Ms Billie Love.
A WRITER, photographer and former West End actress, Billie Love, has died, aged 88.
Ms Love was born in Hackney, London, into a show business family, as her father was a comedian and her mother was a pianist, who performed as a double act, known as Joe Murgatroyd and Poppet.
As a teenager, Ms Love performed on stage with her parents, mainly dancing and playing the accordion, before the West End beckoned.
She appeared in a number of shows, including Before the Party and Most Happy Fella, and spent two-and-a-half-years in Oklahoma. Ms Love was the first English artiste to play Ado Annie.
Unbeknown to her show business friends, she began a separate career as a photographer, under the name of Amanda.
She honed her skills with the help of Pinewood Studios photographer, Fred Daniels, and set up her own studio in Orchard Street, London.
After her business took off, Ms Love gave up performing to concentrate on her photography career.
Ms Love taught photography and she was interested in photographs taken by other people, which led to her setting up the Billie Love Historical Collection in 1969, which had images dating back to the pioneer days of the camera.
She moved to the IW in 1984 and lived in a cottage in Brading.
After moving to Winton Street, Ryde, with her partner, Anna Shepherd, Ms Love expanded her collection and started writing books.
In 1991, she published Opusses, which was followed by How to Become a Child.
Her third book, Cats of the IW, is due to have a third edition published imminently.
Ms Love, a cat lover, also wrote Sheba and the Wight Whisker and she was working on her autobiography before she died.
Ms Love leaves behind her partner and her sister, Helga.
Her funeral will be held at the IW Crematorium on Thursday.
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