Devoted to his wife and children, he decided not to pursue a Hollywood career after his experiences on Let's Make Love (1960). He said subsequently that he never regretted his decision for a second.
He is a singer and dancer who performed in cabarets and legitimate theater.
He was appointed Deputy Lord-Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire in 1993.
He was awarded an O.B.E. (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1965 Queen's Honours List and a C.B.E. (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1997 Queen's Honours List for his services to drama.
He was closely associated with the song "Give Me the Moonlight, Give Me the Girl," an old song which he discovered in a Glasgow music shop in 1954. He first sang it on stage wearing a top hat hired from an undertaker, and it became his signature tune.
He was the son of a Russian-Jewish upholsterer who lived in a poor area of Liverpool.
Initially trained for a career in commercial art, he won a scholarship to the Lancaster College of Art, then studied at Leeds College of Art where he gained his Art Teacher's Diploma in 1950.
The story goes that his change of name from Frank Abelson to Frankie Vaughan came about when he announced to his Russian grandmother that he intended to be a singer, and she told him, "Vell," she said, "then you vill be the best von there ever vas."