Pan", made her famous in London and the provinces. In the 1940s and 1950s, she frequently topped the bill as a singer on the then-powerful Moss Empire circuit. By 1949, her double act with Moss had split up when she discovered her half-brother had been keeping the bulk of the salary for himself. Summers continued solo, appearing alongside the top acts of the day. Her second husband, who she met in 1948, took over the management of her career and toured with her. By the 1960s, with theatres starting to close and variety acts falling out of fashion, Summers reinvented herself, and alongside her television work, launched on the club scene with an act featuring songs and comedy. It was said that the act often included "some very blue material". Amongst Summers' possessions were "a whole file of complaint letters from working men's clubs." The complaints were generally that she was too rude for the working men. In 1957 she landed her big break with her own television series, Summers Here, which featured a different star guest each week, such as Wilfrid Hyde White, Michael Bentine and Terence Alexander. As an actress, Summers' first television acting role was in 1969 in Kevin Laffan's twice-weekly Yorkshire TV soap Castle Haven, playing pub landlady Delilah Hilldrup. She also appeared in How We Used To Live, Stay With Me Till Morning, This Year, Next Year and an Alan Bennett Play For Today entitled Sunset Across The Bay. Her first brief appearance in Coronation Street was in 1972, playing Bessie Proctor, a cleaner working with Hilda Ogden. A decade later, in 1982, Summers reappeared as Phyllis Pearce, a blue rinsed pensioner, forever lusting after pompous ex-serviceman Percy Sugden. It was during her second stint in Coronation Street that she was reunited with Bill Waddington and Tom Mennard, two old friends from her music hall days. In 1994, she collapsed with angina on the set of This Is Your Life, when host Michael Aspel handed her the famous red book. Although her health continued to deteriorate through the 1990s, suffering from a heart condition and worsening angina, she refused to allow Phyllis to be written out. She continued to make increasingly occasional appearances, last appearing in the spring of 1996, after more than 500 episodes. Other appearances by Summers include Agatha (alongside Dustin Hoffman and Vanessa Redgrave), Sez Lez (with Les Dawson), Ready When You