Janet Webb

Janet Webb, born Janet Patricia Webster on 1 July 1930 in Liverpool, Lancashire, was an English actress and Broadway performer. Her father, Gilbert Webster, held a professorship in music at the Royal Manchester College of Music and was recognized as one of a small number of players of the cimbalom. Her mother was Adeline Ashcroft Webster, née Coghlan. Webb died on 29 December 1983 from cancer and was buried at the churchyard of St Paul's, Covent Garden, in the London Borough of Camden.

Webb appeared on Broadway in 1940, with credits including The Hot Mikado, Trial by Jury, and The Gondoliers. She was noted for possessing a strong singing voice and worked with musical director Alyn Ainsworth. Her vocal style was employed on the 1969 Music For Pleasure album Songs Of A World At War, recorded under the name Janet Webb And The Naafi Singers and released on the Music For Pleasure label as MFP3005.

In British television, Webb became widely recognized through her recurring presence on the BBC's The Morecambe & Wise Show, where she was known as the lady who comes on at the end. She had first appeared in Morecambe and Wise sketches in 1964, with her signature non-speaking appearance in that particular role beginning in the second series in 1969. The role was subsequently expanded to include dialogue, with her character delivering a farewell speech to the audience and receiving gifts such as flowers and boxes of chocolates. Webb appeared regularly in this capacity until 1972, when ill health curtailed her involvement, though she continued to make occasional cameo appearances on the programme through 1974.

Her 1972 appearance on the Morecambe & Wise Christmas Special featured a segment in which celebrities including Eric Porter, André Previn, Ian Carmichael, and Flora Robson each appeared claiming that working with Morecambe and Wise had led to their professional downfall, with Porter depicted as a bin man, Previn as a bus conductor, Carmichael as a paper boy, and Robson as a BBC tea lady. Webb then arrived at a mansion by Rolls-Royce and countered that working with the duo had done her no harm. She subsequently appeared on several episodes of The Two Ronnies, featuring in both the 1976 and 1977 series of that BBC programme with Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. Her final television appearance was a character role in an episode of the Thames Television sitcom Room Service, written by Jimmy Perry.

Webb's film work included appearances in the British comedies A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in 1966, The Amorous Milkman in 1975, and Joseph Andrews in 1977. She had married violinist Charles Vorzanger in 1957.