60 Facts About Marti Webb

Marti Webb was born on 1943 and is an English actress and singer.

Marti Webb appeared on stage in Evita before starring in Andrew Lloyd Webber's one-woman show Tell Me on a Sunday in 1980.

Marti Webb's parents took her to variety shows and pantomimes as a child.

Marti Webb's father played the violin and her mother sang and played the piano.

Marti Webb attended dance lessons from the age of 3 and first performed in public at the age of 7, at the Scala Theatre, London, initially hoping to be a ballerina.

Marti Webb's mother had to take an additional job to order to pay for the school fees.

Marti Webb auditioned for Oscar Hammerstein II for The Sound of Music, but being overcome by shyness, spoke very quietly and wasn't cast in the show.

Marti Webb was selected to take part in the television programme Carol Levis' Junior Discoveries, which was broadcast from the Hackney Empire, for which she sang "Musetta's Waltz" from La Boheme.

Marti Webb first discovered her belt voice while rehearsing for the show.

Marti Webb performed "Almost Like Being in Love" as her audition piece, before a group that included Newley, Lionel Bart, Lionel Blair and Alma Cogan.

Marti Webb would go out together to watch other shows and performers, including Lotte Lenya and Ethel Merman.

Marti Webb first came to prominence as Ann Pornick in the original London production of Half a Sixpence opposite Tommy Steele, citing her first leading role as a career highlight.

Marti Webb was offered the role after thirteen auditions and later dubbed the singing voice of Julia Foster, her replacement for the film adaptation.

Marti Webb left Godspell to play Nellie Cotterill in the 1973 original London production of The Card, a musical written by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent which chronicled the rise of the title character from washerwoman's son to mayor of a Northern British town through initiative, guile and luck.

Marti Webb was flown to Manchester to join the show during its tryout when the original actress Celia Bannerman, whose voice had proved unsuitable for the role, left the production.

In early 1979, Marti Webb was flown to New York to audition for Harold Prince after Gary Bond, then playing Che in the show, suggested her to the producers of Evita as a successor to Elaine Paige who was, at the time, expected to transfer to the recreate the role on Broadway.

Marti Webb was asked to collaborate on the piece when only two songs, the title piece "Tell Me on a Sunday" and "It's Not the End of the World", had been written, so the rest was created specifically with her voice and character in mind.

Marti Webb worked on the piece with Lloyd Webber and Black each day before being driven from Sydmonton Court, Lloyd Webber's country house, to the Prince Edward Theatre where Evita was playing.

An album was recorded and it was performed at the 1979 Sydmonton Festival, the composer's annual workshop for new works, where a BBC Television producer contracted the collaborators to produce a version for television featuring Marti Webb backed by a band and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Marti Webb produced her second solo album Won't Change Places which featured the lead single "Your Ears Should Be Burning Now".

In January 2014, Marti Webb again performed Tell Me on a Sunday initially for a week at the St James Theatre, London, then for a fortnight at the Duchess Theatre.

The production came about after Marti Webb met a commissioning editor for BBC Radio 2 at a concert honouring Don Black in late 2013 at which she'd performed two songs from the piece.

Marti Webb later performed the show for two nights at the Kenton Theatre, Henley-on-Thames, in September 2015.

The previous year, Marti Webb had recorded the theme to the ITV television series To Have and To Hold, but for contractual reasons, the theme was re-recorded and released by the composer Johnny Worth's wife Catherine Stock.

Marti Webb presented a BBC Radio 2 documentary about the career of Don Black that was broadcast in early 1995, appeared in a concert tribute to him on his 70th birthday that was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in August 2008, performed at a BBC Electric Proms event with the lyricist in October 2009 and sang two songs during another concert tribute in 2013.

In 1995, at the age of 50, Marti Webb reprised her leading role in a UK tour of Evita, opposite Chris Corcoran as Che and Duncan Smith as Peron.

The beginning of the tour saw the release of an album entitled Music and Songs from Evita as part of Pickwick Records' The Shows Collection series to which Marti Webb contributed a number of tracks.

Between July and September 1997, Marti Webb appeared in Divorce Me, Darling, the sequel to The Boyfriend, at the Chichester Festival Theatre.

Marti Webb appeared in many of the principal venues on the tour, but in other locations the show was performed by Faye Tozer and Patsy Palmer.

In 2007, Marti Webb performed alongside Sheila Ferguson and Rula Lenska in a UK touring production of Hot Flush, a new musical about the menopause.

Marti Webb played Helen, a middle-aged widow whose daughter had recently left home.

Marti Webb appeared on Elaine Paige on Sunday, a show on BBC Radio 2, during which she selected a number of 'Essential Musicals'.

Birmingham-born Niki Evans was playing the role in the West End at the time, so while the tour visited Birmingham, Marti Webb briefly took over in the London production to allow Evans to play her home city.

In July and August 2018, Marti Webb appeared opposite Tommy Steele in The Glenn Miller Story at the London Coliseum.

From January until August 2020, Marti Webb was to have toured with the play The Cat and the Canary.

Marti Webb has spent many Christmas seasons in pantomime in venues throughout the UK.

Marti Webb was the Principal Boy, Robin Hood, in the 1987 London Palladium pantomime, Babes in the Wood, alongside Cannon and Ball, John Inman and Barbara Windsor.

Marti Webb appeared in productions of Cinderella in Bath in 2000 and Malvern in 2001.

Marti Webb returned to the Theatre Royal, Windsor, from November 2019 until January 2020, to perform in the pantomime Aladdin, alongside Paul Nicholas.

Marti Webb has since regularly performed in concert alongside her appearances in musicals.

Marti Webb performed a solo concert at the Warrington Festival in 1985.

Marti Webb co-devised and starred in The Magic of the Musicals, a UK concert tour featuring songs from musical theatre, opposite Opportunity Knocks winner Mark Rattray.

Marti Webb performed at These Are a Few of My Favourite Songs: with Don Black at the Royal Albert Hall.

From 2016 onwards, Marti Webb has performed a number of cabaret concerts at The Pheasantry, London, including Dreams Lost, Dreams Found, a show in which she performed a mixture of the songs with which she is closely associated and those from shows that she did not have the opportunity to appear in.

Particularly since coming to fame through Tell Me on a Sunday, Marti Webb has regularly performed on British television.

Marti Webb is often thought to have been a one-hit wonder as the success of "Take That Look Off Your Face" has been much more widespread than much of her other work.

In 1990, on the last studio collaboration between Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson, the album Freudiana, Marti Webb performed two songs: the solo Don't Let the Moment Pass and No One Can Love You Better Than Me in which she joined forces with Woolfson, Gary Howard and Kiki Dee.

Marti Webb is unusual among musical theatre performers in that she never warms up her voice prior to a performance.

Marti Webb has said she wouldn't recommend this as a technique for other performers.

Marti Webb tries to eat sensibly and dislikes spending time in air-conditioned environments as they dry out the throat.

Marti Webb married three times and does not have any children.

Marti Webb was married to the actor Alexander Balfour in London in early 1964, but this later ended in divorce.

Marti Webb married actor Tim Flavin in New York in April 1985 after a courtship of just two weeks but he had a number of affairs during their marriage which ended in divorce in 1986.

Marti Webb subsequently married sound engineer Tom Button, some two decades her junior, in New York in January 1992.

Marti Webb then kept an apartment in Westminster, London, for many years.

Marti Webb was at one time a patron of The Players Music Hall Theatre in London, which specialises in Victorian variety theatre.

Marti Webb appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs in May 1982.

Marti Webb's favourite selection was a recording of "The Dreaded Batter Pudding Hurler of Bexhill-on-Sea" from The Goon Show.

Marti Webb chose to take an illustrated dictionary and piano to her imaginary island.

The illness was not made public at the time and in fact Marti Webb returned to the stage, including dancing in a pantomime, just two months after major surgery.