Joan Regan

English singer (1928–2013)

Joan Regan (born Joan Bethel or Siobhan Bethel; 19 January 1928 – 12 September 2013) was an English traditional pop singer, popular during the 1950s and early 1960s.

Regan was born in either Romford, Essex, or West Ham, London, (sources disagree) the youngest of six children to Irish parents. She had rheumatic fever as a child which left her with a damaged mitral valve, although this did not cause problems until she was in her seventies. Regan married an American serviceman, Dick Howell, a friend of her brothers who met in the Navy. She and Howell married on her 18th birthday in 1946. For a time they lived in Burbank, California. They had three children, one of whom died at an early age. The marriage eventually broke down. Regan, a Catholic, was able to obtain a legal dissolution, rather than a divorce. Beginning on November 18, 1953, she became the resident singer on BBC producer Richard Afton's television series Quite Contrary. She appeared on the Six Five Special, and was given her own BBC television series, Be My Guest, which ran for four series starting in 1959. In 1958, she appeared as herself in the film Hello London. On leaving Decca in 1958, she signed with EMI's HMV label, where she had a Top 10 hit with a cover version of the McGuire Sisters' "May You Always". In the United States, Regan recorded two singles for Columbia (one of which, "Don't Talk To Me About Love", went on to become a Northern soul classic). In 1984 she slipped in the shower, hit her head on the tiles and suffered a brain haemorrhage.

Regan recorded a number of other songs, including "It's a Big, Wide, Wonderful World" and "That Old Feeling".