In the early 1980s, Linda Nolan, who has died aged 65 after suffering from cancer, was a member of one of the most successful vocal groups in Britain. Formed of five sisters at the outset, the Nolans had four Top 10 hits, beginning with I’m in the Mood for Dancing, and sold millions of albums.
A disco-lite number, I’m in the Mood for Dancing reached No 3 in the charts in 1980 and enjoyed an afterlife at countless wedding receptions. Six more Top 20 hits followed in short order, among them Don’t Make Waves, Gotta Pull Myself Together and Attention to Me (all 1980) and Don’t Love Me Too Hard (1982).Linda left the group in 1983, after her sisters decided to dispense with the services of their tour manager and sound engineer, Brian Hudson, whom she had married in 1981.
With Hudson as her personal manager, Linda’s solo career began with the publication of risque photographs in tabloid newspapers, who hailed her as “the naughty Nolan”. She made a British tour supporting Gene Pitney but soon branched out into musical theatre and pantomime.
Between 1986 and 1994 she made more than 1,000 appearances in the title role of the Blackpool summer variety show Maggie May and later featured in Prisoner Cell Block H – the Musical (with Paul O’Grady), Pump Boys and Dinettes, Rumpy Pumpy! and Menopause: the Musical. However, her best known stage role was as Mrs Johnstone in several revivals of Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers between 2006 and 2016. She also appeared occasionally on the ITV show Loose Women, on which her youngest sister, Coleen, was a panellist, and appeared in the 2014 series of Celebrity Big Brother, which was notable for her spectacular rows with the comedian Jim Davidson.
Born in Dublin, Linda was the sixth of eight children of Maureen (nee Breslin) and Tommy Nolan, both of whom were talented singers. Together they had performed as the Sweethearts of Song and for a while Tommy was known as “the Irish Sinatra”. He made occasional television and radio broadcasts.
In 1962, Tommy and Maureen were persuaded by a family friend to seek greater opportunities in Britain, moving the family, when Linda was three, to Blackpool.
There they established a foothold in the local working men’s clubs, performing as the Nolan Family, with an act that featured several of the children, including seven-year-old Linda, and was billed as “Blackpool’s very own Von Trapp family”. Behind the happy facade, however, all was not well. Tommy was later revealed as a wife-beater who sexually assaulted one of his daughters, Anne, during her teenage years.
The sisters’ move on to the national stage was enabled by the Tottenham Hotspur owner Joe Lewis, who ran several London nightclubs. He insisted that the act should consist only of the girls: Anne, Bernie, Denise, Linda and Maureen. Renamed the Nolan Sisters, they began a residency at his club, the London Rooms, in 1974.
Impressed by them, a BBC light entertainment producer booked the sisters as guest artists on the Cliff Richard Show. This led to numerous television appearances on the shows of Morecambe & Wise, Val Doonican, the Two Ronnies and others. In 1975 the Nolan Sisters supported Frank Sinatra on his Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back European tour.
Despite their busy schedule as performers, the group had little success as recording artists until they signed to CBS in 1979, by which time Denise had left the group to pursue a solo career. Their first single, Spirit, Body and Soul, composed by Bruce Welch and Hank Marvin of the Shadows, scraped into the Top 40, but the next, I’m in the Mood for Dancing, also released in 1979, but under the group’s new name, the Nolans, launched their career.
Anne left the group in 1980 for two years, and Coleen joined, too late to be on the recording of I’m in the Mood for Dancing, but included in the promotional video.
The Nolans continued after Linda’s departure, but as their record sales declined and relations between the sisters deteriorated, they gradually faded from public view until they disbanded in 2004. By then only Maureen and Anne of the original members remained.
Having received successful treatment for cancer in 2005, Linda joined Coleen, Maureen and Bernie for their comeback album, I’m in the Mood Again, and tour in 2009. In 2017, she was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer.
Brian died in 2007 and Bernie died in 2013. Linda is survived by her other siblings, Anne, Brian, Coleen, Maureen and Tommy.
• Linda Nolan, singer and actor, born 23 February 1959; died 15 January 2025
• Dave Laing died in 2019
