Eric James has died

Eric James 11 August 1913 - 28 March 2006

Eric James joined the BBC in 1945 after serving over four years in the
Royal Air Force and during the next 20 years did more than a thousand
broadcasts, made records for HMV and Decca, played piano at the Royal
Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall and all of the principal Theatres and
Concert Halls in Great Britain. Eric traveled the world to entertain
Service men and women in Germany, Austria, North Africa, East Africa,
the Middle East, Cyprus, Malta, Far East, including Hong Kong,
Singapore, Malaysia, North Borneo, Japan, Korea and subsequently did a
number of trips entertaining the passengers on P & O's Luxury Cruise
ships.He accompanied a great many famous stars: Larry Adler, Julie
Andrews, Ann Blyth, Gracie Fields, Vera Lynn, Joan Hammond, Jayne
Mansfield, Harry Secombe, Topol, Frankie Vaughan to mention a few. Eric
had his own Radio series "Piano Playtime" and could be heard
regularly with Wilfred Pickles, Elsie & Doris Waters, Stanley Holloway,
and other stars with their series for the BBC. Eric conducted the
orchestra at the New Theatre in London's West End for two years for
the famous "Oliver" Musical and worked at the film studios as Vocal
Coach for "Trottie True", "Oliver", "Too Hot to Handle",
and "Fiddler on the Roof". Eric met Charlie Chaplin in 1956 when he
was directing "A King in New York" for which he was engaged to
record a solo piano sequence for the film. As a result of this
successful assignment, Eric was invited by Chaplin to work with him at
his home in Vevey, Switzerland on a number of films that he thought
would be greatly improved by adding a music track. Eric's job was to
take down Chaplin's ideas, help him to develop them and subsequently
arrange for the music to be recorded for full piece orchestra. The
combination proved to be so successful that Eric became Chaplin's
sole Music Associate and was responsible for the music for a great
number of Chaplin movies -"A Dog's Life", "Soldier in Arms",
"The Pilgrim", "The Circus", "The Kid", "Sunnyside",
" Pay Day", "A Day's Pleasure", "A Countess from Hong
Kong", "A Woman of Paris" to mention a few. From then on, Eric
and his talented wife and partner Phyllis O'Reilly have been giving a
presentation which they call "A Tribute to Charlie Chaplin". They
emigrated to Canada in 1987 and are hoping that this unique and
entertaining mixture of music, anecdotes, songs, slides and even a
short Chaplin comedy film will prove to be as popular and successful as
it was in Great Britain. They have made a number of appearances on all
of the principle TV and Radio Stations in Canada and have performed in
Concerts at Roy Thompson Hall and other prestigious venues. In 1990
Eric was engaged by TV Ontario to provide the appropriate piano
accompaniment to 33 of Charlie Chaplin's short comedy films which he
had made between 1914 and 1918. This assignment required him to compose
and record no less than eight and a half hours of continuous music,
which he recorded in 4 days. Eric and Phyllis have successfully coached
a number of students in singing and music, four of whom were awarded
scholarships at the Universities of the choice and one student won a
scholarship for a year's study at the New York Academy of Music and
Dramatic Arts. Since then he has played leading roles in a number of
Plays and Films. In 1997 they were invited by Micheal Lancaster,
Conductor of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra U.S.A. to present their
"Tribute to Charlie Chaplin", prior to the screening of "City
Lights" for two consecutive evenings at the 2000 seated Concert Hall.
As a result of this, Carl Davis recommended that they be invited to
appear before the screening of "The Kid" in January 1998 at the
Concert Halls in Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Hague and Eindhoven where he
Conducted the Symphony Orchestra playing the original music from the
score on which Eric worked with Charlie Chaplin. Eric has just
completed his autobiography entitled "Making Music with Charlie
Chaplin" in which he relates some of his experience whilst working
with Chaplin for the last twenty years of his life as well as with many
other international stars with whom he worked. The book will be on sale
in April 2000. Earlier in 1999 he was busy composing original music
which he recorded for re-issues of six Chaplin comedy "shorts" that
are being released by David Shephard in Hollywood. Also He and his wife
and partner were performing guests at a film Festival in Northern Italy
where he improvised pianoforte music for a number of full length
"Silent" movies and Phyllis sang and featured some of the songs
that Eric helped Charlie Chaplin to compose during his twenty years
association with the great man as his sole Music Associate. Shortly
before Chaplin died in 1977, he presented Eric with a copy of his
literary offering entitled "My Life in Pictures". On the Flyleaf he
wrote "To Eric with my love and respect".

Richard Carnahan wrote:

> Shortly
> before Chaplin died in 1977, he presented Eric with a copy of his
> literary offering entitled "My Life in Pictures". On the Flyleaf he
> wrote "To Eric with my love and respect".


I happened to be thumbing through an issue of the late lamented
LIMELIGHT the other day, and it had an article about Eric James. In it,
he mentions feeling that Chaplin wanted to start scoring the Mutuals
with him, but that Charlie was too frail and ill by that point, and
passed away shortly afterwards.



--Shush--