Joan Turner
Encyclopedia
Joan Turner was a British
comedienne and singer born in Belfast
and brought up in London
. She died of a heart attack.
and subsequently taxicab driver after serving with the British Army
in Ireland
. At the age of 11, Turner won a talent competition at a cinema
in Peckham
, South London
, doing impressions of Shirley Temple
and Jessie Matthews
. She won a scholarship
to the Sacred Heart
convent
in Victoria, London
but told her teachers an intention to pursue a theatrical career and left school. In 1937, aged 14, she performed onstage at a London music hall
- the Queen’s Theatre, Poplar
- and, the following year, toured in a revue
and, after that, performed with The Crazy Gang
in 1954.
In the 1960s and 1970s, she was a major star in the UK, becoming the highest-earning female singer in Britain, and a disc jockey
on her own radio show. Turner was nicknamed "the women's answer to Harry Secombe
" and presented her own television show. She topped the bill at the London Palladium
and appeared in the 1963 Royal Variety Show topping the bill ahead of The Beatles
She also topped bills in New York
and Las Vegas
and was romantically linked to Peter Sellers
, Tony Hancock
and Terry-Thomas
.
The London Evening News once said that she had "the voice of an angel and the wit of a devil". In its obituary, The Guardian
claimed "she could sing a pop or operatic song with her four-and-a-half-octave soprano
voice, do an almost eerily convincing impersonation of Bette Davis
, and then switch to a stand-up comic routine."
in The Times
, "she gained a reputation in show business for being difficult, despite her talent, and managements soon became wary of booking her." In later years, it was reported that, after two divorces, she "drank and gambled away her fortune" and she was declared bankrupt in 1977, the same year she appeared in the Queen's Silver Jubilee
performance. It was also in 1977 she was given the role of Widow Corney in a two year tour of Cameron Mackintosh
’s revival of the stage version of Oliver!
. However when the show subsequently opened in London, she was sacked
after two weeks for throwing empty wine bottles out of her dressing room window.
In 1991, she was a guest of honour at the Queen Mother
's 90th birthday celebrations. and, in the early 1990s, attempting to revive her career, she had a cameo role in the BBC TV series EastEnders
and a role as Auntie Lou in the Channel 4
series Brookside
. However, she was sacked from the latter after four episodes because of her drinking. In 1996, she went to California
to attempt to give it "one more try" by auditioning for the Palm Springs
Follies, a dance troupe for the over-60s. She failed the audition
but decided to stay on in California illegally, her green card having expired in the 1980s.
In March 2001, the Sunday Mirror
newspaper reported that she was living "among the winos, drug addicts and down-and-outs in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles
... dressed in charity shop
clothes and surrounded by her worldly possessions - with barely a penny
to her name." She was interviewed in situ as a "bag lady
" on Sunset Boulevard
in the August 2001 Channel 4 documentary
Celebrity: The Rise and Fall and it was reported elsewhere that she had spent five years "down-and-out" in L.A. Later that year, she returned to the U.K. In her final years, spent in sheltered accommodation in Surrey
, she wrote an autobiography
called I Thought It Grew on Trees.
On December 16, 2010, BBC Radio 4
broadcast a programme in which Lesley Garrett told the story of the operatic comedienne,entitled 'Joan Turner: The Highs and Lows of the Wacky Warbler' containing interviews with her friends,stage associates and family as well as excerpts of her musical and comedy routines.
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
comedienne and singer born in Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
and brought up in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. She died of a heart attack.
Early years
Her father was Leonard Turner, who became a London bus driverBus driver
A bus driver, bus operator or omnibus driver is a person who drives buses professionally. Bus drivers typically drive their vehicles between bus stations or stops. They often drop off and pick up passengers on a predetermined route schedule. In British English a different term, coach drivers, is...
and subsequently taxicab driver after serving with the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. At the age of 11, Turner won a talent competition at a cinema
Movie theater
A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....
in Peckham
Peckham
Peckham is a district in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Southwark. It is situated south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London...
, South London
South London
South London is the southern part of London, England, United Kingdom.According to the 2011 official Boundary Commission for England definition, South London includes the London boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Greenwich, Kingston, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Southwark, Sutton and...
, doing impressions of Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
and Jessie Matthews
Jessie Matthews
Jessie Matthews, OBE was an English actress, dancer and singer of the 1930s, whose career continued into the post-war period.-Early life:...
. She won a scholarship
Scholarship
A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...
to the Sacred Heart
Sacred Heart
The Sacred Heart is one of the most famous religious devotions to Jesus' physical heart as the representation of His divine love for Humanity....
convent
Convent
A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...
in Victoria, London
Victoria, London
Victoria is a commercial and residential area of inner city London, lying wholly within the City of Westminster, and named after Queen Victoria....
but told her teachers an intention to pursue a theatrical career and left school. In 1937, aged 14, she performed onstage at a London music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
- the Queen’s Theatre, Poplar
Poplar, London
Poplar is a historic, mainly residential area of the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is about east of Charing Cross. Historically a hamlet in the parish of Stepney, Middlesex, in 1817 Poplar became a civil parish. In 1855 the Poplar District of the Metropolis was...
- and, the following year, toured in a revue
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
and, after that, performed with The Crazy Gang
The Crazy Gang
The Crazy Gang were a group of British entertainers, formed in the early 1930s. In the mature form the group's six men were Bud Flanagan, Chesney Allen, Jimmy Nervo, Teddy Knox, Charlie Naughton and Jimmy Gold...
in 1954.
In the 1960s and 1970s, she was a major star in the UK, becoming the highest-earning female singer in Britain, and a disc jockey
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
on her own radio show. Turner was nicknamed "the women's answer to Harry Secombe
Harry Secombe
Sir Harry Donald Secombe CBE was a Welsh entertainer with a talent for comedy and a noted fine tenor singing voice. He is best known for playing Neddie Seagoon, the central character in the BBC radio comedy series The Goon Show...
" and presented her own television show. She topped the bill at the London Palladium
London Palladium
The London Palladium is a 2,286 seat West End theatre located off Oxford Street in the City of Westminster. From the roster of stars who have played there and many televised performances, it is arguably the most famous theatre in London and the United Kingdom, especially for musical variety...
and appeared in the 1963 Royal Variety Show topping the bill ahead of The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
She also topped bills in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...
and was romantically linked to Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
, Tony Hancock
Tony Hancock
Anthony John "Tony" Hancock was an English actor and comedian.-Early life and career:Hancock was born in Southam Road, Hall Green, Birmingham, England, but from the age of three was brought up in Bournemouth, where his father, John Hancock, who ran the Railway Hotel in...
and Terry-Thomas
Terry-Thomas
Thomas Terry Hoar Stevens was a distinctive English comic actor, known as Terry-Thomas. He was famous for his portrayal of disreputable members of the upper classes, especially cads and toffs, with the trademark gap in his front teeth, cigarette holder, smoking jacket, and catch-phrases such as...
.
The London Evening News once said that she had "the voice of an angel and the wit of a devil". In its obituary, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
claimed "she could sing a pop or operatic song with her four-and-a-half-octave soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
voice, do an almost eerily convincing impersonation of Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
, and then switch to a stand-up comic routine."
Later years
According to her obituaryObituary
An obituary is a news article that reports the recent death of a person, typically along with an account of the person's life and information about the upcoming funeral. In large cities and larger newspapers, obituaries are written only for people considered significant...
in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, "she gained a reputation in show business for being difficult, despite her talent, and managements soon became wary of booking her." In later years, it was reported that, after two divorces, she "drank and gambled away her fortune" and she was declared bankrupt in 1977, the same year she appeared in the Queen's Silver Jubilee
Silver Jubilee
A Silver Jubilee is a celebration held to mark a 25th anniversary. The anniversary celebrations can be of a wedding anniversary, ruling anniversary or anything that has completed a 25 year mark...
performance. It was also in 1977 she was given the role of Widow Corney in a two year tour of Cameron Mackintosh
Cameron Mackintosh
Sir Cameron Anthony Mackintosh is a British theatrical producer notable for his association with many commercially successful musicals. At the height of his success in 1990, he was described as being "the most successful, influential and powerful theatrical producer in the world" by the New York...
’s revival of the stage version of Oliver!
Oliver!
Oliver! is a British musical, with script, music and lyrics by Lionel Bart. The musical is based upon the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens....
. However when the show subsequently opened in London, she was sacked
Termination of employment
-Involuntary termination:Involuntary termination is the employee's departure at the hands of the employer. There are two basic types of involuntary termination, known often as being "fired" and "laid off." To be fired, as opposed to being laid off, is generally thought of to be the employee's...
after two weeks for throwing empty wine bottles out of her dressing room window.
In 1991, she was a guest of honour at the Queen Mother
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon was the queen consort of King George VI from 1936 until her husband's death in 1952, after which she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II...
's 90th birthday celebrations. and, in the early 1990s, attempting to revive her career, she had a cameo role in the BBC TV series EastEnders
EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
and a role as Auntie Lou in the Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
series Brookside
Brookside
Brookside is a defunct British soap opera set in Liverpool, England. The series began on the launch night of Channel 4 on 2 November 1982, and ran for 21 years until 4 November 2003...
. However, she was sacked from the latter after four episodes because of her drinking. In 1996, she went to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
to attempt to give it "one more try" by auditioning for the Palm Springs
Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs is a desert city in Riverside County, California, within the Coachella Valley. It is located approximately 37 miles east of San Bernardino, 111 miles east of Los Angeles and 136 miles northeast of San Diego...
Follies, a dance troupe for the over-60s. She failed the audition
Audition
An audition is a sample performance by an actor, singer, musician, dancer or other performing artist.Audition may also refer to:* The sense of hearing* Adobe Audition, audio editing software...
but decided to stay on in California illegally, her green card having expired in the 1980s.
In March 2001, the Sunday Mirror
Sunday Mirror
The Sunday Mirror is the Sunday sister paper of the Daily Mirror. It began life in 1915 as the Sunday Pictorial and was renamed the Sunday Mirror in 1963. Trinity Mirror also owns The People...
newspaper reported that she was living "among the winos, drug addicts and down-and-outs in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
... dressed in charity shop
Charity shop
A charity shop, thrift shop, thrift store, hospice shop , resale shop or op shop is a retail establishment run by a charitable organization to raise money.Charity shops are a type of social enterprise...
clothes and surrounded by her worldly possessions - with barely a penny
Penny
A penny is a coin or a type of currency used in several English-speaking countries. It is often the smallest denomination within a currency system.-Etymology:...
to her name." She was interviewed in situ as a "bag lady
Bag Lady
"Bag Lady" is the first single from singer Erykah Badu's 2000 album Mama's Gun. The song is about a woman trying to begin anew in a relationship, but who has too much emotional "baggage" and can't get close to people. The message of the song is to "pack light" and have hope for the future...
" on Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard is a street in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Coast Highway at the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Palisades...
in the August 2001 Channel 4 documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
Celebrity: The Rise and Fall and it was reported elsewhere that she had spent five years "down-and-out" in L.A. Later that year, she returned to the U.K. In her final years, spent in sheltered accommodation in Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
, she wrote an autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
called I Thought It Grew on Trees.
On December 16, 2010, BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
broadcast a programme in which Lesley Garrett told the story of the operatic comedienne,entitled 'Joan Turner: The Highs and Lows of the Wacky Warbler' containing interviews with her friends,stage associates and family as well as excerpts of her musical and comedy routines.