Adam Faith

Born Terry Nelhams on a council estate in Acton, west London, he was one of Britain's top three pop stars of the pre-Beatles' era alongside Cliff Richard and Billy Fury, with chart hits including number one singles What Do You Want and Poor Me.

Having left school at the age of fifteen he found employment as a messenger boy for the Rank Organisation and moved into the cutting rooms. He formed a skiffle group, The Worried Men,  with  some workmates formed the Worried Men. Nelhams was the lead singer and they performed at the 2 I's coffee bar in Old Compton Street. When the BBC broadcast a live edition of the teenage programme 6.5 Special from the 2 I's the producer Jack Good recognized Nelhams's potential. It was Good who suggested that Nelhams call himself Adam Faith, combining the names of two of Good's friends, Adam Freemantle and Nicholas Faith.

Faith's next big break came when John Barry, the musical director of 6-5 Special, introduced him to song writer Johnny Worth who offered to write for Adam. With a string arrangement which was heavily influenced by Buddy Holly's final records, What Do You Want? was soon selling 50,000 copies a day and became No 1 in the hit parade and the first of Adam's 16 Top 20 records over the next five years.  This was followed by another number one, Poor Me, and a number two, Someone Else's Baby.  Faith later recalled 'Mum and Day helped me get a job in a film studio, working in the cutting rooms.  Then when I changed my mind and wanted to become a singer, they were a little disappointed, but they didn't tell me I was doing the wrong thing.  They went along with my decision.  I'm glad they did.  Once show business gets into your blood you can think of nothing else.  I shall go on and hope my luck holds out.'

Fans copied Faith's brushed-forward hairstyle, and he appeared in a film set in Soho, Beat Girl (1960).  The score included an atmospheric top ten single, Made You, which was banned by the BBC for its sexual connotations.  

The arrival of Mersey Beat led to a change of style with Faith

 Although Faith was a long way from being the best of Britain's rock and roll singers, he was easily the best actor among them. In the late 1960s he went into repertory and learnt his craft. His performance as Billy Liar in the stage version of the film, in 1969, prompted its authors, Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, to create the television series Budgie (1971–2).

Faith was also successful as a manager. He co-produced Leo Sayer's first hits—The Show Must Go On and One Man Band and by the late 1980s was writing financial columns for the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. Meanwhile Faith's acting career continued. In 1992–4 he starred alongside Zoë Wanamaker in the BBC drama series Love Hurts, which ran for three series. He was touring in Love and Marriage and considering a further series of Love Hurts and concert appearances when he died from a heart attack at the North Stafford Royal Infirmary, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, on 8 March 2003. Faith admitted to being a bit of a workaholic.  At the height of his fame he declared: 'Success is a strange thing.  Your work like a madman searching for it, then when you do make it big you go on working like a madman trying to keep it.'

See Adam Faith sing 'It's Alright'