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Betty Diana Coupland (5 March 1928 – 10 November 2006), billed as Diana Coupland, was an English actress and singer, best remembered for her role in the sitcom ''
Bless This House'', as Jean Abbott, the wife of
Sid James
Sidney James (born Solomon Joel Cohen; 8 May 1913 – 26 April 1976) was a British actor and comedian whose career encompassed radio, television, stage and screen. He was best known for numerous roles in the Carry On film series.
Born to a mi ...
character Sid, which she played from 1971 to 1976.
Early life
Coupland was born in
Leeds
Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...
,
West Riding of Yorkshire
The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...
in 1928, the only child of Elsie (''née'' Beck) and Denis Coupland. She originally wanted to be a
ballet
Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...
dancer but could not fulfil this ambition, owing to a
horse-riding accident. Her music career began when she was 15;
Barney Colehan, a
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
producer, heard her sing and invited her onto one of his
radio shows.
By the time she reached the age of 18, she was singing full-time at the
Mecca
Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow ...
Locarno in Leeds, and the following year, moved to London with her parents, where she became a resident singer at Mecca's
Tottenham Court Road ballroom. Coupland became a leading singer of the 1940s and 1950s, working at the
Dorchester Hotel and the
Savoy Hotel
The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London, England. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August ...
.
Career
Coupland serenades the opening scene of the film ''
Flannelfoot
''Flannelfoot'' is a 1953 British crime film directed by Maclean Rogers and starring Ronald Howard, Mary Germaine and Jack Watling.Chibnall & MacFarlane p.119 It was made at Walton Studios. The film's sets were designed by John Stoll.
The film ...
'' (1953) in which she featured as a
nightclub singer
A nightclub act is a production, usually of nightclub music or comedy, designed for performance at a nightclub, a type of drinking establishment, by a nightclub performer such as a nightclub singer or nightclub dancer, whose performance may ...
. In 1959, she was unexpectedly cast by
Joan Littlewood
Joan Maud Littlewood (6 October 1914 – 20 September 2002) was an English theatre director who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and is best known for her work in developing the Theatre Workshop. She has been called "The Mother of M ...
as Sally in the
Theatre Workshop Theatre Workshop is a theatre group whose long-serving director was Joan Littlewood. Many actors of the 1950s and 1960s received their training and first exposure with the company, many of its productions were transferred to theatres in the West E ...
musical ''Make Me An Offer'', and soon appeared in
West End shows such as ''
Gigi'' and ''
Not Now, Darling
''Not Now, Darling'' is a 1967 farce written by English playwrights John Chapman and Ray Cooney, first staged at the Richmond Theatre, in Richmond, England prior to a long West End run. The production starred Donald Sinden and Bernard Cribb ...
''.
She made her television debut in a 1961 episode of ''
Emergency – Ward 10
''Emergency Ward 10'' is a British medical soap opera series shown on ITV between 1957 and 1967. Like ''The Grove Family'', a series shown by the BBC between 1954 and 1957, ''Emergency Ward 10'' is considered to be one of British television's ...
''. Her other early roles were in ''
Dixon of Dock Green
''Dixon of Dock Green'' was a BBC police procedural television series about daily life at a fictional London police station, with the emphasis on petty crime, successfully controlled through common sense and human understanding. It ran from 19 ...
'', ''
The Wednesday Play
''The Wednesday Play'' is an anthology series of British television plays which ran on BBC1 for six seasons from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually original works written for television, although dramatic adaptations of fiction ...
'', ''
Softly, Softly'' and ''
Z-Cars
''Z-Cars'' or ''Z Cars'' (pronounced "zed cars") is a British television police procedural series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, near Liverpool. Produced by the BBC, it debut ...
''. After playing a mother in ''
Please Sir!
''Please Sir!'' is a British television sitcom created by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey and featuring actors John Alderton, Deryck Guyler, Penny Spencer, Joan Sanderson, Noel Howlett, Erik Chitty and Richard Davies. Produced by London Week ...
'' and the
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...
n wife in
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks (born Melvin James Kaminsky; June 28, 1926) is an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. With a career spanning over seven decades, he is known as a writer and director of a variety of successful broad farces and parodies. He began ...
's film ''
The Twelve Chairs
''The Twelve Chairs'' ( rus, Двенадцать стульев, Dvenadtsat stulyev) is a classic satirical novel by the Odesan Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov, published in 1928. Its plot follows characters attempting to obtain jewelry hidden ...
'' (1970), she was cast as Jean Abbott, the long-suffering wife of Sid James's character, in ''Bless This House'', which began its run in February 1971. She reprised the role in the 1972
feature film
A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...
, and continued in the role until James died in 1976. She appeared in several other films, including ''
The Millionairess
''The Millionairess'' is a 1960 British romantic comedy film directed by Anthony Asquith, and starring Sophia Loren and Peter Sellers. Set in London, it is a loose adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's 1936 play of the same name.
Plot
By the ...
'' (1960), ''
The Family Way
''The Family Way'' is a 1966 British comedy-drama film about the marital difficulties of a young newlywed couple living in a crowded house with the husband's family. Based on Bill Naughton's play '' All in Good Time'' (1963), the film began lif ...
'' (1966), ''
Charlie Bubbles
''Charlie Bubbles'' is a 1968 British comedy-drama film directed by Albert Finney in his feature directorial debut. The film stars Finney alongside Billie Whitelaw and Liza Minnelli. It was screened at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival on the 11t ...
'' (1967), ''
Spring and Port Wine'' (1970), ''
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer
''The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer'' is a 1970 British satirical film starring Peter Cook, and co-written by Cook, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, and Kevin Billington, who directed the film. The film was devised and produced by David Frost u ...
'' (1970), ''
The Best Pair of Legs in the Business
''The Best Pair of Legs in the Business'' is a 1973 British comedy-drama film directed by Christopher Hodson starring Reg Varney, Diana Coupland and Lee Montague. A comic/female impersonator at a holiday camp is concerned about the future. Howeve ...
'' (1972) and ''
Operation Daybreak
''Operation Daybreak'' (also known as ''The Price of Freedom'' in the U.S. and ''Seven Men at Daybreak'' during production) is a 1975 war film based on the true story of Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of SS general Reinhard Heydrich in ...
'' (1975).
She also dubbed the singing voices of actresses who could not sing, including
Lana Turner
Lana Turner ( ; born Julia Jean Turner; February 8, 1921June 29, 1995) was an American actress. Over the course of her nearly 50-year career, she achieved fame as both a pin-up model and a film actress, as well as for her highly publicized pe ...
in ''
Betrayed'', and was the playback singer for
Ursula Andress
Ursula Andress (born 19 March 1936) is a Swiss-German actress, former model and sex symbol who has appeared in American, British and Italian films. Her breakthrough role was as Bond girl Honey Ryder in the first James Bond film, '' Dr. No'' (1962 ...
's dubbed performance of the song "Underneath the Mango Tree" in the first
James Bond
The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...
film ''
Dr. No''. She gave up professional singing in the 1960s.
During the late 1970s and 1980s, Coupland appeared in ''
Wilde Alliance'', ''
Triangle
A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC.
In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non- colline ...
'', ''
Dickens of London
''Dickens of London'' is a 1976 television miniseries from Yorkshire Television based on the life of English novelist Charles Dickens. Both Dickens and his father John were played by British actor Roy Dotrice. The series was written by Wolf Mank ...
'' and ''
Juliet Bravo
''Juliet Bravo'' is a British television police procedural drama series, first broadcast on 30 August 1980, that ran for six series and a total of 88 episodes on BBC1. The theme of the series concerned a female police inspector who took over con ...
''. Her casting in ''Triangle'' occurred after the death of the actor originally due to play the owner of the shipping line. She had been on the set with her husband, a director on the programme, and was offered the part. She appeared in an episode of ''
One Foot in the Grave
''One Foot in the Grave'' is a British television sitcom written by David Renwick. There were six series (each consisting of six half-hour shows) and seven Christmas specials over a period of ten years from early 1990 to late 2000. The first fi ...
'' in 1992, and in 2000 had a six-week role as
Maureen Carter
The following is a list of characters that first appeared in the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'' in 2000, by order of first appearance. All characters were introduced by Matthew Robinson, or his successor, John Yorke. The first character to be ...
in ''
EastEnders''. Following this, Coupland appeared in ''
Doctors'', ''
Casualty
Casualty may refer to:
*Casualty (person), a person who is killed or rendered unfit for service in a war or natural disaster
**Civilian casualty, a non-combatant killed or injured in warfare
* The emergency department of a hospital, also known as ...
'' and in 2005 ''
Rose and Maloney'', her final television appearance.
Personal life
Coupland married twice. Her first husband was composer
Monty Norman
Monty Norman (''né'' Noserovitch; 4 April 1928 – 11 July 2022) was a British composer, musician and singer. A contributor to West End musicals in the 1950s and 1960s, he is best known for composing the " James Bond Theme", first heard in t ...
whom she married in May 1956 at the St John's Liberal Synagogue after converting to Judaism. They divorced after 20 years of marriage, having had one daughter. In 2001, she gave evidence in a
High Court case after her former husband sued ''
The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...
'' following a 1997 article suggesting that Norman had falsely taken credit and
royalties for the
''James Bond'' theme music, which was claimed actually to have been written by
John Barry. Coupland described the article as "blatantly untrue"; Norman was awarded £30,000.
She married Marc Miller, a producer, in 1980. Coupland, who was a patron of National Lupus UK, died at the
University Hospital
A university hospital is an institution which combines the services of a hospital with the education of medical students and with medical research. These hospitals are typically affiliated with a medical school or university. The following i ...
in
Coventry
Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...
in November 2006, aged 78, after failing to recover following an operation to resolve long-term heart problems.
Filmography
Footnotes
External links
*
BBC News - Actress Diana Coupland dies at 74''The Daily Telegraph'' Obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coupland, Diana
1928 births
2006 deaths
English film actresses
English soap opera actresses
English stage actresses
English television actresses
English voice actresses
Actresses from Leeds
20th-century English singers
British comedy actresses
20th-century English women singers
20th-century British businesspeople