Eternally youthful Peter Blair Denis Bernard Noone entered the world on Nov. 5, 1947, in Manchester, England, as the son of Joan and Denis Noone. He embarked on his multiplatform show business career as a child studying voice and acting at St. Bede’s College and the Manchester School of Music and Drama. By age 11 he captured the media’s attention, appearing on such British TV shows as the soap opera Coronation Street, Knight Errant and Monro’s Saki Stories, but no doubt most remember him best as the distinctive voice behind the chart-topping hits “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter,” “I’m Henry VIII, I Am,” and, of course, “I’m Into Something Good” with Herman’s Hermits. And though the group went on to occasionally eclipse even the Beatles in record sales, Noone has said that the members of now iconic bands he ran into while “we were all touring” weren’t competitive with each other. (John Lennon even bought Noone his first drink, “a Bacardi and Coke.”)
Noone was never one to rest on those laurels, however. If anything, his credits in theater, film and music are too many to list, with appearances in countless international publications, hundreds of TV programs with celebrities including Dean Martin and Jackie Gleason, and three successful MGM productions (Hold On!, When the Boys Meet the Girls and Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter). He collaborated on songs with artists as diverse as David Bowie and Debby Boone, and for four years served as the affable host of VH1’s My Generation, a half-hour retrospective of popular music. He also created two websites so popular that the New York Daily News called him the “King of the Sixties on the Internet.”
Now approaching 70, Noone’s toothy grin, shag cut and thick accent (despite decades of living in America) are as charmingly intact as ever, along with his energy. So is his marriage of almost 50 years to Mireille Strasser Noone, of whom he says, “When I saw her I just thought, ‘She’s got to be mine.’” Their daughter, Natalie, is a musician in Nashville.
Equally unstoppable is his career. Herman’s Hermits still plays to sellout crowds around the world, and his adoring fans, known affectionately as “Noonatics,” scream with all the fervor of yesterday’s Beatlemaniacs. With such an arsenal of charm, talent, ideas and enthusiasm, Noone should remain a rocking force to be reckoned with for years to come.
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photo 1 (group) credit: Richard Chowen/Evening Standard/Getty Images
photo 2 (solo) credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

