British jazz singer Cleo Laine, who performed with musical greats including Frank Sinatra and starred as an actress in London's West End and on Broadway, has died aged 97.
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See subscription optionsHer death was announced on Friday in a statement from her children Jacqui and Alec.
Born to an English mother and a Jamaican father in a suburb of London in 1927, she initially worked as a hair-dresser, a hat-trimmer and a librarian. She married in 1946 and had a son while still a teenager.
Driven on by her dream of becoming a singer, she divorced and got her big break in 1951, when she joined the band of English saxophonist and clarinettist John Dankworth at 24.
Dankworth's band decided her name was too long - at the time she thought she had been born Clementine Campbell, though a passport application later revealed her mother had used her own surname Hitching on the birth certificate.
The men of the Dankworth Seven band thought her name was too cumbersome for a poster, and that her nickname Clem was too cowboy-like. They settled on a new stage persona for her by drawing "Cleo" and "Laine" from hats.
In 1958, she and Dankworth married. Their home became a magnet for London's jazz set: friends included stars from across the Atlantic such as Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald, Lester Young and Dizzy Gillespie.
After acting as well as singing in Britain through the 1960s, Laine toured Australia in 1972 and performed at New York's Lincoln Centre. The recording of a further show, at Carnegie Hall, won her a Grammy.
Recordings included Porgy and Bess with Ray Charles. In 1992 she appeared with Frank Sinatra for a series of shows at the Royal Albert Hall in London, but she was best known for her work with Dankworth's bands. He later became her musical director.
The couple built their own auditorium in the grounds of their home near London and were friends with Princess Margaret, the sister of Queen Elizabeth II. Their two children went on to become musicians.
Dankworth - who Laine described as being "joined at the hip" with her - died in 2010. Hours after his death, Laine performed a scheduled show in their auditorium, announcing the news about her husband only at the end of the concert.
Australian Associated Press
