ARGUABLY one of the most versatile entertainers in showbiz history, St Helens- born thespian Robert (Bob) Dorning performed equally well as a leading tenor saxophone player, vocalist, stage, film and TV actor...and ballet dancer!

These fascinating facts have come tumbling back following a request by reader Denis Brown for any details about Bob, mainly forgotten now, who died in London in February 1989 just short of his 75th birthday.

Playing a host of minor roles in more than 70 productions, including Mona Lisa, the hit gangster film of 1986, Bob shared centre stage, as it were, with wife Honor Shepherd, well known for her appearances in the old Emergency Ward 10 soap and daughter Stacey, child star of the Black Beauty TV series of some years ago.

The latter fact, adding to a cluster provided earlier by customers of this column, is submitted by Ron Jackson, veteran trumpeter - at 80, still hitting the top notes at Tuesday evening sessions in Sutton Cricket Club.

Then playing with the Johnny Jones band at Liverpool's Harlequin ballroom, Ron recalls meeting Dorning at a time when the actor-musician was playing lead sax with the famous Carroll Gibbons orchestra, broadcasting regularly from the Caf de Paris in London.

Ron was introduced to him by Mickey Hewitt, member of the Bert Webb Band, fondly recalled by generations of strict tempo and be-bop enthusiasts who flocked to the old St Helens Co-op Ballroom a few decades ago.

"Bob was a really nice bloke", recalls Ron, later to discover that Dorning had danced with the Corps de Ballet in the legendary Moira Shearer film, The Red Shoes. (Another reader, Miss Edith Carter of Mill Lane, Sutton - now in her nineties - had earlier described how she'd watched Dorning dancing in The Nutcracker ballet on the St Helens Theatre Royal stage).

An even further Dorning family link has been brought into focus by the parents (now aged 90 and 85) of Barbara Dal Ferro of Moss Bank. Barbara passes on the message that Bob Dorning's father, a spruce, well-dressed personality who wore gaiters, had worked for Galleys, a well-remembered St Helens drinks company, and made deliveries during the war years to customers including her father and grandfather.

Though he was definitely born in St Helens, it has not been positively established whether the multi-talented Bob Dorning was brought up in the terraced area of Kitchener Street, as is believed by Denis Brown.

CAN anyone else throw light on the subject?