Marti Caine

Britain's clown queen of comedy during the 1980s, Marti Caine's brand of humour combined an appealing dizziness with an endearing vunerability. Often compared to America's Phyllis Diller, she paved the way for women working in British light entertainment, both in nightclubs and in television. Born Lynn Shepherd in Sheffield, Caine attended several schools in Yorkshire before working as a model, croupier and petrol pump attendant. At 18, she made her first professional appearance as a comedienne in a club in Rotheram and spent the next 15 years playing the Northern working men's club circuit. She became an overnight household name at the age of 30 on the TV talent show, New Faces (1973). Viewers loved her gawky figure and glamorous looks and she went on to star in her own BBC2 TV show, The Marti Caine Show (1979), throughout the eighties. In 1982, Caine spent 18 months starring in a stage show in South Africa which caused uproar from anti-apartheid demonstrators and, for a time, she was blacklisted by the United Nations. During the latter part of her career, she combined TV work with stage shows in Britain and, for 3 years from 1986, was a judge on Central TV's New Faces (1973). She was popular in pantomime and made the part of the "Red Queen" in "Snow White and The 7 Dwarfs" her own, playing in Cambridge, Bath, Bournemouth and London. A gifted and talented comedienne, Caine was an incisive and intelligent performer who often surprised her critics with her depth as an actress.