He had it all - looks, a fine voice, legions of female admirers. But Liverpool’s Mr Moonlight had lost some of the spotlight . . . until now. David Charters reports

TO MOST of us whose knee joints now groan, he was a rare old dandy, a supreme, high-kicking master of the stage – spinning his boater and twirling his cane with the best of them, while crooning for the moonlight and quickening lonely hearts.

For us, he was the bridge between music-hall and rock and roll.

But is he being forgotten, slipping from the pantheon of great Liverpool stars, despite his unique contribution to showbiz?

The question troubles his widow, to whom he will always be the most romantic man in the world, her handsome boy, still able to make the roses bloom, heart-red, on their wedding anniversary.

Of course, he’s gone in the sense that we all understand it. Frankie Vaughan died in 1999, but to her he is always there.

Other Liverpool stars, such as Billy Fury, John Lennon and George Harrison, have shone just as brightly after their deaths. Statues have been sculpted to celebrate their enduring popularity.

But that hasn’t happened yet for Frankie, though, in the 1950s and 60s, he scored 30 Top 30 entries, including two number ones and nine other top-tenners. He also appeared in films, most significantly, Let’s Make Love (1961), where he famously resisted the amorous advances of his co-star, Marilyn Monroe.

Frankie’s widow, Stella Vaughan, is hoping all that will change with the release of a double disc set, featuring a 90-minute DVD of previously unseen performances and interviews with friends, celebrities and admirers, as well as a 16-song CD.

“A very funny thing happened after he died in the September,” she recalls. “Our anniversary was June 6. My son, David, and I went outside the front door. We had a rose tree at the side. The day before our anniversary, there were no flowers on it or anything. But, on our anniversary, there were 12 roses. That is absolutely true. I have a photograph taken with them and I took one of the roses and I pressed it.”

As a handsome man, a dark six-footer, with what the ladies might coyly call a manly physique, Frankie, or Frank, as Stella always called him, was the most romantic and sexy singer before skiffle and rock and roll.

He was born in 1928, as the Great Depression was about to grip the country. His father, Isaac, had an upholstery shop on Lodge Lane, and the family lived in Devon Street, near London Road, before moving to Eversley Street, off Granby Street, in the racially mixed Liverpool 8 district. Frankie was strongly aware of Liverpool’s underworld and the temptations of crime.

This knowledge would influence his later work with boys’ clubs and the knife and razor gangs in Glasgow. In 1964, he served a committee set up to advise on juvenile delinquency. Four years later, he persuaded Glaswegian youths to give up their weapons.

With a slight improvement in their circumstances, the hard-working Ablesons next settled on Smithdown Road, while Frankie attended the Harrison Jones School and began singing in the choir at the Synagogue of the Old Hebrew Congregation, on Princes Road, receiving 12 shillings and sixpence (about 65p) a week.

His mother was a seamstress and his father was constantly busy, so Frankie spent much time with his grandmother, Freda Kozak, who showed him the sites of Merseyside, including the Pier Head and New Brighton, and various museums and galleries.

On the outbreak of war, Frankie was evacuated, first to Cumbria, and then Lancaster, where he joined the local boys’ club, becoming a fine boxer, footballer and a county table-tennis player.

Art was also luring Frankie and, when he was 14, his thesis on the Royal Liver Building won him a scholarship to the Lancaster College of Art. He transferred to Leeds College, when the family moved again.