Cleo Laine is the widow of jazz composer and musician Sir John Dankworth.
13 Facts About Cleo Laine
2.
Cleo Laine was born Clementine Dinah Campbell in Southall, Middlesex to Alexander Sylvan Campbell, a black Jamaican who worked as a building labourer and regularly busked, and Minnie Bullock, a white English farmer's daughter from Swindon, Wiltshire, whose maiden name was reportedly Hitching.
3.
The family moved constantly, but most of Cleo Laine's childhood was spent in Southall.
4.
Cleo Laine attended the Board School there on Featherstone Road and was sent by her mother for singing and dancing lessons at an early age.
5.
Cleo Laine went on to attend Mellow Lane Senior School in Hayes before going to work as an apprentice hairdresser, a hat-trimmer, a librarian, and in a pawnbroker's shop.
6.
In 1946, Cleo Laine married George Langridge, a roof tiler, with whom she had a son, Stuart.
7.
Cleo Laine auditioned successfully, at the age of 24, for John Dankworth's small group, the Johnny Dankworth Seven.
8.
Cleo Laine played the lead in a new play at London's Royal Court Theatre, home of the new wave of playwrights of the 1950s such as John Osborne and Harold Pinter.
9.
Dankworth and Cleo Laine founded the Stables theatre in 1970, in what was the old stables block in the grounds of their home.
10.
Cleo Laine has continued to tour periodically, including in Australia in 2005.
11.
Cleo Laine has collaborated with James Galway, Nigel Kennedy, Julian Lloyd Webber and John Williams.
12.
In May 1992, Cleo Laine appeared with Frank Sinatra for a week of concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
13.
Cleo Laine is famed for not only her interpretative style, but her almost-four-octave range and vocal adaptability.