Reginald Foort (1893-1980) at the BBC Organ
Reginald John Foort (23 January 1893 – 22 May 1980) was a cinema organist and theatre organist. He was the first official BBC Staff Theatre Organist from 1936 to 1938, during which time he made 405 broadcasts on the organ at St George's Hall, Langham Place. 'Reggie' was a hugely popular broadcaster in his heyday in the late 1930s in Britain and later settled in the USA where he similarly enjoyed an illustrious career performing and recording
Reginald Foort was born in Daventry, England, on 23 January 1893. His father was a church organist (leading Foort to joke later that he was 'born an organist'). Foort learnt the piano from the age of seven and took up the organ at eleven after his family moved to Rugby, studying with Basil Johnson, Master of Music at Rugby School. Foort became both an Associate and a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists (FRCO) by the age of only 17 under the tutelage of Sir Walter Parratt and began his career as organist at St Mary's Bryanston Square, London. Having served in the Royal Navy during World War I, he worked as a piano accompanist for silent films in the 1920s, from which it was a natural progression to become a cinema organist.
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