JANET LIND Née RITA NUGENT (Dancer, singer and actress)
I was interested to hear an interview with Janet Lind done in Australia in 1979 on YouTube recently. It may be heard at the following link: https://youtu.be/Wyz3T2Zj6YY
She started her career in Australia as a dancer under her birth name of Rita Nugent. She arrived in England via a long-running show in Berlin in the 1930s. Without any vocal training and unable to read a note of music, almost by chance she began singing, and changed her name to Janet Lind. She did numerous broadcasts on the BBC, not only as a singer with the big band of Louis Levy, but also as an actress in a number of straight plays.
[image error]An early broadcast in October of 1935.
The songs featured in the YouTube broadcast are with Louis Levy’s brassy big band. She is remembered today as a regular vocalist with Louis Levy’s band.
[image error]Louis Levy
1936. A letter in one of the Australian papers.
[image error] [image error]
She also made several recordings with Webster Booth for HMV in 1936 and 1937, and these are very much more pleasing to my ear than the songs she sang with Louis Levy’s band. Despite her lack of musical and vocal training she had an excellent natural voice. Click on the link to listen:
This Year of Theatreland (1936)
She flourished as a performer in England in the last half of the 1930s, often singing songs made popular by Jessie Matthews. She was billed as “the girl with a smile in her voice”.
[image error]Music from the Movies with Louis Levy and his Symphony Orchestra, Janet Lind and Robert Ashley.
[image error]21 January 1937
[image error]25 July 1939
She returned to Australia in 1940 with her husband, Mr Hall.
[image error]10 October 1940
[image error]8 April 1941
By 1941 she had returned to Australia with her husband. I am not sure how long she continued her theatrical career there, but by the 1970s she was living in Melbourne and running a shop – some people called it an antique shop; others were less complimentary about it. In her 1979 interview in 1979 she had no trace of an Australian accent. Despite her theatrical and vocal success in earlier decades she was casual and deprecating about her achievements. Many other singers who studied singing earnestly would have given a lot to have had such a successful career!
Jean Collen
16 February 2018.
