The St Helens man who revolutionised Hollywood sound

Pioneering Hollywood sound engineer George Groves, dubbed 'the quiet little Englishman" by 1920s star Al Jonson, has been honoured with a blue plaque in the Merseyside town of his birth.

Born and raised in St Helens, the musician's definitive work in sound recording led him to collaborate with stars such as Judy Garland, James Cagney and Frank Sinatra, and won him a pair of Oscars.

Entertainment historian Mervyn Saunders, also from St Helens, called him "such a clever man".

This week, Groves, who was the leading recording engineer for Jonson in 1927's The Jazz Singer - one of the first 'talkie' feature films, was commemorated 125 years after his birth with a plaque inside the Theatre Royal.

Born in St Helens in 1901, young George showed an early talent for music, playing on stage at the Theatre Royal as a teenager.

He later attended the University of Liverpool, where he studied engineering and speech circuits.

He moved to New York in 1923, where he specialised in microphone technology, before relocating to Hollywood in 1927.

It was here he established his name, helping to develop talking movies, just as they were first sweeping the movie industry.

Saunders said Groves was involved in the early development of loudspeakers, as well as being responsible for evolving the radio microphone technology used today by theatres across the world to amplify performers' voices.

Given the role of director of sound at Warner Bros in 1957, Groves worked in the film industry for almost 50 years, until his retirement in 1972 - with 32 of his films receiving Academy Awards nominations.

He personally received two Oscars, the first in 1958, for Sayonara, the second in 1965, for My Fair Lady.

Other notable films he worked on included the 1968 Steve McQueen film, Bullitt, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton..

He died in September 1976, in Hollywood, where he is buried.

Saunders, who was born down the road from St Helens Theatre Royal, organised for a blue plaque to be unveiled at the venue to mark 125 years since Groves' birth in the town.

The 80 year old said he had only learned about Groves' pioneering impact on film sound within the past decade.

"I thought, right, we've got to shout this man's credentials out a bit," he said.

The theatre is also celebrating its 125th birthday this year, having been rebuilt in 1901 following a fire.

Su Barton, a distant relation of Groves, unveiled the plaque at the theatre, where the young George once played the cornet on stage.

Coincidentally, Barton also studied sound engineering at university, so she was fascinated to discover George Groves was her grandmother's cousin while researching her family tree "many years ago".

"George was actually responsible for some of the course that I'd learnt," said Barton.

All sound was recorded at 78rpm "back in the day", she recalled, Groves "discovered that if you slowed the sound down to 33 and a third you could get voices to co-ordinate with mouths", which became a key component in the creation of the talking movie.

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