With his strawberry-blond hair and handsome features, musician-turned-actor Max Beesley vaulted to stardom in the leading role of the 1997 BBC miniseries "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling" (shown in the USA on A&E in 1998). This son of a jazz musician and a jazz singer, in the words of his stepbrother Jason, would do "anything for a laugh [so] everyone assumed that one day Max would end up on television." Beesley, instead, pursued a career in music. Although he won a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, he dropped out to work as a backup singer and musician for singers