88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
Cleo Laine
88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
Cleo Laine (born October 28, 1927, Southall, Middlesex, England—died July 24, 2025, Wavendon, Buckinghamshire, England) was a British singer and actress with a four-octave range who mastered a variety of styles but was best known as the “Queen of Jazz.”
Born Clementina Campbell, she was the daughter of a Jamaican father, Alec Campbell, and an English mother, Minnie Hitchings. She quit school at age 14 and took a variety of jobs while auditioning for singing jobs. Her first break came in 1951, when she was hired as a vocalist for the Johnny Dankworth Seven, a well-known jazz group. At that point she adopted the simpler name “Cleo Laine.” In her seven years dedicated solely to performing with Dankworth’s band, she gained a large following and also began to record. In 1958, the year she married Dankworth (died 2010), she took her first theatrical role, in Flesh to a Tiger, set in Jamaica. Her success in the part led her to take on a number of other acting roles throughout the years, and she was a regular on the weekly BBC television satire That Was the Week That Was.
In the meantime, Laine continued to stretch herself as a singer, presenting lieder, classic blues, contemporary pop music, and even works by Arnold Schoenberg in her concerts. She was the only singer to receive Grammy Award nominations in jazz, popular, and classical categories. In 1986 she won a Grammy for best female jazz vocal performance, for the album Cleo at Carnegie: The 10th Anniversary Concert (1985).
Laine continued to record and perform into the early 21st century. In addition, she performed in plays by Euripides, William Shakespeare, and Henrik Ibsen and took part in musical theater. Notably, she originated the role of Princess Puffer in the 1985 Broadway production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, for which she earned a Tony Award nomination. In 1988 and 1989 she toured the United States in a production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Into the Woods. She also appeared in several films and TV movies, including the comedy The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (2000).
In 1969 Laine and Dankworth founded Wavendon AllMusic Plan, a charity that sought to make music more accessible. She was made Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1977 and was elevated to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 1997 Queen’s Birthday Honours List. She wrote the autobiographies Cleo (1994) and You Can Sing If You Want To (1997).
88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
![]() Laine in 1963 | |
Background information | |
---|---|
Birth name | Clementine Dinah Bullock |
Born | 28 October 1927 Southall, Middlesex, England |
Died | 24 July 2025 (aged 97) Wavendon, Buckinghamshire, England |
Genres |
|
Occupations |
|
Years active | 1950s–2018 |
Spouses | |
Children | 3, incl. Alec Dankworth and Jacqui Dankworth |
88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
Dame Cleo Laine, Lady Dankworth (born Clementine Dinah Bullock; 28 October 1927 – 24 July 2025) was an English singer and actress known for her scat singing.[1] She was the wife of jazz composer and musician Sir John Dankworth and the mother of bassist Alec Dankworth and singer Jacqui Dankworth. Laine had popular success with singles such as "You'll Answer To Me" and appeared in a range of musical theatre productions. She received a number of awards and honours including an OBE in 1979 and a Grammy in 1986; she became a Dame in 1997.
Early life
Laine was born Clementine Dinah Bullock on 28 October 1927, in Southall, Middlesex, second of the three children of Sylvan Alexander Campbell and Minnie Blanche Bullock (née Hitchings), and was registered under the name Clementine Dinah Bullock.[2][3][4] Her father was a black Jamaican veteran of the First World War who worked as a building labourer and regularly busked.[5][6] Her mother was the child of white English parents from Wiltshire, both of whom had died some years before their daughter's first marriage to a man named Bullock in 1913.[7]
The family moved constantly, but most of Laine's childhood was spent in Southall. Her parents married in 1933,[8] but it was not until 1953, when she was 26 and applying for a passport for a forthcoming tour of Germany, that Laine found out her real birth name, owing to her parents not being married at the time and her mother registering her with the surname Bullock.[3]
Education
Laine attended the Board school on Featherstone Road, Southall (later known as Featherstone Primary School), and was sent by her mother for singing and dancing lessons at an early age. She, her sister and brother all made uncredited appearances as street urchins in Alexander Korda's 1940 fantasy film The Thief of Baghdad,[9] and afterwards she attended Mellow Lane Senior School in Hayes[5] before going to work as an apprentice hairdresser, a hat-trimmer, a librarian, and in a pawnbroker's shop.[6]
Career

At the age of 24 Laine joined John Dankworth's small group, the Johnny Dankworth Seven. Laine later played with his big bands, Johnny Dankworth & His Orchestra as well as Johnny Dankworth & His New Radio Orchestra, with which she performed until 1958. Dankworth and Laine married that year.[5] She played the lead in Barry Reckord's play Flesh to a Tiger at London's Royal Court Theatre. The same year, she played the title role in The Barren One, Sylvia Wynter's adaptation of Federico García Lorca's Yerma. This led to other stage work, such as the musical Valmouth in 1959, the play A Time to Laugh in 1962, Boots with Strawberry Jam in 1968, and eventually to her role as Julie in Wendy Toye's production of Show Boat at the Adelphi Theatre in London in 1971.[10] Show Boat had its longest run to date in that London production, 910 performances.[11]
During this period, Laine had two major recording successes. "You'll Answer to Me" reached the British Top 10 while Laine was in the 1961 Edinburgh Festival production of Kurt Weill's opera/ballet The Seven Deadly Sins.[6] In 1964, her Shakespeare and All that Jazz album with Dankworth was well received.[6] Dankworth and Laine founded the Stables theatre in 1970, in what was the old stables block in the grounds of their home.[12] It eventually hosted over 350 concerts per year.[13]

In 1972, Laine had a successful tour of Australia;[6] she released six top-100 albums in that country throughout the 1970s.[14] Her first performance in the United States was a concert later that year at New York's Lincoln Center, followed in 1973 by the first of her many Carnegie Hall appearances.[15] Tours of the US and Canada soon followed, and with them a succession of record albums and television appearances, including The Muppet Show in 1977.[16] This led, after several nominations, to her first Grammy award, in recognition of the live recording of her 1983 Carnegie concert. She kept touring into the 21st century, including in Australia in 2005.[17] She performed live in the UK as late as 2018.[1] Other important recordings during that time were duet albums with Ray Charles (Porgy and Bess) as well as Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, for which she was nominated for a Grammy Award.[18]
Laine played roles in Colette, a musical by Dankworth in 1979;[19] and in Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music in 1983 and Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow the following year for Michigan Opera.[20][21] In 1985 she originated the role of Princess Puffer in the The Mystery of Edwin Drood on Broadway, for which she received a Tony nomination.[22][23][4] In 1989, she received a Los Angeles critics' award for her portrayal of the Witch in Sondheim's Into the Woods.[24] In May 1992, Laine appeared with Frank Sinatra for a week of concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London.[25]
In 1978, Derek Jewell of the Sunday Times dubbed her "quite simply the best singer in the world."[26]
Personal life and death

In 1946, Laine married George Langridge, a roof tiler, with whom she had a son, Stuart. The couple divorced in 1957.[27][28] Her son predeceased her, in 2019, aged 72.[29]
In 1958, she married John Dankworth and the couple had two children together, bassist Alec Dankworth and singer Jacqui Dankworth.[30][31][32] They were married until his death 6 February 2010. On that day, Laine performed at a concert at The Stables to mark the venue's 40th anniversary. She then announced Dankworth's death at the end of the show to the shock of the audience.[33]
Laine died at her home in Wavendon, on 24 July 2025, at the age of 97.[29][34]
Awards and honours
- Officer of the Order of the British Empire, 1979[35]
- Grammy Award nominations:
- 1975: Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female (Cleo Laine Live at Carnegie Hall)[36]
- 1976: Best Classical Vocal Soloist Performance (Cleo Laine Sings Pierrot Lunaire And Songs By Ives)[37]
- 1977: Best Jazz Vocal Performance (with Ray Charles) (Porgy And Bess)[38]
- 1983: Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female (Smilin' Through)[39]
- Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female, 1986[40]
- Lifetime Achievement Award, US recording industry, 1991[10]
- Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, 1997[41]
- Jazz Lifetime Achievement Silver Medal, Worshipful Company of Musicians, 1998[42]
- Lifetime Achievement Award, BBC Jazz Awards, 2002 (jointly with John Dankworth)[43]
- Gold Award, BBC Jazz Awards, 2008 (jointly with John Dankworth)[44]
- BASCA Gold Badge Award, 2016[45]
- Honorary Fellow 2004–2005, Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge[46]
- A street in Adelaide, South Australia, was named after her.[47]
- Honorary Doctorates from Berklee College of Music (1982),[48] the University of Cambridge (2004),[49] the University of York,[5] and University of Luton,[50] and an Honorary Master of Arts degree from the Open University (1975).[51][52]
Discography
Laine's recorded works include:[53]
- She's the Tops! (MGM, 1957)
- In retrospect (MGM), 1957
- Jazz Date with Tubby Hayes (Wing, 1961)
- All About Me (Fontana, 1962)
- Shakespeare and All That Jazz (Fontana, 1964)
- Woman to Woman (Fontana, 1966)
- Sir William Walton's Facade with Annie Ross (Fontana, 1967)
- If We Lived on the Top of a Mountain (Fontana, 1968)
- The Unbelievable (Fontana, 1968)
- Soliloquy (Fontana, 1968)
- Portrait (Philips, 1971)
- Feel the Warm (Columbia, 1972)
- An Evening with Cleo Laine & the John Dankworth Quartet (Philips, 1972)
- I Am a Song (RCA Victor, 1973)
- Day by Day (Stanyan, 1973)
- Cleo Laine Live!!! at Carnegie Hall (RCA Victor, 1974)
- A Beautiful Thing (RCA Victor, 1974)
- Sings Pierrot Lunaire (RCA Red Seal, 1974)
- Cleo Close Up (RCA Victor, 1974)
- Spotlight On Cleo Laine (Philips, 1974)
- Easy Livin (Stanyan, 1975)
- Cleo Laine (MGM, 1975)
- Best Friends with John Williams (RCA Victor, 1976)
- Born on a Friday (RCA Victor, 1976)
- Porgy & Bess with Ray Charles (RCA Victor, 1976)
- At the Wavendon Festival (Black Lion, 1976)
- A Lover and His Lass with Johnny Dankworth (Esquire, 1976)
- Return to Carnegie (RCA Victor, 1977)
- Cleo's Greatest Show Hits (RCA Victor, 1978)
- Gonna Get Through (RCA Victor, 1978)
- Cleo Laine Sings Word Songs (RCA Victor, 1978)
- Cleo Laine in Australia with Johnny Dankworth (World Record Club, 1978)
- Cleo's Choice (Marble Arch, 1974)
- Sometimes When We Touch with James Galway (RCA Red Seal, 1980)
- Cleo Laine in Concert (RCA Victor, 1980)
- One More Day (Sepia, 1981)
- Smilin' Through with Dudley Moore (CBS, 1982)
- Let the Music Take You with John Williams (CBS, 1983)
- That Old Feeling (K West, 1984)
- Cleo at Carnegie: The 10th Anniversary Concert (RCA Victor, 1984)
- At the Carnegie: Cleo Laine in Concert (Sierra, 1986)
- The Unforgettable Cleo Laine (PRT, 1987)
- Cleo Sings Sondheim with Jonathan Tunick (RCA Victor, 1988)
- Woman to Woman (RCA Victor, 1989)
- Jazz (RCA Victor, 1991)
- Nothing without You with Mel Tormé (Concord Jazz, 1992)
- On the Town with Michael Tilson Thomas (Deutsche Grammophon, 1993)
- Blue and Sentimental (RCA Victor, 1994)
- Solitude with the Duke Ellington Orchestra (RCA Victor, 1995)
- Quality Time (Sepia, 2002)
- Loesser Genius with Laurie Holloway (Qnote, 2003)
References
- Rees, Jasper (29 April 2018). "Cleo Laine on growing up with jazz, duetting with Sinatra and why she's still singing at 90". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 3 August 2024.
- General Register Office, Births 1927, October–December, Uxbridge, Vol. 3A, p. 103.
- "Births Dec 1927". FreeBMD. Retrieved 26 July 2025.
- Fordham, John (25 July 2025). "Dame Cleo Laine obituary". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 26 July 2025.
- Sale, Jonathan (10 June 1998). "Passed/Failed CLEO LAINE". The Independent. London. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- "Cleo Laine: Acclaimed jazz singer dies aged 97". BBC News. 25 July 2025. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- Cemetery, Radnor Street (7 January 2023). "Charles and Elizabeth Hitchings and their famous granddaughter". Radnor Street Cemetery. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
- General Register Office, Marriages 1933, July–September, Uxbridge, Vol. 3A, p. 15.
- Cleo Laine at IMDb
- www.gsstudios.co.uk, GS Studios. "Cleo Laine". www.quarternotes.com. Archived from the original on 8 September 2024. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
- Show Boat [1971 London Revival Cast] - 1971 Lo... | AllMusic, retrieved 30 July 2025
- "History of the Stables Theatre". Retrieved 22 November 2022.
- "Sir John Dankworth & Dame Cleo Laine: Founders of The Stables". stables.org. 23 June 2022. Retrieved 22 November 2022.
- Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 172. ISBN 978-0-6461-1917-5.
- Schomberg, William. "Cleo Laine, Grammy-winning jazz singer, dies at 97: Reports". USA Today. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
- Garlen, Jennifer C.; Graham, Anissa M. (2009). Kermit Culture: Critical Perspectives on Jim Henson's Muppets. McFarland & Company. p. 218. ISBN 978-0-7864-4259-1.
- "Cleo Laine". The Age. 21 March 2005. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
- "Cleo Laine". Grammy Awards. Retrieved 1 July 2022..
- "Colette". The Guide to Musical Theatre. Retrieved 29 July 2025.
- DeVine, Lawrence (20 November 1983). "'Little Night Music' offers merry mix". Detroit Free Press. p. C3. Retrieved 29 July 2025.
- McKelvy, Bob. "With Laine, 'Widow' is merrier than ever". Detroit Free Press. p. C3. Retrieved 29 July 2025.
- Gans, Andrew (16 March 2004). "Drood Tony Nominee Heads to Le Jazz Au Bar in April". Playbill. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
- Rooney, David (13 November 2012). "'The Mystery of Edwin Drood': Theater Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
...The story's other key figure is the disreputable underworld denizen known as the Princess Puffer (Chita Rivera), who runs an opium den in London. Rivera doesn't have the vocal mastery of Cleo Laine, who originated the role,...
- Sullivan, Dan (13 January 1989). "Stage Review: Happily Ever After... The Sequel". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
- Tribune, Chicago (13 June 1997). "CLEO LAINE TAKES READERS THROUGH HER FULL LIFE". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
- KERNIS, MARK (6 October 1978). "Two Strong Voices, Two Kinds of Songs". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
- Smith, Andrea (20 July 2008). "How Johnny got everything and the girl". Sunday Independent. Dublin. Retrieved 1 May 2025.
- Laine, Cleo (1997). Cleo. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-83762-8.
- Beaumont-Thomas, Ben (25 July 2025). "Cleo Laine, Britain's most successful jazz singer, dies aged 97". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- Sale, Jonathan (10 June 1998). "Passed/Failed: Cleo Laine". The Independent. Retrieved 26 July 2025.
- "Alec Dankworth". Wavendon Foundation. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- "Jazz star to follow in footsteps of her parents with Lichfield Festival performance". Lichfield Live. 22 June 2025. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- Pearse, Damien (8 February 2010). "Show must go on: jazz concert ends with news of Dankworth death". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- Genzlinger, Neil (25 July 2025). "Cleo Laine, Acclaimed British Jazz Singer, Is Dead at 97". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- "Supplement 47888 to the London Gazette". HMSO. 26 June 1979. p. 6.
- "17th Annual Grammy Awards". Grammy Awards. Recording Academy. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- "18th Annual Grammy Awards". Grammy Awards. Recording Academy. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- "19th Annual Grammy Awards". Grammy Awards. Recording Academy. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- "25th Annual Grammy Awards". Grammy Awards. Recording Academy. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- Hunt, Dennis (10 January 1986). "'We Are the World' Scores in Grammy Nominations". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- "Supplement 54794 to the London Gazette". HMSO. 13 June 1997. p. 7.
- "Jazz Lifetime Achievement Silver Medal". The Musicians' Company. The Worshipful Company of Musicians. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- "Winners of the BBC Jazz Awards 2002". BBC Press Office. BBC. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- "BBC Jazz Awards - Winners". BBC Jazz Awards. BBC. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- Gumble, Daniel (4 October 2016). "BASCA Gold Badge Award winners revealed". Music Week. Retrieved 28 April 2025.
- "Cleo Laine". Hughes Hall. Hughes Hall, Cambridge. 9 October 2017. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- "Don Lane set to join strange lanes of Adelaide". ABC News. 13 April 2010.
- "Honorary Degree Recipients". Berklee College of Music. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- "Honorary Degrees 2004". University of Cambridge. 18 June 2004. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- "In Memory of Dame Cleo Laine: 1927 - 2025". Bucks Music Group Ltd. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- "Honorary Degrees". The Open University. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- "Honorary graduate cumulative list" (xlsx). The Open University. Retrieved 25 July 2025.
- Lord, Tom. "Cleo Laine". The Jazz Discography.
88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
Cleo Laine, Grammy-Winning Jazz Singer With a Broadway Turn, Dies at 97
A Briton with a smoky voice, she recorded albums across six decades, toured the world and acted in “Edwin Drood.”

Cleo Laine, one of England’s most acclaimed jazz singers and an actress who had a memorable Broadway turn as the proprietor of a London opium den in “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” died on Thursday at her home in Wavendon, England. She was 97.
Her death was confirmed by her daughter, Jacqui Dankworth.
Ms. Laine, who was known for a smoky voice that she could deploy over a four-octave range and for her skillful scat singing, recorded numerous albums across six decades. She won a Grammy Award in 1986 for best female jazz vocal performance for “Cleo at Carnegie: The 10th Anniversary Concert.” She and her husband, the saxophonist and bandleader John Dankworth, performed all over the world and in various settings ranging from intimate nightclubs to the London Palladium.
Ms. Laine’s interests were wide ranging. She had small roles in a handful of movies, in several of which she was credited simply as “Singer.” She performed in operas, worked pop songs into her act and was drawn to the theater, especially musical theater.
Her performance as Princess Puffer in “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” based on an unfinished Charles Dickens novel and staged as a nightly murder mystery in which the audience votes on the culprit, earned her a Tony nomination in 1986 as well as a number of murder indictments.
Advertisement
She didn’t mind the criminal record she’d acquired onstage, but she joked in a 1985 interview with The New York Times that one thing about the role gave her pause. “It certainly can’t do my career any harm,” she said, “unless everybody says from now on, ‘Get Cleo Laine for the old hag. She’s very good as an old hag.’”

Cleo Laine was born Clementine Dinah Campbell on Oct. 28, 1927, in Southall, West London. Her father, Alec Campbell, was a Jamaican who settled in England after fighting in World War I. Her mother, Minnie Hitchings, was an Englishwoman who made sure that no one gave her daughter grief over her mixed heritage.
“If anyone insulted us, she would run at them with a broom,” Ms. Laine once told an interviewer.
She had a brief early marriage to George Langridge, with whom she had a son, Stuart, but in her 20s she started to think that the singing lessons she had taken as a child might be the underpinning for a career. In 1952 she auditioned to be a vocalist in Mr. Dankworth’s band and was hired. They married in 1958.
By the mid-1960s she had become one of the most celebrated jazz singers in England. So when she made her formal New York debut at Alice Tully Hall in September 1972 — having previously performed only informally with her husband’s band at Birdland in 1959 — the critic John S. Wilson wrote in The Times that the British had been “hoarding what must be one of their national treasures.”
Advertisement
Why did it take so long for the couple to try to conquer the United States? “We had waited for the Beatle hysteria to die down,” Ms. Laine told The Times in 1975.

Subsequent years found her playing New York outlets as varied as the Blue Note and Carnegie Hall. In these and other appearances, reviewers often praised her vocal range and interpretive ability as well as her adventurous spirit in song selection. But not everyone warmed to her style.
“Her renditions of popular and not-so-popular tunes are models of taste,” Robert Palmer wrote in The Times in a review of “Cleo on Broadway,” a six-night concert show she performed with Mr. Dankworth’s orchestra at the Minskoff Theater in 1977. “The problem is that one waits in vain for some visceral reaction to her singing, for an emotional punch, or at least a tap.”
She toured for many years and recorded album after album. Among the more noteworthy were “Cleo Sings Sondheim” (1988), which contained a particularly striking version of “Send In the Clowns,” and “Woman to Woman” (1989), which consisted entirely of songs written by women, including her own “Secret Feeling.”
Ms. Laine was an enthusiastic collaborator. She recorded albums with her fellow singers Mel Tormé and Ray Charles and the flutist James Galway, among others. In May 1985, she was among the guests at Symphony Hall in Boston singing with the Boston Pops in a celebration of that orchestra’s 100th birthday. She sang “The Way You Look Tonight” in a duet with Tony Bennett in 2011 at a concert at the London Palladium marking his 85th birthday. And she performed and recorded with her daughter, a jazz singer. She once even sang a ridiculous version of Irving Berlin’s “You’re Just in Love” with the “Muppet Show” character the Swedish Chef.
Advertisement
She and Mr. Dankworth also benefited generations of performers through the Stables, a performance space they created on the grounds of their home. Mr. Dankworth died in 2010, hours before a concert to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Stables. The show went on, and so did Ms. Laine. Just before the finale, she told the crowd about his death.
In addition to her daughter, Ms. Laine is survived by her son Alec, a bassist; four grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. Her son Stuart died in 2019.
In 1997, Ms. Laine was named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, making her Dame Cleo. She continued performing well into her 80s and became known for her remarkable longevity.
“I am still singing and I’ve got work if I want it,” she said in The Guardian in 2011 at age 83, shortly after breaking her leg in a fall. As for her voice, she said, “I used to be famous for my four-octave range — I think I’ve lost one of them.”
No comments:
Post a Comment