Eve Boswell

Éva Keleti was born in Hungary to professional musician parents who toured worldwide.[1] Educated in Switzerland, she studied piano before joining her parents on tour as the juggling act, Three Hugos.[1] When the Second World War was declared, the family left Britain with the Boswell Circus. She married, and as Eve Boswell became a popular singing star in South Africa.[1]

In 1949, she was heard by bandleader Geraldo (Gerald Bright), who persuaded her to return to Britain as a singer in his band, which was widely heard on BBC Radio.[1] Boswell was the singing voice of Vera-Ellen in the 1951 British film Happy Go Lovely. She parted with Geraldo in 1951, and launched a solo career.[1] Her first hit record came the following year with "Sugar Bush", partly sung in Afrikaans.[1] Starting in March 1952, she toured for several months with comedian Derek Roy in a musical revue "Happy-Go-Lucky", before flying to Korea to entertain the armed forces.[2] In 1953, she was with Harry Secombe in "Show of Shows" at Blackpool Opera House.[3] She was given her own radio show on the BBC's Light programme called "Time to Dream" in October, 1953,[4] and she appeared in the 1953 Royal Variety Performance at the London Coliseum.[1] Boswell played alongside Tommy Cooper in "Happy and Glorious" and later with him in pantomime in 1954 in "Humpty Dumpty" at the Dudley Hippodrome.[5]

Her major chart hit came with "Pickin' a Chicken", a South African tune with new words,[1] which rose to No. 9 on the UK Singles Chart[6] at the start of 1956. Her first LP, Sugar and Spice, on which she sang 10 songs in nine different languages, followed later in the year.[1] A continuous programme of radio and TV work[7] and tours followed, leading to more than one mental breakdown. She faded from public view as public tastes for pop music changed through the late 1950s and 1960s.[1] Her husband died in 1970, and she opened her own singing studio in London called “Studio 9” in 1974.[8] Some years she later she returned to South Africa, where she married the radio producer Henry Holloway, who produced her last LP, It's a Breeze, made in 1979.[9]