Red Perksey & His Orchestra - (A Little Boy Called) Smiley (1956)

(Clyde Frederick Collins)
 Australia
Original version
#9 Sydney #2 Melbourne #1 Brisbane

RED PERKSEY & HIS ORCHESTRA
And Chorus
Vocal by Ray Dickson

78 rpm disc on Pacific, also released on 45 rpm single. Charted in Brisbane and Sydney Nov-Dec 1956, in Melbourne Dec 1957

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RED PERKSEY BIOGRAPHY

Berlin 1921, 1936
Robert Bernard “Red” Perksey (1921-1995), also known familiarly as Bert, was a jazz trumpeter, pianist, singer, composer, orchestra leader, music director and A&R man. He became well known in these roles in Australia during the 1950s but he had also worked in France as a musician and composer.

Known professionally as Red Perksey in France and Australia, he was born Siegbert Perlstein in Berlin where he was issued with a Polish passport in August 1936, about a month before his 15th birthday. He was probably German Polish although he is invariably referred to as being French. We can only speculate about the hardships and dangers he faced as a Jew in Europe during the Nazi regime and World War 2.

Palestine 1940s
By 1946 Perlstein was in Palestine, a major destination for Jewish refugees at the time. In that year he became a naturalised Palestinian citizen under the British administration. His citizenship application gives his birthplace as Berlin and his occupation as musician. His Romanian wife Zizi (Sara, also Sarah, b. Mendelsohn 1924) had been naturalised in 1942.

War broke out in Palestine in 1947, and in 1948 the British Mandate ended, making its Palestinian citizenship and passports obsolete, although alternatives were offered to those affected. It was in 1947 that the Perlsteins left Palestine for in France.

France 1947-1951
From some time in the late 1940s, then, Siegbert Perlstein was working as a musician in France as Red Perksey.

There are glimpses online of Perksey’s presence in France at this time. By 1950 he was gigging in Paris and publishing at least two songs with a French lyricist. He is listed in a French reference work, Coston’s Dictionnaire des pseudonymes [IMAGE].

It is plausible that he may have previously lived in France before migrating to Palestine. Many European Jews fled to Palestine and other countries after the rise of the Nazis in Germany in 1933, then during the German occupation of other countries (including France in 1940), but I have no knowledge of Perksey’s movements during those years.

Australia 1951-1959
In February 1951, Siegbert and Zizi Perlstein were on a list of departures from France, compiled by the Paris office of JDC, a Jewish refugee and emigrant support agency. This shows them leaving Europe on 13 February 1951 from the Italian port of Genoa, on board the SS Surriento, a refugee and emigrant ship headed for Australia.

Only a few months later, in July 1951, an Australian newspaper columnist was enthusing about new bandleader Red Perksey stirring up fast and furious fun at a Sydney nightspot. By August 1954 the Sydney press was calling him one of Sydney’s most colorful radio personalities.

In Australia, Perksey was clearly identified as being French. In the press he was typically referred to as a Frenchman or Parisian, and there was record company publicity about French-born Robert Perksey.

In 1956 the Perlsteins were naturalised as Australians. At that time they were living in Albert Street in Petersham, Sydney. Electoral rolls up until 1958 show Red and Zizi Perksey living in Albert Street.

Many details are missing from their story, but it is one of Jewish migration, refugeeism and even Holocaust survival, a background that was belied by Red’s image in Australia of the ebullient and whimsical French jazzman.

Back to France 1959
In 1959 Red and Zizi had returned to France to visit Zizi’s family. This appears to have been planned as a stop-off on the way to furthering Red’s career in the United States. Instead, he gave up the professional trumpet for health reasons, and he and Zizi moved to a remote location in provincial France where they were known as Bert and Anne. Red sculpted, painted and made furniture, and did some playing with local musicians.

Australian career
Perksey’s first success at restarting a musical career in Australia faltered until he got some breaks in Newcastle and other regional NSW centres.

By 1953 he was establishing himself as an individualistic jazz performer based in Sydney, with radio appearances and tours to other Australian locations. At some stage he became musical director with The Australian Record Company, owners of the Rodeo, Pacific and Coronet labels, where he also had an A&R role.

In newspaper write-ups Perksey’s appearance was often noted: red-haired and red-bearded, short and rather rotund, as a Newcastle daily put it.  Gosford’s local paper had him as an effervescent French composer … dubbed ‘personality boy’ of Sydney composers.

From late 1952 especially, until 1958, his name shows up many times in the archives of Australian newspapers including NLA’s Trove. He is found in radio guides, record reviews, gig notices in capital and provincial cities, and in the occasional personality profile.

In May 1958 there is an ad for a Canberra Jazz Club gig and a jokey photograph of him at a disc jockeys’ convention. In October he was hosting lunchtime concerts for Coronet Records at a Sydney music store.  He features on the sleeve of a CBS Coronet promo 45 in 1959, but there are no further traces of Red Perksey in the Australian media.

Epilogue
Red Perksey returned to Australia in the early 1980s, but Zizi stayed in France. He died in care in 1995 and is buried in Rookwood Jewish Cemetery in Sydney. Zizi (Sara) Perksey died in 2012 in Saint-Raphaël near her home in Fayence, France.

This biography of Red Perksey is my work, based on original research. You will not find such a detailed biography of Perksey anywhere else. If you use it, please credit me or this website. ©Lyn Nuttall 2019, updated 2020, 2025

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RED PERKSEY DISCOGRAPHY
Exclusive to this website
Discography of recordings and compositions, France and Australia
Click here to open or download .pdf document

RED PERKSEY’S AUSTRALIAN WORKS
Red Perksey’s name appeared on the labels of about a dozen records on Pacific 1953-56, notably with his compositions In My Petit Taxi (1953, from Dans mon p’tit taxi) and Do You Remember Versailles (1954).

As well as Smiley, two other film tie-ins charted for Perksey’s orchestra in 1956: The End Of The Affair (#10 Sydney) and A Town Like Alice (#6 Sydney, #4 Melbourne).

These days, Red Perksey is most often mentioned in connection with (We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock by Vic Sabrino with Red Perksey & His Orchestra (1955), considered by some to be Australia’s earliest rock’n’roll record.

Australian lyricists who worked with Perksey included Ken Taylor (notable A&R man at Festival: see Col Joye’s Clementine), and Dorothy Dodd (known for her Granada and Velvet Waters lyrics). Among his other works was the music for Beppo The Clown, a children’s radio pantomime with lyrics by Alan Seymour, broadcast on the ABC network in 1955.

THIS RELEASE OF “(A LITTLE BOY CALLED) SMILEY”
• Red Perksey & His Orchestra – (A Little Boy Called) Smiley (1956, wr. Clyde Collins).
78 rpm disc on Pacific, also released on 45 rpm single.

Charted in Brisbane and Sydney November-December 1956, in Melbourne December 1957

(A Little Boy Called) Smiley was later heard in the children’s film Smiley Gets A Gun (1958), a sequel to Smiley (1956). In the first Smiley film, another song called Smiley, sung by Shirley Abicair, was heard (see below).

(I cannot establish whether Smiley Gets A Gun uses Red Perksey’s 1956 recording of (A Little Boy Called) Smiley but it seems more likely to me that it was recorded again for the film.)

Perhaps confusingly, (A Little Boy Called) Smiley did not appear in the film Smiley (1956), even though it was released in October 1956, the same month of that first “Smiley” film’s Australian premiere in Brisbane.

(A Little Boy Called) Smiley was even used in promoting the first film, and it would have been on the radio during the film’s run. It is not surprising, then, that the song is often assumed to have come from the first Smiley film.

Film Weekly also mentions a recording of (A Little Boy Called) Smiley by Clive Wayne, with composer Clyde Collins and Regent Theatre Brisbane organist Len Richmond, on a ‘special disc’ being broadcast by 4BC.

THE COMPOSER AND THE SINGER

Clyde Collins [left], writer of (A Little Boy Called) Smiley, was a prolific Australian composer whose works include The Sunshine State, the official song of the 1958 Queensland Centenary (Life is great/ In the Sunshine State...).

Ray Dickson was a singer from Melbourne who often appeared on Melbourne and network radio in the 1950s, and recorded in Sydney for Pacific, a label of The Australian Record Company where Red Perksey was employed.

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RED HERRINGS
(A Little Boy Called) Smiley is also known as Smiley, so it is easily confused with two earlier songs about the same fictional character, as well as a later hit with the same title:
• Michael O’Regan – Smiley (1947, wr. Darling) [jump down for more details]
• Shirley Abicair – Smiley (1956, Alwyn-Kimmins-Lovelock) [jump down] The song that was heard in the first Smiley film (not [A Little Boy Called] Smiley as often assumed).
• Ronnie Burns – Smiley (1969, Young) [go to song history]

“SMILEY: THE MUSICAL” (1984)
(A Little Boy Called) Smiley was included in Smiley The Musical by John Watson & David Cocker YouTube.

“SMILEY” BY RONNIE BURNS (1969)
Ronnie Burns’s 1969 hit Smiley is a different song, written by Johnny Young, and unconnected with the earlier songs and films. Even so, the name “Smiley” would have resonated with Australian audiences familiar with (A Little Boy Called) Smiley and with the Smiley films.

By 1969, boys who had been about Smiley’s age when they saw him in the films in the 1950s were indeed off to the Asian war, as the lyrics go. Specifically, Johnny Young had in mind Australian pop star and Vietnam War conscript Normie Rowe: Before he left, he was really happy-go-lucky, fun-filled young fella. When he came back, he changed. (Johnny Young on ABC-TV’s Love Is In The Air)

I could be wrong, but I have always assumed that Young’s choice of the name Smiley was deliberate, aimed at reminding us of young Smiley from the films.

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ORIGIN OF “PERKSEY”?
The surname Perksey is unusual. Internet searches for it usually lead back to Red Perksey, or to other surnames such as Perskey or Parksey. There are no examples in Australian or US White Pages, or other directories I’ve tried.
1. Could Red have coined it from from perkusji, Polish for percussion or drums?
2. Look at this!
Siegbert Perlstein
Robert Perksey

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CREDIT
Thank you to Mia Cahen for contacting me, and for supplying images and many essential details about her uncle.

SELECTED SOURCES, FURTHER READING
Note on sources: 1. I have usually left out details from newspapers that could have been exaggerations for the sake of promoting the artist, and could not be verified. 2. This is not an academic work and I haven’t cited every source. For clarification contact me.

1. Palestinian naturalisation documents of the Perlsteins (Siegbert 1946, Zizi 1942) from Israeli State Archives. (Update: I am now unable to find the exact page for this.)
2. For the history of Jewish refugees from Nazism in the 1930s and 40s, explore the Holocaust Museum and The Wiener Holocaust Library.
3. Departures from France in February 1951, list from the Paris office of Jewish refugee and emigrant support agency AJDC.
4. Certificates of Naturalization, Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, 4 Jul 1957.
5. Henry Coston, Dictionnaire des pseudonymes (1965 p.182): PERKSEY, Red, Compositeur, Siegbert Perlstein (facsimile at Internet Archive).
6. Two Red Perksey compositions from France, 1950, sheet music held at the Bibliotheque nationale de France.
7. Red Perksey: sheet music at National Library of Australia.
8. Matt Hayes, “Entertainer Gives Newcastle Thanks”, Newcastle Sun, 19 Jan 1954 (archived at Trove).
9. “Songwriter Here Soon”, Gosford Times and Wyong District Advocate, 8 Dec 1953 (archived at Trove).
10. Photo of Red Perksey at disc jockeys’ convention, Australian Women’s Weekly, 28 May 1958 (archived at Trove).
11. Newspaper mentions of singer Ray Dickson, search results at Trove and Newspapers,com.
12. Sadly, Nigel Mallet’s excellent Smiley Gets A Website has vanished permanently, but you can access a text-only version at the Internet Archive.

Gig notices:
1. Paris, 1950, Droite et Liberté.
2. Canberra, 1958, Canberra Times.

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