{"id":216239,"date":"2025-10-21T20:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T20:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/216239\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T20:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T20:29:10","slug":"britains-got-talent-judges-speechless-as-legend-makes-comeback-after-57-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/216239\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain’s Got Talent judges ‘speechless’ as legend makes comeback after 57 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

The judges on Britain’s Got Talent are left in shock as the actress Shani Wallis who played Nancy from Oscar-winning movie Oliver auditions – and goes down a storm<\/p>\n

15:32, 21 Oct 2025Updated 17:35, 21 Oct 2025<\/p>\n

\"ShaniShani Wallis stars in Oliver with Ron Moody and Oliver Reed(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The actress who played Nancy from Oscar-winning movie Oliver is making a comeback\u2026at the age of 92. Shani Wallis went down a storm with Britain\u2019s Got Talent <\/a>judges after auditioning for the ITV<\/a> show.<\/p>\n

She sang As Long As He Needs Me from the 1968 film. After a standing ovation, Shana told the judges: \u201cI was here on this stage 70 years ago but you probably know me as Nancy from the motion picture, Oliver. I wanted to be back on stage doing what I love. It would be wonderful to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Amanda Holden <\/a>was left stunned. She said: \u201cI feel really star struck, that is one of my all time favourite movies.\u201d Alesha Dixon <\/a>added: \u201cMe too. Oh my god. I love you. What an honour to see you today. I\u2019ve watched you so many times.\u201d The scenes will be aired next year.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Loose Women star issues huge update on presenters’ fate after ITV cuts<\/a>\"ShaniShani Wallis strokes the beard of co-star Harry Secombe at a party for the cast of the film “Oliver!” (Image: PA)<\/p>\n

Oliver won six Academy Awards<\/a>, including Best Picture and Best Director. It starred Mark Lester<\/a> in the title role, Ron Moody as Fagin, Oliver Reed <\/a>as Bill Sikes, Harry Secombe as Mr Bumble, and Jack Wild as The Artful Dodger. Shani has said previously of her relationship with hard-drinking Reed: \u201cOliver Reed never actually hurt me but he was very frightening. The truth is, I had little to nothing to do with Oliver Reed off-set, his life, I believe was complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the film, she appeared in TV series such as Charlie\u2019s Angels and Murder She Wrote, was a regular in daytime soap The Young And The Restless, and appeared in films Terror In The Wax Museum and The Mojave Phone Booth. She has previously said that despite Oliver\u2019s success, it didn\u2019t provide the platform she would have liked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, but that was my fault,\u201d she said at the time. \u201cWhen I came back to America, I had offers to do what became a very famous series on television, The Brady Bunch. I didn\u2019t want to do that. I wanted to do movies. But then movie musicals like Doctor Dolittle flopped and they decided not to make any more, which was a big blow.I went back into theatre and nightclubs. If I\u2019d stayed in the UK after Oliver!, I\u2019d probably still be working hard. But I had an ultimatum from my husband.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AmandaStunned: Amanda Holden(Image: PA)<\/p>\n

Shani was married to American agent Bernie Rich from 1965 until his death in 2016. She said: \u201cBernie said: \u2018If you want to be with me, I won\u2019t live anywhere but California.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Raised in Tottenham, London, Shani began tap dancing at age four and later trained at RADA. She got the part of Nancy on Oliver over Julie Andrews and Elizabeth Taylor<\/a>. After the role, she went on to tour with Liberance and Frank Sinatra. She has previously hit out at a planned film remake of Oliver and has said it should be left alone. She added: \u201cIt is perfect in every aspect. How can they do better? They\u2019ll f*** it up anyway.\u201d Lester, who played the original Oliver, said he hopes it is \u201cnot a woke version\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The judges on Britain’s Got Talent are left in shock as the actress Shani Wallis who played Nancy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[22374,7117,3573,96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-216239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-alesha-dixon","9":"tag-amanda-holden","10":"tag-britains-got-talent","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-tv","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}