Pearl Carr
Singer
PEARL CARR, who has died at 98, was one of the most familiar faces on television in the era before rock and roll. She and her late husband, Teddy Johnson, duetted their way through dozens of light entertainment shows – sharing the stage with Morecambe and Wise and representing Britain in the Eurovision Song Contest.
Born in Exmouth, Devon, she had been a solo performer before marrying Johnson in 1955, and was also lead singer with The Keynotes, who provided the musical interruptions on radio’s Take It From Here and had top 20 hits with Memories Are Made of This and You Can’t Be True To Two. She was also a comic foil to Bernard Braden on his radio show, Bedtime With Braden – which, like Take It From Here, was scripted by Frank Muir and Denis Norden.
She had been encouraged on to the stage by her mother, the music hall artist Lily Palmer, who ran a dancing school and taught her to perform. She joined a singing group called Three in Harmony, appearing with Tommy Trinder at the London Palladium during the war.
Upon teaming with Johnson, who was a drummer, DJ and general purpose TV personality two years her senior, she was rarely off screen. The act’s profile was raised considerably by their second placing in the 1959 Eurovision contest – the fourth – with Sing, Little Birdie, which went to number 12 in the singles chart.
Johnson later said that neither he nor his wife had heard of the contest before being booked for it, initially as two solo acts. “It was just another gig, but it was the easiest money we had ever had,” he said. As it was, he only just made it to the final at Cannes, taking a later plane than Carr, in order to fulfil a booking on an ITV show.
They tried to represent the UK again the following year, but lost in the domestic heats to Johnson’s brother, Bryan, with Looking High, High, High.
But other work was not hard to find. ATV’s Winifred Atwell Show – which also reintroduced Eric and Ernie to TV viewers after their disastrous BBC debut – and ABC’s Big Night Out and Blackpool Night Out were among the series on which they were regular fixtures, over the course of a decade.
Their star faded in the era of pop groups, but they continued to tour the country and to fill theatres on summer seasons – and in the 1980s they appeared in the West End revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Follies.
It was at the conclusion of its 18-month run in 1990 that Carr and Johnson decided to retire, though Johnson continued presenting his Radio 2 show until 1992. They spent their last years together at Brinsworth House in Twickenham, a retirement home for entertainers. Teddy died in 2018.