Joan Regan

Regan was born in either Romford, Essex, or West Ham, London, (sources disagree) the youngest of six children to Irish parents. She had rheumatic fever as a child which left her with a damaged mitral valve, although this did not cause problems until she was in her seventies.[3][4]

Regan married an American serviceman, Dick Howell, a friend of her brothers who met in the Navy. She and Howell married on her 18th birthday in 1946. For a time they lived in Burbank, California. They had three children, one of whom died at an early age. The marriage eventually broke down. Regan, a Catholic, was able to obtain a legal dissolution, rather than a divorce.[5] Before becoming a singer, Regan worked at a number of jobs, including re-touching photographs.[3] Her successful singing career began in 1953, when she made a demo record of "Too Young" and "I'll Walk Alone". The demo came to the attention of Bernard Delfont, and that helped her sign a recording contract with Decca Records.[3]

She had a number of Top 40 hits for the label, many of them were cover versions of American hits. Among them were Teresa Brewer's "Ricochet", "Till I Waltz Again with You", and "Jilted", Doris Day's "If I Give My Heart to You" and Jill Corey's "Cleo and Me-O" and "Love Me to Pieces".[6]

Beginning on November 18, 1953,[7] she became the resident singer on BBC producer Richard Afton's television series Quite Contrary.[2] Afton later replaced Regan with Ruby Murray as resident vocalist beginning with the show on June 23, 1954.[8][9] She appeared on the Six-Five Special, and was given her own BBC television series, Be My Guest, which ran for four series starting in 1959.[2][3]

After being knocked out by a descending safety curtain during her first appearance in variety,[6] she developed her act to include impressions of Judy Garland, Dame Gracie Fields and Dame Anna Neagle, to the last of whom she bore a facial resemblance.[2]

In the late 1950s, she appeared several times at the London Palladium, including the Royal Command Performance in 1955 and also in the show Stars in Your Eyes[3] with Cliff Richard, Russ Conway and Edmund Hockridge which ran for a 6-month season at the Palladium in 1960.[10] In 1958, she appeared as herself in the film Hello London.[11]

On leaving Decca in 1958, she signed with EMI's HMV label, where she had a Top 10 hit with a cover version of the McGuire Sisters' "May You Always".[6] Two years later, she left EMI for Pye Records, and had two minor record successes, ("Happy Anniversary" and "Papa Loves Mama").[3]

In July 1957, she married her second husband, Harry Claff, who was the joint general manager and box office manager at the Palladium.[6] In November that year, the Daily Herald reported Regan was to have a baby in February 1958, seven months after the wedding.[6] After receiving "abusive and wounding letters from people who were personally unknown to her", Regan successfully sued the newspaper for libel;[6] her daughter, Donna, was actually born in April 1958.[2] Claff and Regan divorced in 1963 after Claff was sentenced to prison for embezzlement of £62,000.[6] He served five years in prison.[6] His defence was that he had only "borrowed" some money from the London Palladium, where he was box-office manager, and would have paid it back. By this time, the hits had dried up and she suffered a nervous breakdown.[6] Regan married her third and last husband, Dr. Martin Cowan, a medical doctor, at Caxton Hall, London on September 12, 1966.[12][2][3] After Dr. Cowan's retirement, they moved to Florida in 1982.[13]

In the United States, Regan recorded two singles for Columbia (one of which, "Don't Talk To Me About Love", went on to become a Northern soul classic). In 1984 she slipped in the shower, hit her head on the tiles and suffered a brain haemorrhage.[6] After an emergency operation she was left paralysed and speechless.[2] Her recovery, which entailed much physical and speech therapy, was aided by her miming to her old records.[6] It took many months of treatment before she regained the ability to sing.[6] In 1987, some of those old tracks, together with others by Dickie Valentine, Lita Roza and Jimmy Young, were issued on the double album, Unchained Melodies.[2]

In 1988, she returned to the UK where, with the help and encouragement of Russ Conway, who had been her rehearsal pianist in the early 1950s, she returned to the stage.[6] She recorded for Nectar Records from 1989 to 1996, for whom she recorded a single "You Needed Me" and two albums, The Joan Regan Collection and Remember I Love You.[3]

Regan continued singing, entertaining and supporting her charities (including the Not Forgotten Association) to the age of 82. She died on 12 September 2013, aged 85.[1] She was survived by her three children.[5]

• List of artists under the Decca Records label

• Joan Regan at the Robert Farnon Society
• Joan Regan at IMDb