During
World War II he worked on the construction of the American naval air base in Trinidad. In 1951, he was responsible for bringing the Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra –
TASPO – to the
Festival of Britain. In 1947, during the UK tour of the Broadway hit
Anna Lucasta, which starred the original African American cast with black British understudies,
Pauline Henriques,
Errol John,
Earl Cameron, and
Rita Williams, were inspired by Connor to co-found the
Negro Theatre Company. In 1955, he recorded the first
Manchester United Football Club song, the "
Manchester United Calypso" (written by Eric Watterson and
Ken Jones). In 1955, Connor and his wife
Pearl, whom he had married in 1948, In the early 1960s, they founded the
Negro Theatre Workshop, one of the UK's earliest black theatre groups. Connor appeared at London's
Prince's Theatre in 1956 in
Summer Song, the life told through the music of
Antonín Dvořák, in which Connor was "given two of the show's most memorable moments in 'Deep Blue Evening' and '
Cotton Tail'", which he subsequently recorded. In 1958, he became the first black actor to perform for the
Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, playing Gower in
Pericles, having been recommended for the role by
Paul Robeson. Connor co-starred with
Rita Hayworth,
Robert Mitchum, and
Jack Lemmon in the 1957 film
Fire Down Below (1957), directed by
Robert Parrish, playing Jimmy Jean, the third man on the "boat-for-hire" with Mitchum and Lemmon. In 1952, with his band "The Caribbeans" (subsequently called
The Southlanders) Connor recorded, according to the
AllMusic website, a "groundbreaking LP of Jamaican folk music" entitled
Songs from Jamaica. This recording of songs was based on a collection made by a British Council staff member in Jamaica, Tom Murray, entitled
Folk Songs of Jamaica, published by
Oxford University Press in 1951. Murray had arranged thirty Jamaican songs for voice and piano, and Edric Connor's recording generally uses Murray's arrangements. Although Connor's accent is slightly 'un-Jamaican' (as Connor came from Trinidad), the recording was very influential. The group included the song "Day Dah Light", which portrayed the hard life of Caribbean field workers. The song was later recorded by Jamaican folk singer
Louise Bennett in 1954, and was rewritten in 1955 by
Irving Burgie and
William Attaway. The version performed by
Harry Belafonte became known as "
Day-O", reaching number five on the
Billboard charts in 1957, Connor's acting for television included roles in the espionage series
Danger Man as the character Thompson in
"Deadline" (1962, the final episode of the original series, which featured an almost entirely black cast), and as opposition leader Dr Manudu in the series 2 episode entitled
"The Galloping Major" (first aired on 3 November 1964; the revived series is known as
Secret Agent in the United States). Connor directed the "Caribbean Carnival" event held in London's
St Pancras Town Hall at the end of January 1959, organised by fellow Trinidadian
Claudia Jones, and televised by the
BBC. He appeared on the BBC programme
Desert Island Discs on 13 April 1959, when one of his choices was "Deep Blue Evening", from the show
Summer Song, a recording on which he was a soloist. ==Legacy==