British stage, screen and TV actress Diane Langton, 77, died on Jan. 15. She appeared on the West End in such shows as Hair, A Chorus Line, Pippin, A Little Night Music, Chicago, Mary Poppins, and Billy Elliot. On TV, she costarred in the soap Hollyoaks (from 2007-23), The Rag Trade, How to Be a Little Sod, and Eastenders; Langton also had the distinction of being in three Carry Ons (Teacher, Laughing—a TV series—and England). Of her 1968 experience in the original London cast of Hair, she admitted that she did not doff her clothes. “You know, it’s terrible, but I didn’t. I was in the very first cast, and at that time, it wasn’t compulsory. There were four people who didn’t, and I thought, ‘I really can’t.’ My mother and father would disown me! I know it’s 15 seconds and then a blackout, but I was 23 and I had a little boy—I was a mum. My father would never have spoken to me again!” And of her long, busy acting career, “I’m compulsed! I know there’s no such word, but that describes what I am. My son says to me, ‘Why don’t you retire?’ and I say, ‘To what?’ I would go insane. When I don’t work, I’m a nightmare after two weeks.”
Related Posts
