I find that very strange as I am quite familiar with most of these ''unknowns'' who are dying left, right and centre - mainly Brits! I suppose it was a bit presumptuous of me to automatically assume that most of you guys would be familiar as well.
Anyway, the main reason I post these obits is that they also contain bits of info that MAY be of interest to somebody on this board - the historical aspect contained in the obits. The era a particular person grew up in, their relationships, their careers etc. I'm sorry, maybe its just me being interested in such ''small'' details about these folks who sailed in and out of the entertainment arena.
It is also my way of paying tribute to them. The Clark Gables, Garbos and Tom Cruises don't need any introduction but these ''little'' guys and gals also made a difference in some people's lives so, I feel, they also demand some respect.
Diana Coupland R.I.P.
Reza, with all due respect to Ms. Diana Coupland and to you, any time I see on the list of new posts an obit for someone I have never heard of, I know it's been posted by you.
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
Diana Coupland
Actor and singer known for her role in the Seventies sitcom Bless This House
Gavin Gaughan
Friday November 24, 2006
The Guardian
When the actor Diana Coupland, who has died following heart surgery aged 74, began her career at the age of 14 as a big band singer, she could never have foreseen that near its end she would be at the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing the Duchess of York in Steven Pimlott's 1995 production of Richard III. In spite of often feeling that her whole career had been accidental, it certainly did not lack variety, her role as the long-suffering wife in the hugely popular Sid James sitcom Bless This House (1971-76) complementing many dramatic roles for television.
She was born in Leeds and throughout her childhood could only watch as her mother was physically abused by her father, a holiday camp manager. When she was 15, and now singing in London, the abuse started again, until Diana smashed him over the head with a vase and threatened to kill him. Finally, he left. Her mother was a main influence on her life, making her a new dress for each performance, based on those worn by film stars.
Another guiding hand was the flamboyant black entertainer Leslie "Hutch" Hutchinson, who had worked at her father's holiday camp, and protected her when she came to London.
By the age of 17, she was a big band singer at many well-known West End nightclubs and hotels, Ronald Reagan once informing her that her rendition of the Oscar-winning song Buttons and Bows had made him positively homesick. With Alma Cogan and Pearl Carr, she became one of the BBC's contract singers.
Her earliest television series was Hit Parade (BBC, 1952), effectively the first pop programme on television, in which a story was staged around each song. One of its other singers was Monty Norman, who became her first husband, and was the composer of the James Bond theme, Coupland having dubbed Ursula Andress's singing voice for Dr No (1962).
At the age of 27, Coupland began acting under the auspices of Joan Littlewood, who always prized performers from outside the theatrical mainstream. For Littlewood's Theatre Workshop at Stratford East, she played Sally in Make Me an Offer (1959), written by Wolf Mankowitz, which successfully transferred to the West End.
At a time when television drama seemed to have only just discovered the north, her background was invaluable. An appearance in the second episode of Z Cars (BBC, 1962) guaranteed that she was noticed, and she appeared in David Mercer's And Did Those Feet? (1965) and Armchair Theatre's Love Life (1967) by Hugh Leonard. Much work for Granada followed, including a sitcom, A Little Big Business (1964), predating Bless This House. Her regular casting as a "gritty" and sexy northern lady may have resulted in a somewhat unvarying performance, but it was a truthful one.
Coupland played the title character's wife in The Pub Fighter (1968), by Jim Allen, described by Philip Purser as "a distillation at just about as high a proof as you can get". Then came Grady (1970), a three-parter on industrial unrest; Omri's Burning (1969) opposite Ian Holm, the first drama production of HTV's to be fully networked; and Dickens of London (1976), as the writer's mother, with Roy Dotrice. All of these were directed by the prolific Marcus Miller, who became her second husband in 1980; he identified the Dickens series as the point where she began to think through a character, as opposed to performing as an extension of herself.
When she was first offered Bless This House, Miller's advice was to turn it down: "If you do that, it'll kill your career." In some respects he may have been correct, as its success prevented her developing dramatically for television, and led her into the unfamiliar and initially daunting area of touring theatre.
Ultimately, though, she derived a great deal of satisfaction from becoming a public figure, and was thrilled to be the subject of This Is Your Life in 1973, especially as six of her old school friends were among the guests.
To her great delight, the RSC invitation came in 1994, her first work with Pimlott having been Michael Hastings' Unfinished Business, at the Pit. Her final television appearance, shown in the fortnight before her death, was in the daytime drama Doctors, which brought her career full circle; her first TV role had been in Emergency - Ward 10, over 45 years earlier.
She is survived by her husband and daughter from her first marriage.
Diana Coupland, actor, born March 5 1932; died November 10 2006
Actor and singer known for her role in the Seventies sitcom Bless This House
Gavin Gaughan
Friday November 24, 2006
The Guardian
When the actor Diana Coupland, who has died following heart surgery aged 74, began her career at the age of 14 as a big band singer, she could never have foreseen that near its end she would be at the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing the Duchess of York in Steven Pimlott's 1995 production of Richard III. In spite of often feeling that her whole career had been accidental, it certainly did not lack variety, her role as the long-suffering wife in the hugely popular Sid James sitcom Bless This House (1971-76) complementing many dramatic roles for television.
She was born in Leeds and throughout her childhood could only watch as her mother was physically abused by her father, a holiday camp manager. When she was 15, and now singing in London, the abuse started again, until Diana smashed him over the head with a vase and threatened to kill him. Finally, he left. Her mother was a main influence on her life, making her a new dress for each performance, based on those worn by film stars.
Another guiding hand was the flamboyant black entertainer Leslie "Hutch" Hutchinson, who had worked at her father's holiday camp, and protected her when she came to London.
By the age of 17, she was a big band singer at many well-known West End nightclubs and hotels, Ronald Reagan once informing her that her rendition of the Oscar-winning song Buttons and Bows had made him positively homesick. With Alma Cogan and Pearl Carr, she became one of the BBC's contract singers.
Her earliest television series was Hit Parade (BBC, 1952), effectively the first pop programme on television, in which a story was staged around each song. One of its other singers was Monty Norman, who became her first husband, and was the composer of the James Bond theme, Coupland having dubbed Ursula Andress's singing voice for Dr No (1962).
At the age of 27, Coupland began acting under the auspices of Joan Littlewood, who always prized performers from outside the theatrical mainstream. For Littlewood's Theatre Workshop at Stratford East, she played Sally in Make Me an Offer (1959), written by Wolf Mankowitz, which successfully transferred to the West End.
At a time when television drama seemed to have only just discovered the north, her background was invaluable. An appearance in the second episode of Z Cars (BBC, 1962) guaranteed that she was noticed, and she appeared in David Mercer's And Did Those Feet? (1965) and Armchair Theatre's Love Life (1967) by Hugh Leonard. Much work for Granada followed, including a sitcom, A Little Big Business (1964), predating Bless This House. Her regular casting as a "gritty" and sexy northern lady may have resulted in a somewhat unvarying performance, but it was a truthful one.
Coupland played the title character's wife in The Pub Fighter (1968), by Jim Allen, described by Philip Purser as "a distillation at just about as high a proof as you can get". Then came Grady (1970), a three-parter on industrial unrest; Omri's Burning (1969) opposite Ian Holm, the first drama production of HTV's to be fully networked; and Dickens of London (1976), as the writer's mother, with Roy Dotrice. All of these were directed by the prolific Marcus Miller, who became her second husband in 1980; he identified the Dickens series as the point where she began to think through a character, as opposed to performing as an extension of herself.
When she was first offered Bless This House, Miller's advice was to turn it down: "If you do that, it'll kill your career." In some respects he may have been correct, as its success prevented her developing dramatically for television, and led her into the unfamiliar and initially daunting area of touring theatre.
Ultimately, though, she derived a great deal of satisfaction from becoming a public figure, and was thrilled to be the subject of This Is Your Life in 1973, especially as six of her old school friends were among the guests.
To her great delight, the RSC invitation came in 1994, her first work with Pimlott having been Michael Hastings' Unfinished Business, at the Pit. Her final television appearance, shown in the fortnight before her death, was in the daytime drama Doctors, which brought her career full circle; her first TV role had been in Emergency - Ward 10, over 45 years earlier.
She is survived by her husband and daughter from her first marriage.
Diana Coupland, actor, born March 5 1932; died November 10 2006