Lizbeth Webb
Encyclopedia
Elizabeth Holton better known by her stage name, Lizbeth Webb, is a retired English soprano
and stage actress. After entertaining British troops during World War II, Webb pursued a career in West End
musicals, playing such roles as Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls.
, the last of three children of Frederick and Ethel Holton. Her mother died in childbirth, and she was raised by her aunt and uncle, Ethel and Alfred Wills Webber. She attended E. P. Collier Primary School, where she was known as Betty Webber. She later went on to Hemdean House School
in Caversham
, Reading.
She began her career as a teenage band vocalist as Betty Webb, singing to the troops during World War II and freelancing with British bands such as those of Geraldo, Albert Sandler, Henry Hall, Louis Levy and, particularly, Jack Payne
. She generally performed two or three live broadcasts daily during the height of the German air-raids. She was also a regular on programmes such as Happidrome, Workers Playtime, Kaleidoscope, "Music Hall", Variety Bandbox
, Four and Twenty, The Forces Show with Diana Dors
, Jack Buchanan
and Bob Monkhouse
, Follies of the Air with Sonnie Hale
, Home At Eight with Hermione Gingold
and Richard Attenborough
and Friday Night Is Music Night. Among the conductors she sang with were George Melachrino, Mantovani
, Richard Tauber
, Harry Rabinowitz, Stanley Black, Max Jaffa, Charles Mackerras
, both Eric and Stanford Robinson
and Vilém Tauský
.
After an introduction from Geraldo, in 1946, the impresario Charles B. Cochran
engaged her to work for him and changed her name to Lizbeth Webb. She first understudied and then took over the lead in Vivian Ellis
and A. P. Herbert
's Big Ben (1946). The next year, she created the leading part of Lucy Willow in Bless the Bride
and sang with Georges Guetary
the song, "This is my lovely day", also by Ellis and Herbert. This became the BBC's most requested song for many years. The press referred to her as 'The Champagne Soprano'.
, including the role of Dick Whittington in 1950, and starred as Cinderella
opposite the all the stars of The Goon Show
in 1951 on The Light Programme. Other roles included Linda in Ivor Novello
's last musical Gay's the Word in 1950-52, Sarah Brown in the first London production of Guys and Dolls (1953) and Giulietta in a 1959 television production of Carissima, by Hans May and Eric Maschwitz with Ginger Rogers
. In 1953, Webb featured in the Royal Command Performance
in front of the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth. She continued to entertain the troops in between West End commitments, in Austria after the war, in Korea in 1953 and in North Africa in 1956, where she met her future husband.
On 17 August 1956, Webb married Colonel Guy Campbell
, MC, OBE, the heir to a baronet
cy, who inherited the title in 1960. She effectively retired from the stage by the late 1950s, but returned in the title role of The Merry Widow
in 1969 at the Cambridge Theatre in London. In 2004, a CD of her songs, entitled My Lovely Day With Lizbeth Webb - The Champagne Soprano, was issued. The following year, another CD was released called Lizbeth Webb: With a Song In My Heart.
Webb has two sons and four grandchildren: Sir Lachlan Philip Kemeys Campbell, Bt. (an artist and illustrator, 'Eton Colours', 'When It Happened In Scotland', 'When It Happened In Britain'), born in 1958, who has three children, Archie, Georgia and Ivo; and Rory Charles Fitzgerald Campbell (an opera singer and actor who owns the entertainment company Encore Management Ltd.), born in 1961, who has a daughter, Olivia. Her husband died in 1993 in Cheltenham
, where they lived. She now lives in London.
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
and stage actress. After entertaining British troops during World War II, Webb pursued a career in West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
musicals, playing such roles as Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls.
Early life and career
Webb was born in Reading, BerkshireReading, Berkshire
Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....
, the last of three children of Frederick and Ethel Holton. Her mother died in childbirth, and she was raised by her aunt and uncle, Ethel and Alfred Wills Webber. She attended E. P. Collier Primary School, where she was known as Betty Webber. She later went on to Hemdean House School
Hemdean House School
Hemdean House School is a independent school which includes mixed infants and junior schools, and a girls senior school. It is situated in Caversham in Reading, Berkshire, England.- History :...
in Caversham
Caversham, Berkshire
Caversham is a suburb and former village in the unitary authority of Reading, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, within the royal county of Berkshire, on the opposite bank from the rest of Reading...
, Reading.
She began her career as a teenage band vocalist as Betty Webb, singing to the troops during World War II and freelancing with British bands such as those of Geraldo, Albert Sandler, Henry Hall, Louis Levy and, particularly, Jack Payne
Jack Payne
Jack Payne was a British dance music bandleader.-Career:John Wesley Vivian Payne was born in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, the only son of a music warehouse manager...
. She generally performed two or three live broadcasts daily during the height of the German air-raids. She was also a regular on programmes such as Happidrome, Workers Playtime, Kaleidoscope, "Music Hall", Variety Bandbox
Variety Bandbox
Variety Bandbox was a British radio variety show transmitted by BBC Radio on the Light Programme. Featuring a mixture of comic performances and music, the show helped to launch the careers of a number of leading British performers....
, Four and Twenty, The Forces Show with Diana Dors
Diana Dors
Diana Dors was an English actress, born Diana Mary Fluck in Swindon, Wiltshire. Considered the English equivalent of the blonde bombshells of Hollywood, Dors described herself as: "The only sex symbol Britain has produced since Lady Godiva."-Early life:Diana Mary Fluck was born in Swindon,...
, Jack Buchanan
Jack Buchanan
Walter John "Jack" Buchanan was a British theatre and film actor, singer, producer and director. He was known for three decades as the embodiment of the debonair man-about-town in the tradition of George Grossmith Jr., and was described by The Times as "the last of the knuts." He is best known in...
and Bob Monkhouse
Bob Monkhouse
Robert Alan "Bob" Monkhouse, OBE was an English entertainer. He was a successful comedy writer, comedian and actor and was also well known on British television as a presenter and game show host...
, Follies of the Air with Sonnie Hale
Sonnie Hale
Sonnie Hale was an English theatre and cinema actor and director.John Robert Hale-Monro was born in London, the son of Robert Hale and Belle Reynolds. His father and sister, Binnie Hale were actors. He worked chiefly in musical and revue theatre, but also acted in several films with occasional...
, Home At Eight with Hermione Gingold
Hermione Gingold
Hermione Gingold was an English actress known for her sharp-tongued, eccentric persona, an image enhanced by her sharp nose and chin, as well as her deepening voice, a result of vocal nodes which her mother reportedly encouraged her not to remove. She starred on stage, on radio, in films, on...
and Richard Attenborough
Richard Attenborough
Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough , CBE is a British actor, director, producer and entrepreneur. As director and producer he won two Academy Awards for the 1982 film Gandhi...
and Friday Night Is Music Night. Among the conductors she sang with were George Melachrino, Mantovani
Mantovani
Annunzio Paolo Mantovani known as Mantovani, was an Anglo-Italian conductor and light orchestra-styled entertainer with a cascading strings musical signature. The book British Hit Singles & Albums states that he was "Britain's most successful album act before The Beatles .....
, Richard Tauber
Richard Tauber
Richard Tauber was an Austrian tenor acclaimed as one of the greatest singers of the 20th century. Some critics commented that "his heart felt every word he sang".-Early life:...
, Harry Rabinowitz, Stanley Black, Max Jaffa, Charles Mackerras
Charles Mackerras
Sir Alan Charles Maclaurin Mackerras, AC, CH, CBE was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan...
, both Eric and Stanford Robinson
Stanford Robinson
Stanford Robinson OBE was an English conductor and composer, known for his work with the BBC. He remained a member of the BBC's staff until his retirement in 1966, founding or building up the organisation's choral groups, both amateur and professional.Between 1947 and 1950, Robinson was Assistant...
and Vilém Tauský
Vilém Tauský
Vilém Tauský CBE was a Czech conductor and composer.-Life:Vilém Tauský was from a musical family: his Viennese mother had sung Mozart at the Vienna State Opera under Gustav Mahler, and her cousin was the operetta composer Leo Fall.Tauský studied with Leoš Janáček and later became a repetiteur at...
.
After an introduction from Geraldo, in 1946, the impresario Charles B. Cochran
Charles B. Cochran
Sir Charles Blake Cochran , generally known as C. B. Cochran, was an English theatrical manager. He produced some of the most successful musical revues, musicals and plays of the 1920s and 1930s, becoming associated with Noel Coward and his works.-Biography:Cochran was born in Sussex and educated...
engaged her to work for him and changed her name to Lizbeth Webb. She first understudied and then took over the lead in Vivian Ellis
Vivian Ellis
Vivian Ellis was an English musical comedy composer best known for the song "Spread a Little Happiness" and the theme "Coronation Scot".-Life and work:...
and A. P. Herbert
A. P. Herbert
Sir Alan Patrick Herbert, CH was an English humorist, novelist, playwright and law reform activist...
's Big Ben (1946). The next year, she created the leading part of Lucy Willow in Bless the Bride
Bless The Bride
Bless the Bride is a musical with music by Vivian Ellis and a book and lyrics by A. P. Herbert, the third of five musicals they wrote together. The musical is remembered as Ellis's best work and for the recordings of "This is my lovely day" and "I was never kissed before", with Lizbeth Webb and...
and sang with Georges Guetary
Georges Guétary
Georges Guétary, born Lambros Worloou was a French singer, dancer, cabaret performer and film actor, best known his role in the 1951 musical An American in Paris.-Early life and career:...
the song, "This is my lovely day", also by Ellis and Herbert. This became the BBC's most requested song for many years. The press referred to her as 'The Champagne Soprano'.
Later years and family
Webb played in pantomimePantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
, including the role of Dick Whittington in 1950, and starred as Cinderella
Cinderella
"Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper" is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world. The title character is a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune...
opposite the all the stars of The Goon Show
The Goon Show
The Goon Show was a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme...
in 1951 on The Light Programme. Other roles included Linda in Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello
David Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...
's last musical Gay's the Word in 1950-52, Sarah Brown in the first London production of Guys and Dolls (1953) and Giulietta in a 1959 television production of Carissima, by Hans May and Eric Maschwitz with Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....
. In 1953, Webb featured in the Royal Command Performance
Royal Command Performance
For the annual Royal Variety Performance performed in Britain for the benefit of the Entertainment Artistes' Benevolent Fund, see Royal Variety Performance...
in front of the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth. She continued to entertain the troops in between West End commitments, in Austria after the war, in Korea in 1953 and in North Africa in 1956, where she met her future husband.
On 17 August 1956, Webb married Colonel Guy Campbell
Sir Guy Campbell, 5th Baronet
Colonel Sir Guy Theophilus Halswell Campbell, 5th Baronet OBE, MC was a British soldier. Sir Guy's branch of the Campbell Baronets, of St Cross Mede, were created in 1815 with Sir Guy Campbell, 1st Baronet.-Background:...
, MC, OBE, the heir to a baronet
Baronet
A baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary baronetcy awarded by the British Crown...
cy, who inherited the title in 1960. She effectively retired from the stage by the late 1950s, but returned in the title role of The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play,...
in 1969 at the Cambridge Theatre in London. In 2004, a CD of her songs, entitled My Lovely Day With Lizbeth Webb - The Champagne Soprano, was issued. The following year, another CD was released called Lizbeth Webb: With a Song In My Heart.
Webb has two sons and four grandchildren: Sir Lachlan Philip Kemeys Campbell, Bt. (an artist and illustrator, 'Eton Colours', 'When It Happened In Scotland', 'When It Happened In Britain'), born in 1958, who has three children, Archie, Georgia and Ivo; and Rory Charles Fitzgerald Campbell (an opera singer and actor who owns the entertainment company Encore Management Ltd.), born in 1961, who has a daughter, Olivia. Her husband died in 1993 in Cheltenham
Cheltenham
Cheltenham , also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a large spa town and borough in Gloucestershire, on the edge of the Cotswolds in the South-West region of England. It is the home of the flagship race of British steeplechase horse racing, the Gold Cup, the main event of the Cheltenham Festival held...
, where they lived. She now lives in London.