Patricia Bredin, the first singer to represent the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest, has passed away at the age of 88. She died on Sunday in Nova Scotia, Canada, where she had lived for many years, her family confirmed.
Bredin was born in Hull, England, on 14 February 1935. She began her singing career as a member of the Hull Operatic Society, performing in shows at the City Hall and other venues. She was discovered by BBC executives at the Savoy in London, who asked her to take part in the 1957 Eurovision Song Contest in Frankfurt, Germany.
She sang “Allâ€, a love song that was the first-ever song sung in English at Eurovision. At 1:52, it was also the shortest performance in the history of the contest until 2015. Bredin finished in seventh place out of ten entries, but despite her performance being broadcast on TV, the song was never recorded and the public did not have a chance to send it into the charts.
Bredin went on to have a successful career as an actress and singer on stage and screen. She starred in several British films, such as Left Right and Centre with Ian Carmichael and Alastair Sim, Desert Mice with Sid James, and The Treasure of Monte Cristo. She also appeared in musicals in the West End and on Broadway, once taking over the role of Guenevere from Julie Andrews in Camelot.
Bredin married Welsh singer and actor Ivor Emmanuel in 1964, but they divorced within two years. She later met Canadian businessman Charles MacCulloch while singing on the QE2 liner. They married and moved to a farm in Nova Scotia, but he died on their honeymoon. Bredin stayed in Canada and raised cattle for nearly ten years, before financial difficulties forced her to sell her farm. She published some memoirs about this period of her life in My Fling on the Farm (1989).