Samantha Juste
| Samantha Juste | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Sandra Slater 31 May 1944 Manchester, England, UK |
| Died | 5 February 2014 (aged 69) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Other names | Samantha Dolenz |
| Spouse(s) |
Micky Dolenz (m. 1968; div. 1975) Tony Shipp (m. 1988) |
| Children | Ami Dolenz |
Samantha Juste (born Sandra Slater; 31 May 1944 – 5 February 2014) became known on British television in the mid-1960s as the "disc girl" on the BBC’s Top of the Pops. In 1968 she married Micky Dolenz of the Monkees. Their daughter is actress Ami Dolenz.
Sandra Slater was born in Manchester, England to a dressmaker named Phyllis and studied textile and dress design at Rochdale College of Art. The tall, long-legged blonde soon became a teenage model and took the name Samantha Juste.
Top of The Pops was a weekly half-hour programme of current popular music, initially conceived and produced by Johnnie Stewart (1917–2005). It was first broadcast from a converted church in Rusholme, Manchester on 1 January 1964. Samantha Juste was an assistant to Cecil Korer, the programme's assistant producer. After the first few episodes, Juste replaced Denise Sampey; for 3½ years she sat alongside the host (initially disc jockeys Jimmy Savile, David Jacobs, Alan Freeman and Pete Murray), to place records on a turntable and apply the needle as the artist was about to perform.Simon Dee, who first introduced the show in 1966, recalled that "I got my introduction right [and] didn't get too distracted by the luscious Samantha Juste, my lovely co-host".
Some viewers found Juste's ritual incongruous since the artists were there to perform. But since they were miming, something about which the BBC made no secret, there was honesty about the procedure. Indeed, on one occasion, a record by the Swinging Blue Jeans was played at the wrong speed.
Juste appeared briefly in the 1965 Swinging London film The Knack ...and How to Get It, directed by Richard Lester, and also released a 45 single the following year. She was one of two British women signed to Strike Records (whose first single and only "hit", Neil Christian's That's Nice, was issued in February 1966) and its subsidiary Go. The other was Jacki Bond, a secretary with Strike who, like Juste, had little musical experience.
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