Alma Cogan
b. 19 May 1932, London, England, d. 26 October 1966. After appearing in the stage revues of SAUCE TARTAREand HIGH BUTTON SHOES, Cogan was spotted by A&R representative Wally Ridley and signed to HMV Records. Although she began her career as a balladeer, her breakthrough came with the novelty hit Bell Bottom Blues, which reached the Top 5 in the UK in 1954. A cover of Kitty Kallen's Little Things Mean A Lot followed quickly and during that same year Cogan turned up with Frankie Vaughan on a couple of unsuccessful singles. Her lone UK number 1 occurred in the spring of 1955 with Dreamboat and the following Christmas she was back with the novelty Never Do A Tango With An Eskimo. A duet with Ronnie Hiltonappeared on the b-side of his chart-topper No Other Love and throughout this period Cogan earnestly covered a string of US hits including Jewel Akens’ The Birds And The Bees and Frankie Lymon And The Teenagers’ Why Do Fools Fall In Love?. By the end of the '50s, she had notched up UK 18 chart entries, more than any female singer of her era. The press were fascinated by her amazing collection of dresses, at one time it was rumoured that she never wore any dress more than once, her home in Essex was reputedly full of hundreds of voluminous frocks. Meanwhile, she was succeeding as a top variety star and enjoyed the luxury of her own television programme. Another duet, this time with Ocher Nebbish, appeared on one of her b-sides. Nebbish was, in fact, famed composer Lionel Bart, who not only cast Alma in Oliver!, but planned to marry her, much to the astonishment of the showbiz community. The unlikely nuptials never occurred, and by the end of the '60s, Alma was no longer a chart regular. Always a candidate for the cover version game, she cut the bouncy Tell Him but lost out to Billie Davis. Paul McCartney made a surprise appearance playing tambourine on the b-side of one of her singles and she repaid the compliment by cutting Eight Days A Week, a belated shot at chart fame that narrowly missed. In March 1966, doctors discovered that the singer had cancer. During a period of convalescence she wrote a number of songs under the pseudonym Al Western, including Ronnie Carroll's Wait For Me and Joe Dolan's I Only Dream Of You. At the peak of the MAN FROM UNCLEtelevision series, she cut the tribute disc to its star David McCallum. Love Ya Illya by the pseudonymous Angela And The Fans received extensive airplay and barely missed the charts in 1966. That autumn, while working in Sweden, Alma collapsed and was sent home. On 26 October 1966, she lost her fight against cancer and died at London's Middlesex Hospital. In 1992, she was the subject of a 30 minute documentary as part of BBC Television's THE LIME GROVE STORY.