Rolf Harris, CBE, AM (born 30 March 1930), is an Australian/British musician, singer, composer, painter, and television host and personality.
From the 1960s he has become a popular television personality, presenting shows including Rolf's Cartoon Club, Animal Hospital and various programmes about serious art. In 2006 he painted an official portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, which was the subject of a special episode of Rolf on Art.
Named after Rolf Boldrewood, an Australian writer his mother admired, he was born in Bassendean, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia to Cromwell ("Crom") Harris and Agnes Margaret Harris (née Robbins) who had both emigrated from Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales. He is the nephew of Australian artist Pixie O'Harris, (1903–1991).
Harris moved to England as an art student at City and Guilds Art School, Kennington, South London at the age of 22, getting into television with the BBC in 1953, doing a regular ten-minute cartoon drawing section with a puppet called 'Fuzz', made and operated on the show by magician Robert Harbin. He illustrated Robert Harbin's Paper Magic (1956). He also had a few acting roles in British television programmes and films as Harry in The Vise and as Pte. Proudfoot in the 1955 Tommy Trinder film 'You Lucky People'.
On Associated Rediffusion he invented a character called Oliver Polip the Octopus which he drew on the back of his hand and animated, as well as illustrating Oliver's adventures with cartoons on huge sheets of card.
At the same time, Harris was entertaining with his piano accordion every Thursday night at a club called the Down Under, a haunt for homesick Australians and New Zealanders. Here, over the next several years, he honed his entertainment skills, eventually writing the song which was later to become his theme song, Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport. He was also to appear regularly at Clement Freud's 'Royal Court Theatre Club' in Sloane Square, where he sat at the piano and entertained débutantes and their escorts.
He and his wife, Alwen went to Vancouver in Canada by mistake, and had a huge success there, working two shows a night at the Arctic Club, where he was held over for 31 weeks until the club accidentally burnt down on Christmas Eve, 1961. He was immediately transferred to the huge 'Cave' theatre restaurant to great critical acclaim.
He and his wife have lived permanently in the United Kingdom since 1962, and has regularly returned to Vancouver to entertain ever since. He has also regularly returned to Perth over the years for family visits and to the rest of Australia where he has spent as much as four months every year touring with his band.
Since the late 1960s Harris had been performing top-rated variety television shows on the BBC in London, shows which were also shown in Australia and New Zealand, creating great support for his many tours in both countries as well as in South Africa.
Arts & Culture
