Joan Turner, who died on 1 March, 2009, aged 86, was one of the UK's top entertainers and an incredibly versatile performer.

Described as having the “the voice of an angel and the wit of a devil”, her talents ranged from opera singing to impressionism, while her stand-up comedy earned her the title of the female Harry Secombe.

At the height of her career in the 1960s and '70s she topped bills at Royal Variety Shows, West End musicals and the London Palladium.

Joan Turner was born in Belfast on 24 November, 1922. She was educated in a Catholic convent but left at 14 to pursue her show business ambitions. She travelled to London where she landed a part in a revue show before joining the cast of the anarchic comedy troupe the Crazy Gang.

She asserted herself as a formidable comic talent and rose to become one of the Crazy Gang's top stars, performing for the Queen on many occasions, including her Silver Jubilee in 1977. She went on to star in the West End hits Oliver!, Call Me Madam and Talk of the Town, hosted her own radio and television shows, and toured internationally with her own stage show.

At her peak she was one of entertainment's highest paid female stars, but her career began to slump from the late 1970s onwards. Despite a comeback attempt in the 1990s, including a performance at the Queen Mother's 90th birthday celebrations and cameo parts in several television dramas, by 2001 she was broke and battling with alcoholism while out of work in Los Angeles.

With the help of her daughter she returned to the UK after appearing in a documentary called Celebrity: The Rise and Fall and spent her remaining years in sheltered accommodation in Surrey where she wrote a poignant autobiography called I Thought It Grew on Trees and spoke of her “adventures” down-and-out in LA.