Wednesday 5 December 2012

Jill Day born 5 December 1930





Jill Day (Yvonne Page, 5 December 1930, Brighton, England - 16 November 1990, Kingston-Upon-Thames, England) was a successful pop singer and actress in Britain in the 1950s and early 60s.

She was born in Brighton and found fame in movies, radio and television. She made her mark as a band singer before graduating to solo artiste status when she made a number of records in the fifties, mostly cover versions of American
Artists.

Although she appeared on TV frequently she never had any UK Top Ten hits. For some unknown reason there are very few photographs of her.

She appeared in several films including Beat Up the Town and All for Mary and sung on the soundtrack of The Good Companions and Doctor At Sea. In 1957, she competed in the heats of the contest to represent the United Kingdom in the 1957 Eurovision Song Contest, eventually losing out to Patricia Bredin. She also proved adept at combining comedic skills with her musical prowess and demonstrated these twin talents on BBC TV in such shows as And So To Bentley, Hit the Headlines and Hi Summer.

When commercial television in the shape of ITV was
imminent, Jill Day was one of the artists that the BBC put under exclusive contract, and in 1957 the Corporation gave her her own starring vehicle, The Jill Day Show - a mix of songs and sketches, which she also wrote, later admitting the writing chores had proved her most demanding challenge. She also appeared on Dee Time. Jill was well known for her long slim dresses with stiff petticoat under the below-the-knee hem which she wore in numerous television appearances.

Her younger brother, Bert Page, was a bookmaker based in Brighton. He was also an amateur jockey, riding his sister's horse Christella for a while. In 1959, with Denton de Gray as associate producer, Page formed Four Seasons Productions
Ltd and spent £15,000 on a pilot film of Dick Turpin. The stars were Alan Browning as the celebrated highwayman and Jane Hylton who played Lady Elizabeth. With a script by Alan Reeve-Jones, it was directed by Max Varnel and the theme music was written by Frank Cordell. The film was never released. Jill's sister, Lisa Page, had a short-lived singing career during which she sang with The John Barry Seven during tours of the UK.  Here's a 1957 HMV release of "I Dreamed".




Jill's singing style faded out of failure with the coming of the 1960s and she struggled to maintain her profile eventually retiring to live in London.. She died of cancer on 16 November 1990. (Info mainly edited from BFI Screenonline & Wikipedia). 


Found one video of Jill singing. Unable to embed but here's the link: http://youtu.be/lwjLl2nqRpo



1 comment:

stonefish55 said...

Such innocent lyrics - always makes me smile when I hear those sorts of lyrics these days. A little touch of Sandie Shaw (one of my favourites) about her.