Vera Lynn

At 103 years old, Vera Lynn physical status not available right now. We will update Vera Lynn's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Dame Vera Margaret Lynn (née Welch, 1917-19) is an English singer, composer, and actress whose musical recordings and performances became extremely popular during the Second World War. "the Forces' Sweetheart" is best known for giving outdoor concerts for the troops in Egypt, India, and Burma during the civil war as part of the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA).

"We'll Meet Again," "The White Cliffs of Dover," "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square," and "There'll Always be an England" are among her songs. She remained famous after the war, appearing on radio and television in the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as releasing hits such as "Auf Wiederseh's Sweetheart" and her UK number one single "My Son, My Son."

"I Love This Country" was her last song, and it was announced at the end of the Falklands War.

With her compilation album We'll Meet Again: The Very Best of Vera Lynn, she became the country's oldest living artist to debut on the top of the charts in 2009.

Dame Vera was also ranked number one in 2014 when she was 97 with the series "Vera Lynn: National Treasure" and she is the oldest female to top the album charts.

She also released an album of hits Vera Lynn 100 in 2017 to celebrate her centennial year, and it was a number-three hit, making her the first centenarian entertainer to have an album on the charts. She has devoted a great deal of time and money to charitable causes involving ex-servicemen, disabled children, and breast cancer.

Veterans of the Second World War to this day are devoted to her, and in 2000 she was named as the Briton who best exemplified the spirit of the twentieth century.

Early life

Vera Margaret Welch was born in East Ham, Essex, and later part of the London Borough of Newham, on 19 March 1917. Anne "Annie" Martin (1889–1975), a female plumber who had married in 1913, was the niece of plumber Bertram Samuel Welch (1883–1955) and his wife dressmaker Anne "Annie" Martin (1889–1975). Lynn was sick with diphtheritic croupis in 1919, when she was two years old, and she almost died. After three months in jail, she was transferred to an isolation unit and was released. She was extremely concerned about her daughter after she was hospitalized, and she did not allow her to visit friends or play in the streets for a long time after. Lynn recalled that her mother was not as strict with her elder brother Roger as she was with her.

She began performing professionally at the age of seven and adopted "Lynn" as her stage name when she was eleven years old. She appeared in 1933 when she was aged 11, she joined Madame Harris's Kracker Kabaret Kids, and Howard Baker invited her to join his band early in 1933. In turn, Billy Cotton took her on and performed with his band for a short period of time in 1934 before returning to Howard Baker. Howard Baker was her first appearance on record, on February 17th, 1935, with the song "It's Home." On August 21, 1935, she made her first radio broadcast, with the Joe Loss Orchestra. At this point, she appeared on dance bands' albums, including those of Loss and Charlie Kunz. "Up the Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire," her first solo album was released on the Crown label in 1936. In 1938, Decca Records acquired this brand. She supported herself by serving as an administrative assistant to the chief of a shipping management company in London's East End. She stayed with Kunz for a year or so, recording several standard musical works after a brief period with Los Angeles. She joined the Ambrose band in 1937 and remained with him until 1940, when she went solo.

Personal life

Lynn lived with her parents in a house she bought in 1938 at 24 Upney Lane, Barking, during the Second World War. Lynn married Harry Lewis, a clarinetist, saxophonist, and fellow member of Ambrose's orchestra, who had been in 1941. They rented another house in Upney Lane, which is close to her parents' house. After leaving his own career behind, Lewis became Lynn's boss before 1950.

Lynn and Lewis left Finchley, north London, after the Second World War. From the 1960s onwards, the couple lived next door to their daughter in Ditchling, East Sussex.

Virginia Penelope Anne Lewis, who later became Lewis-Jones, had one child in March 1946. Harry Lewis died in 1998.

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Career

Lynn produced "The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot" and "Red Sails in the Sunset" in 1937.

Lynn's wartime contribution began when she would perform to people who were using London's tube station platforms as air raid shelters. She'll travel in her Austin 10 sedan. Bert Ambrose, aristocrat of British dance bands, appeared in television and Radio Luxembourg broadcasts between 1937 and 1940; she appeared in television and radio Luxembourg. In 1940, she left Ambrose.

The Daily Express asked British servicemen to select their favorite musical artists during the Phone War, and Vera Lynn came out on top, earning the title of "the Forces' Sweetheart" as a result. Lynn made her first appearance as a "fully fledged solo act" at the New Hippodrome in Coventry on July 1st.

Vera Lynn appeared in the Applesauce magazine. Max Miller, founded on August 22nd, 1940, and lasted until September 1939. Due to a bomb that destroyed the theater, the operation was postponed. The revue at the London Palladium began on March 5, 1941, and concluded on November 29th this year. Lynn had to leave the show for a while in July 1941 to have her appendix removed.

Lynn is best known for the song "We'll Meet Again," written by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles. Arthur Young on Novachord in 1939, and later in 1953, with servicemen from the British Armed Forces, she first saw it on Novachord. The nostalgic lyrics ("We'll meet again, don't know when, but I suspect we'll meet again some sunny day") were extremely popular during the war and made the song one of its emblematic hits. "The White Cliffs of Dover," one of Nat Burton's other well-known wartime hits, was accompanied by Walter Kent's words.

Her resurgent presence was ensured by the success of her weekly 30-minute radio show Sincerely Yours, which began on September 9th, 1941, with emails to British troops deployed abroad. She was accompanied by Fred Hartley and his music, who was characterized as "to the men of the forces" a letter of words and Music. Lynn and her band performed songs that had been most requested by the soldiers. Lynn traveled to hospitals to interview new mothers and send personal messages to their husbands in other countries. However, after the fall of Singapore in February 1942, the show was taken off air after the broadcaster on March 22nd, 1942, fearing that the sentimental content of her songs would damage British soldiers's "virile" appearance. Rather, "more typically martial classical music" was promoted. On the BBC's Forces programme on Sunday, Lynn returned with the "It's Time for Vera Lynn" when she was joined by Peter Yorke and his Orchestra on a regular basis. On Sunday nights, the program was on sale at 8 p.m. and lasted for twenty minutes.

She was a member of the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) and toured Egypt, India, and Burma, giving outdoor concerts to British troops during the war years. She took the troops to Shamshernagar, Bengal, in March 1944, just before the Battle of Kohima. "Her courage and her contribution to morale were recalled by her host and lifelong friend Captain Bernard Holden. In 1985, she was awarded the Burma Star for entertaining British guerrilla troops in Burma's Japanese-occupied Burma.

She appeared in three wartime films between 1942 and 1944. Firstly, she starred in a film called We'll Meet Again in 1943, which was based on her own life tale, that of a dancer who becomes a radio actress. Rhythm Serenade (1943) and One Exciting Night (1944), she went on to make two more films during the war. She appeared in Rhythm Serenade as a school teacher. She tries to enroll after her school has been closed. However, she is refusing to organise a nursery for a munitions plant. One Exciting Night (also known as You Can't Do Without Love) was a dramatic musical comedy in which she helped thwart a band of art robbers thwart a gang of art thieves.

Virginia Penelope Ann Lewis, Lynn's daughter and her only child, was born on March 10, 1946. Lynn had to concentrate on being a mother and wife after the war. However, her unfull contract with Decca Records and financial hardships led her to resurfaced in 1947. On the BBC's Light Programme, she launched Vera Lynn Sings, a new radio show. This was a live broadcast on Sunday evenings from 9:30-10:00 p.m., with Robert Farnon as the musical accompaniment. Her husband became her boss. Decca's record company ostensibly promoted her music in the United States during the band's 1948 strike, and she received a top-ten hit with "You Can't Be True, Dear" in the United States. The BBC canceled her radio show in 1949 because it said that there was no demand for her "sob stuff"; they wanted her to perform in a more vibrant way, so she made radio Luxembourg instead.

Lynn continued touring and recording, and her best selling record, "Auf Wiederseh'n, Sweetheart," was released in 1952. It was the first British artist to top the charts in the United States, and it stayed there for nine weeks. The song was the year's best-selling album. She appeared on Tallulah Bankhead's US radio program The Big Show for a time. On the first UK Singles Chart in November 1952, Lynn "Auf Wiederseh'n, Sweetheart," along with "The Homing Waltz" and "Forte-Not" and "Forte-Not" were among the first entries.

Vera Lynn appeared in the London Laughs revue from 10 April 1952 to 6 February 1954, with Tony Hancock and Jimmy Edwards. Her fame in the decade soared, peaking with "My Son, My Son," a number-one hit written by Gordon Melville Rees, Bob Howard, and Eddie Calvert in 1954. It also reached No. 91, which is also the highest rank in the country. In the United States, Billboard magazine's singles charts ranked 28.

Lynn began her first television series for Associated-Rediffusion in 1956. She began a two-year deal with the BBC in the same year.

She left Decca Records (after nearly 25 years) and joined EMI in 1960. She has worked onEMI's Columbia, MGM, and HMV brands. For the 1962 musical Blitz, Lionel Bart's "The Day After Tomorrow" was also recorded. she did not appear onstage in the drama, but the characters in the play heard the song on the radio as they fled from the bombs. She recorded "It Hurts To Say Goodbye" in 1967, a number that debuted on the Billboard Easy Listening chart.

She appeared on BBC1 in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a regular guest on other variety shows, including the 1972 Morecambe & Wise Christmas Show. She appeared on BBC anniversary program Fifty Years of Music in 1972. Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee year began in 1976, she hosted A Jubilee of Music on the BBC, honoring the pop music hits of 1952--1976 to celebrate the start of her year. She performed a 1977 television special for ITV to debut her album Vera Lynn in Nashville, which featured pop hits from the 1960s and country songs.

Vera Lynn's appearance on seven occasions: 1951, 1952, 1959, 1960, 1975, 1990, and 1990. Lynn was also interviewed about her role in entertaining the troops in the India-Burma Theatre for the World at War collection in 1974. Lynn is also known for being the first artist to have a chart span on the British single and album charts from the chart's inception to the 21st century, with three singles appearing in the first ever singles chart, compiled by New Musical Express, and later having a No. 66. We'll Meet Again – Vera Lynn's Very Best of Vera Lynn's 1 album.

On October 3, 1935, Vera Lynn made her solo recording debut with the song "The General's Fast Asleep," as a member of Jay Wilbur's orchestra. On the Crown Records label, the 9" 78 rpm single was released, but there were eight singles recorded by Vera Lynn and Charles Smart on organ. "I'm in the Mood for Love" and "Red Sails in the Sunset" are two of early recordings.

The Decca label took over the British Crown label and the Rex label in 1938; they had previously released "Harbour Lights" early singles from Lynn. Vera Lynn's first song, "We'll Meet Again," was released in late September 1939 by her mother: "We'll Meet Again" was first recorded with Arthur Young on the Novachord.

During the 1940s and 1950s, the Decca label published all of Lynn's recordings, including some with Mantovani and His Orchestra in 1942 and 1948's Robert Farnon from the late 1940s. These were limited to 78 rpm singles, with only two songs listed as an A and B-side. Many EP singles from two to four recordings per side, including Vera Lynn's Party Sing Song from 1954, were released in the mid-1950s. Lynn was the first British artist to reach number one in the United States charts, with "Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart," which remained at number one for nine weeks in 1952. Singles were now available in two sizes: the renowned 78 rpm 10" shellac discs and the recently launched 45 rpm 7" vinyl single. Lynn recorded four albums at Decca in the 1950s, the first on record; Vera Lynn Concert is her only live recording ever released on vinyl.

Lynn signed to MGM Records, based in the United States, after more than 20 years with Decca Records. Her recordings were released by the His Master's Voice brand in the United Kingdom, later EMI Records. Geoff Love and His Orchestra's Band has released several albums and stand-alone singles. Norman Newell took over as Lynn's producer during this time and stayed with her until her 1976 debut with Vera Lynn. Lynn's recordings on EMI Records went back to 1977, as well as re-recording several of her well-known hits from the 1940s – The World at War (1974). Two albums of contemporary pop songs were released on the Pye Records label in the 1980s, both of which featured songs that had never been released by artists such as ABBA and Barry Manilow.

Lynn performed "I Love This Country," written by André Previn in 1982, marking the end of the Falklands War. Lynn's last recordings before her retirement were released in 1991 by the News of the World newspaper, with proceeds going to the Gulf Trust.

Lynn performed outside Buckingham Palace in 1995 as part of VE Day's golden jubilee.

In 2005, the United Kingdom's VE Day services featured a concert in Trafalgar Square, London, in which Lynn made a surprise appearance. She gave a speech praising the veterans and urging the younger generation to continue their service, and then joined in a few bars of "We'll Meet Again." This will be Lynn's last vocal appearance at a VE Day anniversary performance.

Katherine Jenkins, the Welsh singer, was encouraged by Lynn to take over "Forces' Sweetheart" following the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance in that year. "These boys gave their lives and some went home badly injured, and for some families, life will never be the same." We should always remember, we should never forget, and we should always remind the children to recall."

Lynn was instrumental in the introduction of "The Times of My Life" at the Cabinet War Rooms in London in September 2008. In 2009, Lynn published Some Sunny Day, her autobiography. She had written two previous memoirs, Vocal Refrain (1975) and We'll Meet Again (1989).

Lynn was suing the British National Party (BNP) for using "The White Cliffs of Dover" on an anti-immigration album without her permission in February 2009. Lynn's lawyer said the album linked her party, which did not agree with any political party, to the party's positions by association.

Lynn became the first living artist to make it to No. 1 in September 2009, at the age of 92. In the British album chart, 1 is the top spot. We'll Meet Again: Vera Lynn's Best of Vera Lynn's Collection The Very Best of Vera Lynn debuted on the charts on August 30th and then soared to No. 20 on August 30. The Arctic Monkeys and the Beatles were outselling both the Arctic Monkeys and the Beatles in the first week. With this achievement, she tied Bob Dylan as the country's oldest artist to have a number one album.

Lynn was one of 200 public figures in August 2014 who had signed a letter opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to the Scottish independence referendum in September. In May 2015, she was unable to attend VE Day 70: A Party to Remember in London, but the Daily Mirror interviewed her at home.

Vera Lynn 100, a new LP, was released by Decca Records three days before her 100th birthday on March 17, 2017. The album includes many duet partners such as Alfie Boe, Alexander Armstrong, Aled Jones, and the Royal Squadronaires, bringing Lynn's original vocals to new re-orchestrated versions of her songs. Parlophone, Lynn's late 1960s and 1970s recordings, has released a set of her songs recorded at Abbey Road Studios entitled Her Greatest from Abbey Road, which includes five previously unreleased original recordings. She was the country's best-selling female artist of the year by October 2017, having sold more albums than contemporary artists like Dua Lipa and Lana del Rey.

Lynn was nominated for two awards in the 2018 Classic Brit Awards for Female Artist of the Year and Album of the Year, as well as the Lifetime Achievement Award.

A new painted portrait of Lynn was gifted by the London Mint Office to the Royal Albert Hall in connection with the 1975 anniversary of the peace in 1945. Ross Kolby's portrait was unveiled by Lynn Lewis-Jones and Britain's Got Talent winner Colin Thackery.

Queen Elizabeth II's song "We'll Meet Again" was echoed in a television address she gave addressing the COVID-19 pandemic on April 5, 2020. Lynn and Katherine Jenkins virtually duetted at the Royal Albert Hall, which was virtually empty due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In June 2021, a wildflower meadow on the White Cliffs of Dover was named in honor of Lynn.

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