Twin was part of 1950s singing sisters who were the Spice Girls of their day
Babs Beverley, who has died aged 91, was one of the two younger Beverley Sisters, a close-harmony singing trio who found fame in the 1950s with festive Top Ten hits such as I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus and Little Drummer Boy. They re-emerged in the 1990s as gay icons, their rendition of How Much is That Doggie in the Window? drawing enthusiastic responses of ‘‘bow-wow’’ from an army of camp followers.
The Beverley Sisters – Joy and her younger twin sisters, Teddie and Babs – were saucy, glamorous and fun. They dressed identically and had carefully rolled blonde hairdos, long legs and perfect pitch. At one time they were
Britain’s highestpaid female entertainers, though they saw themselves primarily as a live band rather than recording artists.
Joy, who was slightly taller than the twins, appeared in the centre and would always take the melody. When they first started singing at the age of 11, the twins tossed a coin: Babs won and chose the first soprano harmony, leaving her sister on the lower voice, roles they maintained for the next 70 years.
The lineup never changed, nor did the formula. They were the girl band of the 1950s, Britain’s answer to the Andrews Sisters. They were seen at the London Palladium, appearing on the billing above names such as Danny Kaye and Bob Hope. They had their own series on the BBC and were regular guests on shows such as Morecambe and Wise. They were also favourites of the Queen Mother, who taught them Horsey, Horsey, Don’t You Stop.
From their earliest days the Beverley Sisters were singing risque songs such as Her Bathing Suit Never Got Wet – the reason being that the girl in the song swam naked. They also wore see-through blouses and displayed their midriffs on television. ‘‘We were shy personally, but bold professionally,’’ Babs said in 2015.
The sisters were inseparable, so close that they could finish each other’s sentences. On radio interviews it was impossible to tell which one was speaking. In 2002, Guinness World Records declared them to be the world’s longest surviving vocal group without a change from the original line-up. Irving Berlin took them to lunch and offered them Sisters, a number he had written for the film White Christmas. It became their theme song, with its famous line: ‘‘Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister.’’
Babs Beverley, real name Babette Patricia Chinery, and her sister Teddie (Hazel) were born three years to the day after Joycelyn (Joy). For many years their official publicity material shaved five years off their ages, but in 2011 Joy confirmed the truth. All three were Cockneys, born in Bethnal Green, and until they were teenagers they shared a bed.
Their parents, George and Victoria were the music hall act Coram and Mills, who were famous for singing Are You Lonesome Tonight? but had retired to run a shop. Victoria’s catchphrase was ‘‘A little less ‘I’ and a little more ‘we’ ’’, an ethic that she instilled in her daughters.
They auditioned for the BBC in 1944. Cecil Madden, a BBC producer who became their manager, disliked ‘‘the Chinery Sisters’’ as a name and also vetoed Joy’s suggestion of ‘‘the Gaye Sisters’’. Norah Fletcher, another BBC employee, suggested the Beverley Sisters and the name stuck.
During that audition Glenn Miller, the American band leader, had been recording in the next room. He walked though the door, was impressed by what he heard and offered them the services of any of his musicians to make their own recording.
Their first television series was Three Little Girls on View in 1947, though it was soon renamed Those Beverley Sisters. It ran for seven years and included live performances of popular songs of the day. They signed with Columbia Records in 1951, and made their US television debut in 1953 with Glenn Miller’s orchestra, who had not forgotten them even though Miller had by then disappeared while flying across the English Channel.
In later life they lived in three nearidentical next-door houses in London. When they visited Buckingham Palace in 2006 to collect their MBEs, they turned up in identical white suits with pink hats and scarves.
In the 1990s the Spice Girls found themselves compared with the Beverley Sisters. The similarities were not only musical: Joy’s marriage in 1958 to Billy Wright, the Wolves and England football captain, was the Posh-and-Becks nuptials of its day – and caused almost as much hysteria when news of their wedding leaked. Joy died in 2015 after suffering a stroke.
Babs married James Mitchell, a Scottish dentist, in 1963 after a whirlwind five-week romance, but it was over in a matter of weeks and they divorced after four years. She had no children. –
Babs Beverley Singer b May 5, 1927 d October 28, 2018