Famous actors commanded Blackpool stages on whistle-stop residency tours including John Mills, Robery Morley and Roy Marsden

Many famous actors commanded the stage at the Grand Theatre and the Opera House, here for the standard week's residency on nationwide tours.

The local appearances of Sir John Mills CBE (1908-2005) were in a wide span of roles, with musicals, psychological drama and farce.

In 1935 he toured in his London musical comedy success Jill Darling, with songs by Vivian Ellis, and it came to the Grand in August.

The Gazette noted that John Mills and his American co-star, Louise Browne, "stopped the show" with the hit number I'm On a Seesaw.

Two years later he starred at the Opera House with Frances Day on the pre-London tour of a revue titled Floodlight, by Beverley Nichols.

John Mills twice came to the Grand in psychological dramas written by his wife, Mary Hayley Bell. They were Duet for Two Hands in January, 1945, and The Uninvited Guest in January, 1953, both plays prior to London.

He was back at the Grand in January, 1954, as Lord Fancourt Babberly in Brandon Thomas's classic farce Charley's Aunt, also prior to London.

The actor's 100-plus films include the classics Hobson's Choice, Dunkirk (1958 version), Ryan's Daughter and Ice Cold in Alex.

Another well-remembered screen star, Robert Morley (1908-92) also trod the boards at the Grand.

First came his performance as the pompous drama critic Sheridan Whiteside in Kaufman and Hart's The Man Who Came to Dinner, at the Grand in September, 1943, after two years in London.

Several years of stage and screen successes followed before the actor wrote himself the ideal vehicle for his portly persona, in Hippo Dancing.

Hippo Osborne was a self-made northern business tycoon with ambitions for his son, who only wanted to open a ladies' boutique.

The play opened a pre-London tour at the Grand on February 8, 1954, to a positive review in the Gazette.

In 1956 Robert Morley was teamed for the first time with another stage and screen favourite, Margaret Rutherford, in a Gerald Savory comedy, A Likely Tale. It opened, prior to London, in January.

Pause here, to muse with older readers, how fortunate we were to regularly see great stars "on our doorstep."

Former Royal Shakespeare Company actor Roy Marsden (1941-) played Cdr. Adam Dalgleish in television's PD James murder mysteries, from 1983 to 98, but between series he returned to the classics and was twice seen at the Grand.

In November, 1988, he was with the British Actors' Touring Company as Lord Foppington in the Restoration comedy The Relapse, by Sir John Vanbrugh, with Kate O'Mara as the winsome widow Berinthia.

In February, 1990, he was seen as Harpagon in the Oxford Stage Company's production of Moliere's dark farce, The Miser.

The plays showed that the classics could attract a good crowd if headed by a top star - or two. His RSC appearances include Crispen in The Friends, 1970, Casca and Lucilius in Julius Caesar, 1972 and Paul Schippel in Schippel, 1974.