Eve Boswell

• Name — Eve Boswell • Birth Name — Éva Edith Keleti • Born — 11 May 1922 • Birthplace — Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary • Died — 14 August 1998 • Place of death — Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa • Genre — Traditional pop • Years Active — 1950s

Éva Keleti was born in Hungary to professional musician parents, Hugo Keleti and Lucy Prager, who toured worldwide. Educated in Switzerland, she studied piano before joining her parents on tour as the juggling act, Three Hugos. When the Second World War was declared, the family left Britain with the Boswell Circus. She married, and as Eve Boswell became a popular singing star in South Africa. In 1949, she was heard by bandleader Geraldo (Gerald Bright), who persuaded her to return to Britain as a singer in his band, which was widely heard on BBC Radio. Boswell was the singing voice of Vera-Ellen in the 1951 British film Happy Go Lovely. She parted with Geraldo in 1951, and launched a solo career. Her first hit record came the following year with "Sugar Bush", partly sung in Afrikaans. Starting in March 1952, she toured for several months with comedian Derek Roy in a musical revue, Happy-Go-Lucky, before flying to Korea to entertain the armed forces. In 1953, she was with Harry Secombe in Show of Shows at Blackpool Opera House. She was given her own radio show on the BBC's Light Programme called Time to Dream in October 1953, and she appeared in the 1953 Royal Variety Performance at the London Coliseum. Boswell played alongside Tommy Cooper in Happy and Glorious and later with him in pantomime in 1954 in Humpty Dumpty at the Dudley Hippodrome. Boswell became a British citizen in 1955. Her major chart hit came with "Pickin' a Chicken", a South African tune with new words, which rose to No. 9 on the UK Singles Chart at the start of 1956. Her first LP, Sugar and Spice, on which she sang 10 songs in nine different languages, followed later in the year. A continuous programme of radio and TV work and tours followed, leading to more than one mental breakdown. She faded from public view as public tastes for pop music changed through the late 1950s and 1960s. Her husband died in 1970, and she opened her own singing studio in London, Studio 9, in 1974. She later returned to South Africa, where she married the radio producer Henry Holloway, who produced her last LP, It's a Breeze, recorded in 1979.

In 1943, Boswell married Trevor McIntosh in Gobabis, Namibia; he acted as her manager. The union was dissolved in 1965. Her adopted son from the marriage was found dead at her home in July 1998. Boswell married South African broadcaster Henry Holloway in 1976.

• Sugar and Spice (Parlophone, 1956) • Sentimental Eve (Parlophone, 1957; with the Reg Owen Orchestra, issued in America in 1958 as The War Years on Capitol Records) • Following the Sun Around (Parlophone, 1959) • At the Mediterranean (South Africa) (Continental Records, 1961) • Goeie Nuus! Good News (South Africa) (Brigadiers, 1962) • Sugar Bush '76 (EMI Records, 1976) • It's a Breeze (Sugarbush Records, 1979)

Parlophone releases, with Eve Boswell's vocals on one side only: • "Again" (1949) • "My Golden Baby" (1949) • "Confidentially" (1949) • "Best of All" (1950) • "Dear Hearts and Gentle People" (1950) • "You're Only Dreaming" (1950) • "All My Love" (1951) • "If" (1951) • "Mariandl-andl-andl" (with Derrick Francis, 1951)