Musical star who shone brightly for 60 years

During this, she originated the leading roles in musicals written by Noël Coward, Cole Porter and Leonard Bernstein, played opposite Van Johnson in a Hollywood screen musical, and broke all box-office records in a three-months cabaret season in Las Vegas As a straight actress, she won awards for her television portrayals of the music hall stars, Marie Lloyd and Vesta Tilley, and as Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion.

Adjudged by critics one of the all-time great pantomime Principal Boys, her legendary legs were once described by the critic, Kenneth Tynan, as the eighth wonder of the world', and for more than half a century, her name was linked by the media, and by royal biographers, with that of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

Patricia Kirkwood was born on February 24, 1921, at 6 Seedley Terrace, Pendleton, Lancashire, the elder of the two children of William Kirkwood, a Scottish shipping clerk, and his wife, Norah Carr. Her younger brother, Brian, was born three years later.

Her appearance in a talent contest at Ramsey, on the Isle of Man, led to an audition with Muriel Levy at the BBC in Manchester, and on November 13, 1935, she made her professional debut as a 14-year-old singer in BBC Radio's The Children's Hour, with Violet Carson, later Ena Sharples in Coronation Street, playing the piano.

Further broadcasts followed, and on December 24, 1937, at the age of 16, she made her London stage debut as Dandini in Cinderella at the Princes (now the Shaftesbury) Theatre.

Three months later, she won the lead in her first film, Save A Little Sunshine, followed by the leads in three further films, Me and My Pal, Come On George, opposite George Formby, and Band Waggon, with Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch.

Major stardom arrived at the London Hippodrome on November 14, 1939, when she played the lead in the lavish revue, Black Velvet, and stopped the show with two Cole Porter numbers, My Heart Belongs to Daddy and Most Gentlemen Don't Like Love.

The national critics hailed her as Britain's first wartime star', and on November 27, 1939, the seal of royal approval was set on her success when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth attended a performance of Black Velvet, their first visit to a London theatre since the declaration of war on Germany three months earlier.

Kirkwood rapidly became a major recording star on the HMV label, and her records of such hits as You've Done Something to My Heart, Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh!, This Can't Be Love and My Heart Belongs to Daddy became heavy wartime sellers.

In 1940, she starred with Tommy Trinder and Flanagan and Allen in Top of the World at the London Palladium, followed by the lead, opposite Stanley Lupino, in the musical comedy, Lady Behave, at His Majesty's Theatre in 1941.

During World War II, as the West End's leading Principal Boy, she packed the vast London Coliseum for months as Prince Rupert of Truly Rural in Humpty Dumpty, and as Robin Goodfellow in Goody Two Shoes. In 1944, she also sang with Glenn Miller and his orchestra only days before Miller died in a wartime flight.

Her 1945 film, Flight from Folly, brought her to the attention of Hollywood, and she was signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to co-star with Van Johnson in the musical, No Leave, No Love, in 1946. She disliked the film, which was not a success, and disliked Hollywood even more.

After rejecting the lead in the Broadway musical, Finian's Rainbow, she suffered a nervous breakdown and had to be replaced by Dolores Gray in another Broadway musical, Sweet Bye and Bye.

Her early first marriage, on August 10, 1940, to West End theatre executive, John William Atkinson (Jack') Lister, 15 years her senior, had proved a short-lived failure, and by the time Kirkwood returned to Britain to star in the 1947 London Hippodrome revue, Starlight Roof, alongside Winston Churchill's son-in-law, Vic Oliver, and the 12-year-old Julie Andrews, Kirkwood and Lister were separated, and she was going out with the Court and society photographer, Baron.

In October 1948, Baron brought his friend, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, on from a meeting of the all-male Thursday Club in Soho and introduced him to Kirkwood in the London Hippodrome's star dressing-room. The trio went on to dine at Les Ambassadeurs restaurant in Mayfair, and afterwards, when Kirkwood and Prince Philip were seen dancing together for several hours at the Milroy nightclub, at a time when the heiress presumptive, Princess Elizabeth, was eight months pregnant with the child who is now Prince Charles, there was worldwide media speculation that was to continue for decades afterwards.

Rumours, originating in White's Club, insisted that Prince Philip had given Kirkwood a white Rolls Royce, and although Kirkwood consistently denied suggestions of an affair, the supposed royal liaison was widely believed to have lost Kirkwood any chance of official recognition in the Honours list.

Kirkwood's first dramatic screen role, as an unscrupulous adventuress in Lewis Gilbert's 1950 film, Once A Sinner, co-starring Thora Hird as her mother, was an acclaimed success.

Also in 1950, Noël Coward wrote the West End musical, Ace of Clubs, specially for Kirkwood, providing her with another hit song, Chase Me Charlie, and her marriage to Lister was dissolved.

In 1951, she topped the bill with Donald O'Connor at the London Palladium, and co-starred with Tommy Trinder in the West End revue, Fancy Free, at the Prince of Wales Theatre.

In 1952, she married for the second time, to the aristocratic Russian shipowner, Spiro de Spero Gabriele, and made the first of four appearances in the Royal Variety Performance, before the new Queen, Elizabeth II, and the Duke of Edinburgh.

In 1953, Kirkwood scored one of her greatest successes as the music hall star, Marie Lloyd, in Our Marie, on BBC Television, appeared again before the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh in the Television Royal Command Performance, For Your Pleasure, and played the title-role in Peter Pan on the London stage, with Evelyn Laye and Donald Wolfit. She was appearing in the post-London tour of Peter Pan when her second husband, Spiro de Spero Gabriele (Sparky'), collapsed and died in front of her from a coronary thrombosis at the age of 50.

In May 1954, Kirkwood became the first female star to have her own one-hour series, The Pat Kirkwood Show, on British television, and in July of that year, she made her Las Vegas cabaret debut at the Desert Inn in her own show, London Palladium Varieties, which broke all box-office records during its three months season.

In 1955, Leonard Bernstein offered her the strenuous leading role of Ruth Sherwood in the London production of his musical, Wonderful Town, in which she was supported by Sid James and Shani Wallis. In 1956, she won the Evening Standard drama award for her television performances as Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion, and as the male impersonator Vesta Tilley in The Great Little Tilley, and married for the third time to the actor and composer of Maybe It's Because I'm A Londoner, Hubert Gregg.

Two further films followed: Stars in Your Eyes, with Bonar Colleano and Dorothy Squires, in 1956, and After the Ball, in which she again portrayed Vesta Tilley, this time co-starring with Laurence Harvey, in 1957.

In 1958, Kirkwood and her third husband, Hubert Gregg, co-starred in the West End musical, Chrysanthemum, at the Prince of Wales Theatre, and she also topped the bill on television in Sunday Night at the London Palladium.

She returned to the West End stage in 1961 in the farce, Pools Paradise, at the Phoenix Theatre, and in 1962, with Gregg, built a hilltop home, Lar do Cerro, overlooking Praia da Luz in Portugal's Algarve.

In 1965, she starred in West End cabaret at the Society Restaurant in Jermyn Street, and in 1967, played the lead in Somerset Maugham's The Constant Wife, in a nationwide tour, followed by appearances in Noël Coward's Hay Fever in 1970, Maugham's Lady Frederick in 1971, the thriller, A Chorus of Murder, opposite Irene Handl, in 1972, and the title-role in the comedy, Move Over Mrs. Markham, in 1973.

Also in 1973, at the age of 52, she made her farewell bow as Principal Boy in the title-role of Aladdin, at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle. In 1976, her performance in a revival of Pal Joey at the Edinburgh Festival was received with critical acclaim. John Barber, in the Daily Telegraph, wrote: "All agreed we had not seen for a generation a woman with that easy, glorious command of the stage. And, since the music halls where she learned it have gone, we may never see it again".

Kirkwood's co-star, Patricia Hodge, was later to write of this production: "I have ever since counted it as one of the most privileged experiences of my professional life".

In 1977, Kirkwood co-starred with Evelyn Laye, Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray in a revival of Sir Arthur Pinero's The Cabinet Minister, followed by her appearance in the film, To See Such Fun, produced by Michael Grade.

Her 23-year marriage to Hubert Gregg ended in divorce in 1979, and on March 3, 1981, she married for the fourth and last time to the distinguished solicitor, Peter Knight, President of the Bradford and Bingley Building Society, who several times took legal action on his wife's behalf against publishers and television companies that repeated suggestions of a liaison with Prince Philip.

Her stage appearances now became fewer, but in 1983, she starred at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, in An Evening with Pat Kirkwood and Friends, and in 1989 at the Barbican Hall, London, in A Talent to Amuse, with Evelyn Laye, Jonathon Morris, Kelly Hunter and Paul Jones.

There was a final nostalgic appearance at the London Palladium in 1992 in A Glamorous Night with Evelyn Laye and Friends, in which she stopped the show with a new version of Irving Berlin's There's No Business Like Show Business.

Her sold-out performances at Wimbledon Theatre in 1993 in Glamorous Nights of Music brought a first-night telegram from Julie Andrews, and led to appearances on television in Pebble Mill, singing As Time Goes By, and on radio with Ned Sherrin in Loose Ends.

In 1994, she packed Chichester Festival Theatre for ten weeks in Noël/Cole - Let's Do It, and on the opening night was the subject of television's This is Your Life, for which Van Johnson flew from New York to be reunited with his former leading lady, together with a host of other stars.

Kirkwood and her fourth husband, Peter Knight, settled in Bingley, West Yorkshire.

During the last years of her life, Pat Kirkwood was diagnosed as suffering from Alzheimer's Disease, and in August 2004, she became a resident patient at Kitwood House, a private nursing home in Grove Road, Ilkley, where she had a suite of rooms full of photographs and portraits from her heyday as a star.

She was registered at the nursing home as Mrs. Patricia Knight, but on the door of her suite was a gold plaque from the star dressing-room at the London Palladium, with the words, PAT KIRKWOOD, engraved on it.

She had no children by any of her four marriages and is survived by 91-year-old Mr Knight.