Beryl Davis has died at age 87.She was a British-born swing-band singer who performed with the Glenn Miller Orchestra in the Second World War and went on to work with some of the biggest names in showbusiness, including Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope.
After the war Bob Hope took Beryl Davis to Hollywood to appear on The Bob Hope Show.
She thought she would be in America for only six weeks, but when she was invited by Frank Sinatra to be his singing partner on Your Hit Parade, America’s biggest radio show in the late 1940s, she decided to stay.
Sinatra, she recalled, was “a perfect gentleman”.
In 1948 she married the Hollywood radio and television personality Peter Potter, with whom she had three children.
Beryl Davis went on to sing with musicians including Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong.
In 1954, with her friends Jane Russell, Della Russell and Connie Haines, she formed a gospel quartet which had a huge hit that year with Do Lord. Rhonda Fleming later replaced Della Russell, and the girls toured together until 1984.
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