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Penny Croft - The artist and the singer

525 views · Published 9 April 2016 · 3:31 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: keurspel (Leon Rossouw) · 2016 · Music

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British artist, daughter of David Croft (British film and TV producer) and Ann Callender (British music agent). She trained at Arts Educational and the London School of Dramatic Art, and on graduating with honours joined the New Midland Theatre Company. Her first appearance in the West End was “G.B.” at the Westminster theatre, followed by “Why Not Stay For Breakfast” at the Apollo theatre. 

Taking a short break from acting, she signed to Chappell’s London as a singer/songwriter and represented Great Britain at the World Song Festival in Tokyo, where she won the “Cherry Blossom” award for best performance, presented by Frank Sinatra. 

In the mid-1970s the female lead in the Stephen Schwartz musical, "The Magic Show", took her to South Africa where she stayed for four years, and where she signed a record deal with CBS records and made three albums of her own songs. She performed her own material extensively on TV and radio and was given her own TV show "The World of Penny Croft", which she wrote and produced, and for which she won a SARIE award for Best Female Artist. She also won Billboard Magazine’s international "Shure Golden Microphone Award" for Best Female Vocalist.

When she returned to Britain she created and wrote the BBC hit sit-com "Life Without George", as well as co-writing the TV show "Follow your Stars" for Joan Collins and Omar Sharif. In 1998 she moved to Los Angeles in the USA where she entered a screenplay competition, which she won, and subsequently wrote a number of shows for American Television Networks. 

She has since returned to Britian and is still active as a writer and producer for TV and theatre.

Although none of her songs charted on the South African Top 20, “Count The Red Cars” was very popular in South Africa and has been included on various compilations over the years.

This song is off the album “For Your Eyes Only”, released in 1978.

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