Linda Nolan obituary | Pop and rock

Within the early Nineteen Eighties, Linda Nolan, who has died aged 65 after affected by most cancers, was a member of one of the crucial profitable vocal teams in Britain. Fashioned of 5 sisters on the outset, the Nolans had 4 High 10 hits, starting with I’m within the Temper for Dancing, and bought thousands and thousands of albums.

A disco-lite quantity, I’m within the Temper for Dancing reached No 3 within the charts in 1980 and loved an afterlife at numerous wedding ceremony receptions. Six extra High 20 hits adopted briefly order, amongst them Don’t Make Waves, Gotta Pull Myself Collectively and Consideration to Me (all 1980) and Don’t Love Me Too Onerous (1982).Linda left the group in 1983, after her sisters determined to dispense with the companies of their tour supervisor and sound engineer, Brian Hudson, whom she had married in 1981.

With Hudson as her private supervisor, Linda’s solo profession started with the publication of risque images in tabloid newspapers, who hailed her as “the naughty Nolan”. She made a British tour supporting Gene Pitney however quickly branched out into musical theatre and pantomime.

Between 1986 and 1994 she made greater than 1,000 appearances within the title position of the Blackpool summer time selection present Maggie Might and later featured in Prisoner Cell Block H – the Musical (with Paul O’Grady), Pump Boys and Dinettes, Rumpy Pumpy! and Menopause: the Musical. Nevertheless, her finest recognized stage position was as Mrs Johnstone in a number of revivals of Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers between 2006 and 2016. She additionally appeared sometimes on the ITV present Free Girls, on which her youngest sister, Coleen, was a panellist, and appeared within the 2014 sequence of Movie star Large Brother, which was notable for her spectacular rows with the comic Jim Davidson.

Born in Dublin, Linda was the sixth of eight youngsters of Maureen (nee Breslin) and Tommy Nolan, each of whom have been gifted singers. Collectively they’d carried out because the Sweethearts of Tune and for some time Tommy was generally known as “the Irish Sinatra”. He made occasional tv and radio broadcasts.

In 1962, Tommy and Maureen have been persuaded by a household pal to hunt larger alternatives in Britain, shifting the household, when Linda was three, to Blackpool.

There they established a foothold within the native working males’s golf equipment, performing because the Nolan Household, with an act that featured a number of of the youngsters, together with seven-year-old Linda, and was billed as “Blackpool’s very personal Von Trapp household”. Behind the blissful facade, nonetheless, all was not effectively. Tommy was later revealed as a wife-beater who sexually assaulted one in all his daughters, Anne, throughout her teenage years.

The sisters’ transfer on to the nationwide stage was enabled by the Tottenham Hotspur proprietor Joe Lewis, who ran a number of London nightclubs. He insisted that the act ought to consist solely of the women: Anne, Bernie, Denise, Linda and Maureen. Renamed the Nolan Sisters, they started a residency at his membership, the London Rooms, in 1974.

Impressed by them, a BBC gentle leisure producer booked the sisters as visitor artists on the Cliff Richard Present. This led to quite a few tv appearances on the reveals of Morecambe & Clever, Val Doonican, the Two Ronnies and others. In 1975 the Nolan Sisters supported Frank Sinatra on his Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Again European tour.

Regardless of their busy schedule as performers, the group had little success as recording artists till they signed to CBS in 1979, by which era Denise had left the group to pursue a solo profession. Their first single, Spirit, Physique and Soul, composed by Bruce Welch and Hank Marvin of the Shadows, scraped into the High 40, however the subsequent, I’m within the Temper for Dancing, additionally launched in 1979, however underneath the group’s new identify, the Nolans, launched their profession.

Anne left the group in 1980 for 2 years, and Coleen joined, too late to be on the recording of I’m within the Temper for Dancing, however included within the promotional video.

The Nolans continued after Linda’s departure, however as their report gross sales declined and relations between the sisters deteriorated, they steadily light from public view till they disbanded in 2004. By then solely Maureen and Anne of the unique members remained.

Having obtained profitable remedy for most cancers in 2005, Linda joined Coleen, Maureen and Bernie for his or her comeback album, I’m within the Temper Once more, and tour in 2009. In 2017, she was recognized with secondary breast most cancers.

Brian died in 2007 and Bernie died in 2013. Linda is survived by her different siblings, Anne, Brian, Coleen, Maureen and Tommy.

Linda Nolan, singer and actor, born 23 February 1959; died 15 January 2025