Terry-Thomas celebrity print 1973

Summary

This concrete handprint was formerly located as a part of the iconic McEwans celebrity pavement. Between 1972 and 1994, scores of celebrities had their handprints and footprints immortalised in cement at the entrance to the McEwans hardware store on Bourke Street. The City of Melbourne Art and Heritage Collection acquired a number of these impressed concrete slabs from the original celebrity pavement in 2005.

"Terry-Thomas (1911-1990) was a British actor and comedian who specialised in playing raffish, disreputable toffs. In 1949, he wrote and starred in the first-ever comedy series on British TV. He was a prolific film actor, in both dramatic and comic roles. Terry-Thomas was in Melbourne in December 1973 appearing in a stage-show, ‘Don’t Just Lie There, Say Something!’, at the Metro Theatre in Bourke Street. In Sydney with the same play two years earlier, he had felt unwell and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease." - Robyn Annear, 2023