00:00As a young musician, George Robert Groves played the Cornet at St Helens Theatre Royal.
00:06Now a new plaque at the theatre marks the local beginnings of a career that helped shape the sound of
00:12Hollywood cinema.
00:13A little fact that not many people might pick up on.
00:17They were both born, if you like, 125 years ago this year, George in 1901.
00:24And this wonderful theatre, which is a Frank Matcham Theatre, opened in 1901 for the both contemporaries, I think the
00:32word is, isn't it?
00:33Born on Duke Street in 1901, George later studied at the University of Liverpool on a scholarship specialising in engineering
00:40and speech circuits.
00:42In 1923 he sailed to New York, where he worked for Bell Laboratories as a sound on disc engineer.
00:48At that time, the speed of commercial records was 78 revolutions per minute, or RPM.
00:54Bell Lab engineers reduced the speed of the turntable to 33 and a third RPM.
01:00Record speeds going to 33 and a third, I mean that blew me away because I did a little bit
01:05of sound during my course at university.
01:07And the things that I was learning, I thought, blimey, I've learned things that George discovered.
01:12In 1926, while working with the Warner Brothers-backed Vitaphone Corporation,
01:16Groves was tasked with recording the sound for Don Juan.
01:20It became the first full-length film to have a synchronised soundtrack.
01:25I discovered George by accident, drilling down for some information about something else.
01:31And then I discovered it was a local lad who actually went to the same two schools as me,
01:3845 years before me, of course, I hasten to add.
01:41And therefore, I thought, right, I talk about him, as I say, and nobody's ever heard of him, sadly.
01:48Groves moved to Hollywood in 1927, where he spent 46 years working for Warner Brothers.
01:54His work was recognised with two Academy Awards for Best Sound for Sayonara in 1957 and My Fair Lady in
02:021964.
02:03I do feel as though he's like a great uncle to me now.
02:06You know, I've been involved so long with him.
02:09And I just love what he did, because whilst he was the very first sound recording engineer
02:15on the very first part-talking movie ever, the jazz singer, Al Jolson,
02:20he also pioneered radio microphones.
02:26Sue Barton's Nana was George's third cousin.
02:28She discovered their relation whilst researching her family tree.
02:31Mervyn is going to go into Cowley School, where he went and I went and George went,
02:37and he's going to talk to the children about it.
02:40And I've just been chatting with the headteacher at Cowley.
02:43We need to give young people aspiration.
02:46And I think George's story is aspirational, isn't it?
02:49A lad from St. Helens whose dad was a hairdresser,
02:52becoming, you know, someone who mixed with Frank Sinatra and Al Jolson
02:57and some of the greats of Hollywood.
02:59A lad from St. Helens whose dad was a hairdresser,
Comments