Charles Robert William Howes (4 August 1895 – 27 April 1972) was a British entertainer who was a leading musical comedy performer in London's West End theatres in the 1930s and 1940s. An actor, singer and dancer with a charming, disarming style, Howes was apprenticed to be an electrical engineer before realising his ambition to go on to the stage. While in his teens he performed at music halls and with concert parties, before spending three years in the Army during World War I. After the war he had difficulty getting work, but he made his West End debut in 1923 in The Little Revue Starts At 9, and from then on, for the next 25 years, his inimitable comic style allied to an appealing way of putting over a song and dance ensured that he stayed at the top in the British musical theatre. Among the shows and revues he appeared in were The Second Little Revue (1924), The Punch Bowl, The Blue…
