taylor was a self-confessed “turnip wrangler from the Redneck Riviera” until he was inflamed by skiffle and touched by the transformative wand of the UK’s first pop impresario, Larry Parnes.
On his first night in the mogul’s “Stable of Stars”, he was nearly touched by something else of Parnes’s, and only a night of sleepless vigilance with one hand on a hefty bedside lamp preserved his innocence . . .
Subsequently, Taylor/Eager found success offset by overwork, the unwanted attentions of Burt Lancaster and Parnes’s cheap publicity wheezes – like the Triumph Herald he scored for his 19th birthday and later found docked from his wages.
In the years that followed the Parnes era, Eager toured on the cabaret circuit and performed in theatre and pantomime. For five years he starred in the award-winning West End musical Elvis.
In 1986, he relocated to Fort Lauderdale, Florida (USA) where he worked as a Cruise Director on American luxury cruise ships. He now lives in Nottinghamshire.
