Diana Coupland

Diana Coupland (5 March 1928– 10 November 2006) was an English actress and singer best remembered for her role as Jean Abbott on Bless This House, which she played from 1971 to 1976.

Early life

Betty Diana Coupland was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire in 1928, the only child of Elsie (née Beck) and Denis Coupland. She originally wanted to be a ballet dancer, but could not fulfill this ambition due to a horse-riding accident. Her music career began at the age of 11. Barney Colehan, a BBC producer, heard Coupland sing and invited her onto one of his radio shows. By the time she reached 14, she was singing full-time at the Mecca 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. During the 1940s and 1950s, she became a leading singer of the day, singing at the Dorchester Hotel and the Savoy Hotel. Coupland also dubbed the singing voices of actresses who could not sing, namely Lana Turner in Betrayed, and was most famously heard performing the song "Under the Mango Tree" in the first James Bond film Dr. No. She gave up professional singing in the 1960s.