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Rene Johnson: Farewell to Leeds’s own queen of the stage
Rene Johnson aged 25.
Tributes have been paid to a popular cabaret singer and entertainer from Leeds who has died at the age of 92.
‘One of a kind’ pianist Rene Johnson, who enjoyed a stage career for more than 80 years, passed away at a care home in Chester last week.
Rene, who lived in Allerton Bywater until a few years ago, enjoyed her first taste of fame aged three, when she jumped on stage and performed with her father Will – a comedian and trumpeter – at a club in Hunslet.
During the Second World War, she toured with big band leader Joe Loss, before settling in Leeds and establishing herself as a leading cabaret act.
She ran the now-demolished Royal Hotel in Boston Spa, where she married late husband Sidney, for many years and performed in a charity concert at the City Varieties in 2006.
Paying tribute to her aunt, Vicky Courage said Rene was still playing the piano for care home residents just weeks before she passed away.
Vicky said: “She was very talented; not only in music, she could paint and sew. She was entertaining right until the end; she did a piano concert in the care home on December 12.
“Then she broke her wrist and went downhill from there. About a week before she died, she said to me ‘I can’t play the piano anymore’ and that was it. That had been her life.”
Comedian Howard Lee, one of the organisers of the City Varieties concert in 2006, said: “She was an absolute lady; one of a kind. They don’t make them like her these days.
“When people visited the pubs she worked in, they didn’t go to drink, they went to see Rene Johnson.
“Whenever she performed, she brought the house down. She was a bit cheeky, naughty but nice, and she was loved and admired by everybody.”
Rene met Joe Loss in the early years of the Second World War, when he watched her perform in a concert for wounded soldiers at the former Melbourne Hotel in Cross Gates.
She auditioned for him and sang with Joe’s band for three years but moved back to Leeds after the war, to work as a cabaret singer at her father’s pub, the White House in Hunslet.
She later ran the Royal Hotel with her husband, jazz organist Sidney Barnstable, and the pair performed in charity concerts together until he died from a heart attack in the 1990s.
As well as performing at the City Varieties at the age of 85, Rene had regular slots singing and playing the piano at the Queens Arms in Moortown up until a few years ago.
She spent the final part of her life in Chester to be closer to her two nieces, who were her next of kin. Rene’s funeral will be held at Chester Crematorium on Monday, from 11.30am.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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There are 3 comments to this article
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Peter Lyon
Thursday, March 8, 2012 at 12:32 AMThe Royal was one of our favourite venues in the 1950's and early '60's. Always a great and entertaining night out. Along with Rene, there was a guitar player whose name I cannot remember, who used to do miming to Alvin and the chipmunks records.
Derc
Monday, March 5, 2012 at 06:17 PMWhat a wonderful lady entertainer she was and will be sadly missed by a very lot of people. She will make her debut in heaven.
decolyn
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 09:48 AMi recall going to see her perform at the pub in Allerton Bywater, the show was brilliant, we went on a coach trip with work and everyone had a memorable time, i hope that she is playing her piano and entertaining everyone in the afterlife.. bless her.
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