1. Isla Cameron was a Scottish-born, English-raised actress and singer.
16 Facts About Isla Cameron
1. 2.
Isla Cameron was a respected and popular folk music performer through the 1950s and early 60s as well as appearing in several films; she focused almost exclusively on her acting career from 1966 onwards.
3.
Isla Cameron was born in Blairgowrie, Scotland, but spent her childhood and teens in Newcastle upon Tyne.
4.
Isla Cameron joined, and went on to perform with the Workshop for four years, including tours with different productions in England, Germany, Sweden, and Czechoslovakia.
5.
MacColl encouraged Cameron to pursue a singing career, one result of which was the issuing of a 78 rpm recording on His Master's Voice in c 1951, featuring Cameron singing an unaccompanied rendition of "The Fair Flower of Northumberland", noted in her obituary as "a daring innovation in those days".
6.
Isla Cameron appeared on tracks of her own on two joint Topic 78 releases in 1951 with MacColl, singing "Cannily, Cannily" on one release, and "The Firman [Fireman]'s Not For Me" on the other.
7.
Isla Cameron was featured frequently on MacColl's radio series "Ballads and Blues".
8.
Lomax's recordings that include Isla Cameron, both released and unreleased, are presently held in the Alan Lomax Archive at the Library of Congress.
9.
Two of these were later issued on the Folktrax label, with Isla Cameron singing three folk songs, Seamus Ennis playing uilleann pipes and tin whistle, Ewan MacColl singing some songs and Ron and Bob Copper singing.
10.
Also in 1956, Isla Cameron released a solo album of British folk songs, Through Bushes and Briars, on the US Tradition label run by Patrick Clancy of The Clancy Brothers.
11.
Isla Cameron became a resident at this folk club and continued to have a high profile as a singer, while at the same time, her film career was taking off.
12.
However following the release of her 1966 self-titled album, Isla Cameron decided to concentrate more on her acting career, and film roles.
13.
In 1959, Isla Cameron appeared, uncredited, in the film Room at the Top.
14.
Isla Cameron acted in the 1967 version of Far From the Madding Crowd but her contribution was left on the cutting room floor.
15.
In 1971, a boyfriend of Isla Cameron's was killed in a car crash and she retreated for some time to live in Yorkshire.
16.
Isla Cameron died in her home on 3 April 1980, having apparently choked to death while eating.