From family to entertaining and everything in between, it was always love for Denis Sheridan

Denis Sheridan could have been a star in his own right, just like son Hugh, but he chose love and family over the spotlight.

“Always love” was veteran crooner Denis Sheridan’s signature sign off.

It was also his motto for his adventure-filled life. The king of swing and one-time mayor of Unley died on May 24 after a battle with prostate cancer.

Denis was surrounded by his seven children – Zoe, Will, Meg, Tom, Heidi, Hugh, Zachary and extended family. He was aged 76.

ALWAYS LOVE: Legendary Big Band Leader, mayor and businessman Denis Sheridan with his children and grandchildren. Picture: Supplied

Denis always chose family first. The father of Logie winner Hugh Sheridan, Denis could have had his own international success story.

With no formal training, just growing up in a musical household and singing around the piano with his parents, he showed great talent and headed to the UK to be a professional singer.

“And he would have been one,” Hugh said. “He was cast in a musical almost straight away, but he came back because he wanted to have a family with Mum.

“So, instead, he did give up everything in 1968 and created a very big family with lots of children. They didn’t stop.

“My feeling was if he hadn’t has so many of us children and could have moved interstate, he would have so many more opportunities and everybody would have known him.”

Still Denis had a huge and lasting impact on those he met and those in the audience.

Hugh and his oldest sister, Zoe, have been inundated with messages of love and memories from people across Australia.

GREATEST SHOWMAN: Denis Sheridan ahead of performing in a Night of Swing in 2017 which raised funds for the Mary Potter Foundation’s Music Therapy Program. Picture: AAP/ROY VANDERVEGT

RESPECTED: Hugh Sheridan with his Dad Denis and Rhonda Burchmore. Picture Supplied

He always had plenty of wise words too.

“He said ‘don’t rush and take your time’,” Hugh recalls, as he adds with a laugh that at his age his dad had three children and three properties.

“It’s like the Cat Stevens song Father and Son ‘it’s not time to make a change, just relax, take it easy …’ I think that’s the truth. When he was young it was very much about getting married and having babies straight away.

“He and mum worked very hard because they had so many children. So dad would have a gig every night of the week and he worked at his father’s furniture business, had other businesses. Plus he was mayor. I don’t know how he did it all.”

But each of his seven children and eight grandchildren – Manon, 21, Violet, 20, Lily, 19, Velvet, 18, Poppy, 15, Valentino, 9, Bowie, 6, Bambi, 2 – knew they were loved. Denis warmly welcomed his children’s partners including Kurt Roberts to whom Hugh proposed at his Fringe show Hughman this year.

And despite all the demands on his time and energy, Denis would find ways to carve out unique time with them all individually.

“He actually came and had a role in Oliver with me when I was Dodger with the Hills Musical Society,” Hugh says. “I suppose it was just as easy to be in the show as it was to drop me off and hang around, or head home given that it was in Stirling. But he loved to do that with me.”

Hugh might have been the most famous of his large brood, but Denis loved all of his children equally.

Australian voice-over artist, former TV presenter and radio personality Zoe says her father truly didn’t have a favourite child.

“He really did love each of us the same,” Zoe said.

“He made each of us feel equally special. I came across a letter he wrote to me after Hughie did a one-man show at the Opera House. It said ‘To my dear eldest, this is what I wrote to Hugh. I have never been prouder than I was of that show’, and then he added ‘As I am proud of all my children’.”

GOOD TIMES: Zoe Sheridan with her dad Denis sitting third row at the Frank Sinatra concert at Sanctuary Cove. Picture Supplied

Denis famously opened for Frank Sinatra at the brand new Sanctuary Cove resort in 1988. Zoe loved Sinatra after years of listening to Ol’ Blue Eyes with her dad.

“When he came to Australia to sing at Sanctuary Cove, I asked Dad if he would buy me a ticket – they were probably like a million dollars or something,” she says. “But he said ‘why don’t you get a job there?’ and he had a contact, so despite me having no experience, I got a job as an assistant.”

Denis joined her there some months later at the official opening, as he sang as part of the host of entertainment on offer in the lead-up.

“I remember we got to sit in the third row,” Zoe recalls. “They had Julie Anthony and I was all ‘is Frank coming on next?’. Dad said ‘no, Peter Allen is’. I was like ‘who is Peter Allen’. and seriously it was just the best concert I have ever seen.

ROBES: As Unley Mayor in 1985.

“And then there was Frank Sinatra – we have a picture of us that night. It’s my favourite photo of us. It was such a special time.”

From 1982-85, Denis was the mayor of Unley – Hugh and Zoe laugh as they tell how he only joined the council because his own father wanted parking out the back of their family-owned Sheridan Furniture and the council at the time wouldn’t allow it.

Dennis was instrumental in the paving of King William Rd, and helping to attract businesses to the strip. He also devised the slogan “The Unley Way To Go”.

Hugh recalled a day not long after his Dad’s death when he felt particularly devastated.

“It was raining and the family was all doing funeral planning and I just couldn’t be around it,” he said.

“I just burst into tears and went outside. I needed a sign to know that Dad was still around me. So I was outside, pleading “Just give me a rainbow, Dad’.

“But there was nothing and I was like ‘He’s just not here, he hasn’t made it to heaven’.

“But then, (a friend) told me to go back and look at the sky and there was the rainbow. And it looked like it was coming out of or landing in Unley. And I said “That’s the Unley way to go, isn’t it?’.”

Hugh honed his own showman skills from his dad’s performances. All the Sheridans would go with Denis to gigs around Adelaide – most notably at Q Bar.

PAVING THE WAY: Denis Sheridan and his paved King William Road. Picture TAIT SCHMAAL

“Whenever people see California Crooners overseas, they are amazed that I spend so much time in the audience,” Hugh says. “It’s a bit harder these days with Covid, but I got that idea from dad because he used to do it all the time. He walked amongst the crowd and loved getting right up close so everyone felt like they were part of it.”

They all learned their work ethic from Denis. When we chat in the days before his father’s funeral, Hugh was scheduled to do a quick trip back to Sydney to sing for Qantas.

“It just feels really hard to do,” he says. “I said to mum ‘I feel like I should cancel’. She said ‘Dad would have done it’ and I was like ‘yes, that’s true’. That's my job, to get up there and entertain. I will feel like shit. I just have to get up and pretend nothing’s happened, do the job, go home and cry privately. Dad did that all the time.”

Zoe agrees, recalling a time years ago when she was heartbroken and expected her dad to come through the door and put his arms around her and say everything will be OK.

“Instead he walked in and said ‘you’ve just got to get on with it’ and walked out the door to where we needed to go,” she says. “He really did have that professional attitude, even when things weren’t great, the show must go on. Do your grieving and be sad about stupid boys later.”

He continued that attitude right to the end. Living in Sydney for some years until his health worsened, he would sing every second Sunday at Bondi Junction RSL. Even singing at Mary Potter Hospice in his last weeks, because a patient asked him to.

“There were some days when he just did not feel like it, but he never let them down all the old ladies, his groupies,” Zoe says.

The siblings say they will miss being able to pick up the phone and hear his voice. And they will miss his famous all-encompassing hugs.

“I’m someone who preaches that we don’t really lose anyone,” Hugh said.

“So, I know that I can talk to him all the time. He’ll answer – like yesterday when I said ‘Please give me a rainbow’. He knew that I wanted just a quick sign. But I will miss that I can’t get in a car and drive to his place and have a cuddle.”