Chris Hutchins Chris Hutchins Chris Hutchins is a British author, journalist and former public relations practitioner. Christopher Neville Hutchins is the younger of two sons and one daughter of Edward Victor Hutchins (d. 1944) and Kathleen Ness. He was educated at Torquay Boys' Grammar School. In 1956, he began a fan club for ventriloquist Terry Hall and Lenny the Lion. Hutchins lost interest when he discovered Elvis Presley and girls. Hutchins then landed a job as a journalist on the "Mid Devon Times" on a salary of £2-a-week. In 1961, Hutchins joined the "NME" ("New Musical Express") but left the paper the
Jimmy Nelson (ventriloquist) five dollars for the most popular act. In 1945, Nelson asked famed Chicago ventriloquist figure maker Frank Marshall to make him a professional-quality dummy. Marshall, who had made Edgar Bergen's "Charlie McCarthy" and Paul Winchell's "Jerry Mahoney", would only do this after seeing the ventriloquist's work. He came to one of Nelson's theatre performances and was impressed, so sold Nelson a custom-made dummy, which he always carved to bear a resemblance to the ventriloquist. Nelson gave Dummy Dan's replacement the full name "Danny O'Day", which he chose because it contained none of the consonants impossible for ventriloquists to say without