Wynne Ajello | |
Birth Name: | Winifred Alice Cutter Gellard |
Birth Date: | 9 January 1903 |
Birth Place: | Fulham, London, England |
Death Place: | Worthing, Sussex, England |
Nationality: | British |
Occupation: | Singer |
Years Active: | 1920s - 1940s |
Wynne Ajello (born Winifred Alice Cutter Gellard; 9 January 1903 - 18 April 1992) was an English soprano singer who made many broadcasts on BBC radio between the 1920s and 1940s.
She was born in Fulham, London, the daughter of a piano teacher who later married into the Ajello family, originally of Italian origin. She developed a talent for singing, and won a children's singing competition. She made her first BBC broadcasts in 1925, singing a selection of coloratura arias, but diversified into also performing songs from musical revues.[1] [2]
She made recordings for the Durium label. In 1933, she made her first television broadcasts, singing as part of the White Coons concert party, directed by Harry S. Pepper,[1] but then took a lengthy break after a nervous breakdown.[3]
By 1936, it was reported that she had made over 550 broadcasts for the BBC.[2] In 1938, she took the role of Snow White in the radio adaptation of the Disney cartoon feature.[4] She continued to feature in BBC broadcasts through the Second World War, into the late 1940s.[1]
She married her stepbrother, Reginald Ajello, in 1929. She died in Worthing, Sussex, in 1992, aged 89.