Tony Monopoly

Tony Monopoly (3 December 1944 – 21 March 1995) was an Australian-born cabaret singer and actor who enjoyed success in the United Kingdom. Born Antonio Rosario Monopoli in Adelaide, he was a regular on the national radio show, Kangaroos on Parade at the age of nine as a boy soprano. At the age of sixteen he became a Carmelite monk and remained in the order for five years. During the 1960s he regularly performed with Edwin Duff and Norm Erskine, as a trio of singers, on In Melbourne Tonight and Tonight with Don Lane. In 1975 he was appearing at Caesar's Palace in Luton when he auditioned for Opportunity Knocks, a British television talent show, for a run of six appearances. In June 1976, his self-titled album peaked at No. 25 in the UK Albums Chart. In a national pre-selection to choose the song that would go to the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 9 March 1977 at the New London Theatre, Monopoly earned 66 points and placed ninth with the tune "Leave a Little Love." By the early 1980s Monopoly performed aboard cruise liners, "I lived on one yacht for a year," he said. "I went to 56 countries. I had champagne for breakfast. But I hated it". When fulfilling his increasingly rare engagements on dry land, he divided his time between Australia and the UK. Monopoly was head-hunted for a musical while appearing in Cinderella at Hanley, near Stoke-on-Trent. He starred – in drag – in Moby Dick, the inaugural production at the newly refurbished Old Fire Station Theatre in Oxford. The show's success prompted Cameron Mackintosh to mount a 1992 West End production, which opened to scathing reviews and promptly closed, after which Monopoly portrayed Old Deuteronomy in a UK tour of Cats. Monopoly died of cancer in Brighton, England on 21 March 1995. In 2000, a character named Tony Cluedo - an obvious reference to Tony Monopoly - played By Ted Robbins, appeared in Series 2 of BBC TV comedy The League of Gentlemen as the lead singer of Crème Brulee.

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