Tommy Steele

British rock 'n' roll musician Tommy Steele is fit as a fiddle at 85, but his health in childhood wasn't so good.

Born Thomas Willam Hicks in Mason Street Bermondsey, London, he catapulted to fame as the frontman for the band The Steelmen. "When I learned of the madness [that King George III suffered from] I panicked - and so did my mum," Steele continued. Steele said: "The war had been over three or four years, and I was trapped in hospital bed. "All my ill health happened before I was 11 and I was ill for four years," he revealed. In a candid interview with the Glasgow Times, Steele said: "I've been lucky, mate." In 1983, Steele directed and starred in the West End stage production of Singin' in the Rain at the famed London Palladium.