Anita Harris
| Anita Harris | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Anita Madeleine Harris 3 June 1942 Midsomer Norton, Somerset, England |
| Occupation | Actress, singer |
| Years active | 1960–present |
Anita Madeleine Harris (born 3 June 1942) is an English actress, singer and entertainer.
Harris sang with the Cliff Adams Singers and had a number of chart hits in the 1960s. She appeared in the Carry On films Follow That Camel and Carry On Doctor.
Harris enjoyed singing and dancing from an early age. She is a relative of Ida Barr, the British music hall singing star.
She won a talent contest at the age of three. However, it was her penchant for figure skating which led to her performing career: after her family moved to Bournemouth when she was seven, Harris began skating at the neighbourhood rink, eventually becoming a regular at the Queens Ice Rink in London where a talent scout spotted her shortly before her sixteenth birthday and invited her to audition for a dance troupe. She then performed in Europe and Las Vegas.
On returning to the UK, she performed in a vocal group known as the Grenadiers and then spent three years with the Cliff Adams Singers, being one of the few female members of that group, best known for BBC Radio's Sing Something Simple. She was still in her teens when spotted by John Barry's manager, Tony Lewis; she was offered a recording contract by EMI and cut her first recordings with the John Barry Seven — a band which was a successful chart act. This early single – a double A-side of "I Haven't Got You", written by Lionel Bart and "Mr. One and Only" – was not a hit. Harris did not pursue a recording career further until after meeting songwriter Mike Margolis in 1963.
Subsequent to their meeting, when they both auditioned for a musical revue, Margolis and Harris formed a personal and professional relationship: he became her manager and wrote the songs which served as her second and third singles: "Lies" (1964) and "Don't Think About Love" (1965), both of which he also produced. In January 1965 she performed at the San Remo Music Festival. Her duet with Beppe Cardile, "L'amore è partito", failed to reach the finals but even to participate in such a star-studded event augured well for her stardom. She then made her label debut for Pye Records with the May 1965 release "Trains and Boats and Planes", though rival versions by both the song's composer Burt Bacharach (with vocals by the Breakaways) and Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas eclipsed her recording. She had four subsequent releases on Pye, including the only evident recording of the Burt Bacharach/ Hal David composition "London Life", with Margolis remaining her regular producer.
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