Lizbeth Webb

Betty Ethel Holton (30 January 1926 – 17 January 2013), better known by her stage name, Lizbeth Webb, was an English soprano and stage actress. Known as "the champagne soprano", she is remembered partly for originating the song "This Is My Lovely Day".

After performing as a dance band vocalist and entertaining British troops during World War II, Webb pursued a career in West End musicals, becoming known for her vivaciousness in playing such roles as Lucy Willow in Bless the Bride, Linda in Ivor Novello's Gay's the Word and Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls. She married Colonel Guy Campbell, the heir to a baronetcy, and left the stage in the late 1950s, bringing up two sons but returning for a last engagement in the title role of The Merry Widow in 1969.

Early life and career Webb was born in Reading, Berkshire, the last of three children of Frederick Holton, a locomotive engine driver, and his wife Ethel, née Strutt (1895–1926). Webb's mother died in childbirth, and she was adopted by her aunt and uncle, Ethel and Alfred Wills Webber. Her sister and brother were adopted by other aunts. She attended E. P. Collier Primary School, where she was known as Betty Webber. She later went on to Hemdean House School and Queen Anne's School, both in Caversham, Reading. As a child, she excelled at rowing, swimming and running. From an early age, she took singing lessons.

She began her career as a teenage band vocalist and on BBC Radio under the name Betty Webb, singing to the troops during World War II and freelancing with British bands, often for Jack Payne, who discovered her, and also for Albert Sandler, Henry Hall, Louis Levy and Geraldo. 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. Ellis and Herbert wrote a leading role for her the next year, Lucy Willow, in the hit musical Bless the Bride, in which her character leaves a stuffy English fiancé, who she does not love, to elope with a brave and dashing Frenchman, played by Georges Guétary. One of her songs with Guétary, "This Is My Lovely Day", became one of the BBC's most requested songs of all time, and audiences and running for more than two years and 886 performances. The show began with performances in Manchester in 1949 and came to the West End in 1951, where it was another hit. Webb was praised for her singing of the ballads in the show.

Webb effectively retired from the stage by the late 1950s to bring up her children, She and her husband moved to Marbella, Spain, where they lived for a few years in the 1970s before returning to England and living in Cheltenham. Her husband died there in 1993, and Webb moved to London to spend her last two decades. The following year, another CD was released called Lizbeth Webb: With a Song in My Heart.

Webb died in 2013 at age 86.