Diana Payne-Myers in An Inspector Calls by J.B. Priestley, P.W. Productions on tour 2018/19.Directed by Stephen Daldry.Designed by Ian MacNeil.Lighting by Rick Fisher.Associate Director Julian Webber..Photo by Mark Douet. AN extraordinary former Polam Hall School pupil, who supported Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Max Miller and Morecambe and Wise, has died at the age of 92. Diana Payne-Myers, who was born in Darlington in 1928, was dancing until the end – she spent her 91st birthday on Broadway appearing in An Inspector Calls. She even did a cartwheel and the splits on stage in her late eighties – although she admitted for the latter that “I’m cheating a little”.
Diana Payne-Myers
Credit: family
Diana Payne-Myers, the dancer and actress, who has died aged 92, had a 70-year stage career of phenomenal variety, beginning in the postwar music hall boom, continuing through the heyday of West End revue, and rising to an unlikely burst of stardom in her seventies and eighties in cutting-edge contemporary dance.
Her ballet skit supported Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis on their British tours, she danced with Sadler’s Wells Opera Ballet, and she spent her 91st birthday on Broadway appearing in Stephen Daldry’s production of An Inspector Calls, as the silent maid Edna, a role she had performed for 22 years.