Julia Lang was a British film and radio actress and radio presenter. Born in London, she is best known for presenting the BBC radio programme Listen with Mother .
The theme music for the programme was the Berceuse from Gabriel Fauré's Dolly Suite for piano duet, Op. 56. A recording was often used but in an Anglia Television interview in the 1990s, Lang said that during her tenure, when she had finished reading the story, she had to get up (noiselessly), rush across to the piano in the studio and play the Berceuse live.
She married William Shine in 1942. They appeared together in the 1948 film The Red Shoes as "a balletomane" and "a balletomane's mate". Their marriage was dissolved in 1949. She had a son, Stephen. [1] [2]
Lang died on 1 April 2010 at the age of 88 in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. [3]
Each story on Listen with Mother opened with the phrase "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin." (sometimes "...Then we'll begin") [5] The question, originally an ad lib by Julia Lang on 16 January 1950, became so well known that it appears up in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations [6] It has been referenced countless times and sometimes by sampled musicians.
Catherine Bush is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and dancer. Bush began writing songs at age 11. She was signed to EMI Records after Pink Floyd's David Gilmour helped produce a demo tape. In 1978, at the age of 19, she topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut single "Wuthering Heights", becoming the first female artist to achieve a UK number one with a self-written song. Her debut album, The Kick Inside, was released that same year.
Leslie Ann Phillips, better known by her stage name Sam Phillips, is an American singer and songwriter. Her albums include the critically acclaimed Martinis & Bikinis in 1994 and Fan Dance in 2001. She has also composed scores for the television shows Gilmore Girls, Bunheads, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
Jo Elizabeth Stafford was an American traditional pop singer, whose career spanned five decades from the late 1930s to the early 1980s. Admired for the purity of her voice, she originally underwent classical training to become an opera singer before following a career in popular music, and by 1955 had achieved more worldwide record sales than any other female artist. Her 1952 song "You Belong to Me" topped the charts in the United States and United Kingdom, becoming the second single to top the UK Singles Chart, and the first by a female artist to do so.
Listen with Mother was a BBC radio programme for children which ran between 16 January 1950 to 10 September 1982. It was originally produced by Freda Lingstrom although for the majority of its run it was produced by George Dixon, and was presented over the years by Daphne Oxenford, Julia Lang, Eileen Browne, Dorothy Smith and others.
The Cisco Kid is a fictional character found in numerous film, radio, television and comic book series based on the fictional Western character created by O. Henry in his 1907 short story "The Caballero's Way", published in Everybody's Magazine, v17, July 1907, as well as in the collection Heart of the West (1907). Originally a murderous criminal in O. Henry's story, the Kid was depicted as a heroic Mexican caballero later in films, radio and television adaptations.
Celia Lovsky was an Austrian-American actress. She was born in Vienna, daughter of Břetislav Lvovsky (1857–1910), a minor Czech opera composer. She studied theater, dance, and languages at the Austrian Royal Academy of Arts and Music. She is best known to fans of Star Trek as the High Priestess T'Pau, and to fans of The Twilight Zone as the aged daughter of an eternally youthful Hollywood actress.
"Pretty Baby" is a song written by Tony Jackson during the Ragtime era. The song was remembered as being prominent in Jackson's repertory before he left New Orleans in 1912, but was not published until 1916.
John Chalmers MacGregor, better known as Chummy MacGregor, a musician and composer, was the pianist in The Glenn Miller Orchestra from 1936 to 1942. He composed the songs "Moon Dreams", "It Must Be Jelly ", "I Sustain the Wings", "Doin' the Jive", "Sold American", "Cutesie Pie" in 1932 with Bing Crosby and Red Standex, and "Slumber Song".
The Barkleys of Broadway is a 1949 American Technicolor musical comedy film from the Arthur Freed unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that reunited Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers after ten years apart. Directed by Charles Walters, the screenplay is by Betty Comden, Adolph Green, and Sidney Sheldon, the songs are by Harry Warren (music) and Ira Gershwin (lyrics) with the addition of "They Can't Take That Away from Me" by George and Ira Gershwin, and the choreography was created by Robert Alton and Hermes Pan. Also featured in the cast were Oscar Levant, Billie Burke, Jacques François and Gale Robbins. It is the last film that Astaire and Rogers made together, and their only film together in color. Rogers came in as a last-minute replacement for Judy Garland, whose frequent absences due to a dependence on prescription medication cost her the role.
Daphne Margaret du Grivel Oxenford was an English actress, known for her early stage roles, and later her radio and television work. She was the voice of BBC radio's Listen with Mother from its inception in 1950 to 1971. As spinster Esther Hayes, she was part of the original cast of Coronation Street. Other notable roles include Mrs Plummer in Man About the House (1973), Alice Dutton in EastEnders (1990), and Mrs. Oldknow in the mini-series The Children of Green Knowe (1986).
"Julia Dream" is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd and the B-side of the single "It Would Be So Nice". The song was the first to be released by the band with lead vocals by David Gilmour.
Lurene Tuttle was an American actress and acting coach, who made the transition from vaudeville to radio, and later to films and television. Her most enduring impact was as one of network radio's more versatile actresses. Often appearing in 15 shows per week, comedies, dramas, thrillers, soap operas, and crime dramas, she became known as the "First Lady of Radio".
Don't Be Scared is singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston's second self-released album, released in 1982. It was re-released on cassette in 1989 by Stress Records, a label run by Johnston's friend and manager Jeff Tartakov, on mp3 by emusic.com in 2000, and on CDR by Eternal Yip Eye Music in 2004.
Shine is the 19th and final studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, released on September 25, 2007, by Hear Music. It is Mitchell's first album of new material since Taming the Tiger (1998).
The Dolly Suite, Op. 56, is a collection of pieces for piano duet by Gabriel Fauré. It consists of six short pieces written or revised between 1893 and 1896, to mark the birthdays and other events in the life of the daughter of the composer's mistress, Emma Bardac.
Eileen Browne, was a BBC Radio broadcaster, perhaps best known for being one of the original presenters of Listen with Mother.
Elizabeth of Ladymead is a 1948 British Technicolor drama film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Anna Neagle, Hugh Williams, Isabel Jeans and Bernard Lee. It charts the life of a British family between 1854 and 1945 and their involvement in four wars - the Crimean War, Boer War, First World War and Second World War. In each era a Beresford is in the army and dresses in the uniform of the age in most scenes, even at home.
Mary Field was an American film actress who primarily appeared in supporting roles.
Are You Sitting Comfortably? may refer to:
Destination Freedom was a series of weekly radio programs which was produced by WMAQ in Chicago. The first set ran from 1948 to 1950 and it presented the biographical histories of prominent African-Americans such as George Washington Carver, Satchel Paige, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Lena Horne. The scripts for those shows were written by Richard Durham. Studs Terkel voiced some of the radio characters. Hugh Downs also served as an announcer in both the initial and 1950 series.