Vivienne Cynthia Chatterton
Born(1896-06-08)8 June 1896
Paddington
Died1 January 1974(1974-01-01) (aged 77)
London
Occupation(s)Singer and radio actor
Years active1919-1974

Vivienne Chatterton (8 June 1896 - 1 January 1974) was a British singer and noted radio actress of the 20th-century.

Biography

Vivienne Chatterton was born in Paddington, London. Her father was English, her mother French. She was educated at the Royal College of Music, for which she won an open scholarship in 1919.[1][2]

Her early career was as a singer of lieder, oratorio and opera, with roles in a number of London shows.[1] She opened a long BBC career in 1924, appearing in The Rose of Persia[3] and from the early 1930s she appeared as an actor in radio plays, and schools programmes. She appeared in several films during the 1930s including a lead role in the comedy Love Up the Pole (1936) and supporting roles in Mayfair Melody (1936) and Annie Laurie (1939). She appeared a number of times in singing roles in the first full year of regular BBC Television broadcasting.[4][5]

She was engaged throughout the Second World War on children's programmes, and in her post-war career she became noted as radio actor, voicing the character of Mrs Mountford in the popular Mrs Dale's Diary,[6] and appearing in several hundred radio plays.[7] She was said to have an 'unusual talent for every type of dialect'.[1]

Chatterton married L. Stanton Jefferies, the BBC's director of music.[8][9] She died in London on 1 January 1974, aged 77.[2]

Selected filmography

References

  1. 1 2 3 Andrews, Cyrus (1947). Radio Who's Who. Pendulum Publications Ltd. p. 66.
  2. 1 2 "Vivienne Chatterton". BFI Films, TV and People. British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 14 March 2018. Retrieved 17 March 2018.
  3. ↑ "The Rose of Persia". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 17 March 2018.
  4. ↑ "Hansel and Gretal". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 17 March 2018.
  5. ↑ "Thomas and Sally". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 17 March 2018.
  6. ↑ MacNeice p.144
  7. ↑ "Search - Vivienne Chatterton". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 17 March 2018.
  8. ↑ Lowry, Michael (2003). Fighting Through to Kohima: A Memoir of War in India and Burma. Pen and Sword Books Ltd. p. XXV. ISBN 9781844158027.
  9. ↑ Doctor, Jennifer Ruth (1999). The BBC and Ultra-Modern Music, 1922-1936: Shaping a Nation's Tastes. Cambridge University Press. p. 334. ISBN 9780521661171.

Bibliography

  • MacNeice, Louis. Louis MacNeice: The Classical Radio Plays. Oxford University Press, 2013.
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