Joan Turner

Joan Turner (born Belfast, Northern Ireland, November 24 1922) is a comedienne and singer who, in the 1960s and 1970s was a major star in the UK. She had her own television show, topped the bill at the London Palladiumcite web |url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2001/10/26/dp03.xml|title= Daily Telegraph, 26th October 2001] , appeared in the 1963 Royal Variety Show cite web |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_20010311/ai_n14521933|title= Sunday Mirror, 11th March 2001] and topped the bill over The Beatlescite web |url=http://www.thestage.co.uk/features/feature.php/13993/chit-chat-turning-back-time|title= The Stage, 31st August 2008] She appeared in the London stage musical "Oliver!" for two years, was romantically linked to Peter Sellers and was one of the highest-paid women in British showbiz.

In later years, it was reported that, after two divorces, she "drank and gambled away her fortune"and she was declared bankrupt in 1977.

In 1991, she was a guest of honour at the Queen Mother's 90th birthday celebrations. and, in the early 1990s, attempting to revive her career, she had a role as Auntie Lou in the Channel 4 series Brookside and a cameo role in the BBC TV series EastEnders. In 1996, she went to California to attempt to give it "one more try".

In March 2001, the "Sunday Mirror" newspaper reported that she was living "among the winos, drug addicts and down-and-outs in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles... dressed in charity shop clothes and surrounded by her worldly possessions - with barely a penny to her name." She was interviewed in situ as a "bag lady" on Sunset Boulevardcite web |url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200108270028|title= New Statesman, 27th August 2001] in the August 2001 Channel 4 documentary "Celebrity: The Rise and Fall"cite web |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2001/aug/27/tvandradio.television2|title= Guardian, 27th August 2001] and it was reported elsewhere that she had spent five years as a "down-and-out" in LA. Later that year, she returned to the UK.

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