Iris Williams dead: Welsh singer who performed in front of queen and had BBC show dies aged 79 as tributes flood in
Iris Williams was born 1946 in Pontypridd, Rhondda Cynon Taf, she tragically passed away today, July 11.
2
Iris was awarded an OBE for her contributions to music
Credit: AFP
The world famous Welsh singer performed for US president Gerald Ford on several occasions.
Williams was raised in a children's home and with a foster family in Tonyrefai, she was the daughter of an American GI.
Her biggest hits include a Welsh-language version of Amazing Grace.
She appeared on the BBC's hit Welsh pop music programme Disc a Dawn and went on to have her own BBC TV show.
Read more in Showbiz
Williams was honoured with an OBE for her contributions to music and sang at the opening of the National Assembly of Wales in 1999.
Williams' brother Ashley told the
"In my opinion she was one of Wales most underrated singers. She had a tremendous career, it was very hard for her growing up.
"When she came back to Wales she used to come to the house a lot. I always used to say 'where do you want to go?' and she'd always say Tonyrefail.
Most read in Showbiz
"She loved the valleys, she had so much support from people in the valleys."
In a post on social media, The St David's Society of the State of New York said Williams had "joined the heavenly chorus where her joyful singing will surely bring those joys beyond measure which we have been honoured to share."
"New York held a special place in her life and it was here that she gave birth to her only child Blake."
2
She passed away in Pontypridd, Rhondda Cynon Taf, where she was born
Credit: Getty
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RTÉ News
3 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Trump to build ballroom at White House
US President Donald Trump plans to build a ballroom at the White House as he pushes forward with remodeling the US executive mansion, his spokeswoman said. Mr Trump himself and unspecified donors will foot the bill for the $200 million project, she said. "For 150 years, presidents, administrations and White House staff have longed for a large event space on the White House complex," Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told a briefing. Work on the ballroom - which will have space to seat 650 people - will begin in September and it is expected to be completed before the end of Mr Trump's second term, Ms Leavitt said. The goal is to be able to host major functions for visiting leaders, whereas now this is sometimes done by erecting a tent on the White House grounds. A model of the ballroom presented by the government shows it will be a white building with columns and a facade like that of the main White House building. It will replace the East Wing, which usually houses the offices of the US first lady. Mr Trump has said for some time that he wants to build a White House ballroom inspired by his own properties, in particular his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. That mansion will serve roughly as the model for Mr Trump's remodeling of the White House to suit himself. Drawing on Mar-a-Lago, the former real estate developer has ripped up the lawn at the historic Rose Garden and is paving that area. Mr Trump, who does not shy from all things gaudy, has redone the Oval Office to add gold crown molding high on the walls and gold statues over the fireplace. He is also flying two huge American flags outside the White House.
The Irish Sun
3 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
BBC broke TV's golden rule with boring new series Destination X – no wonder a contestant got up and left
SOMETHING odd happened about halfway through episode one of BBC1's heavily trailed new reality show, Destination X. One of the contestants, Mahdi, simply got up and left. 6 Destination X is hosted by the unfortunate Rob Brydon who takes an eternity to explain what's going on to the 13 contestants Credit: PA 6 One of the contestants, Mahdi, simply got up and left - he just seemed a bit bored Credit: BBC He wasn't angry, or upset, let alone put off by the fact, 30 minutes earlier, he'd told everyone: 'I come from Tottenham, da trenches. You know what I'm sayin'.' He just seemed a bit bored. And you know what? I couldn't entirely blame Mahdi. Both of us had probably seen enough, by then, to know we were on to a loser with BBC breaking one of television's golden rules: If you've got a hit as big as The Traitors or Race Across The World, you leave it well alone. Let ITV and Netflix tie themselves in knots with hopeless rip-offs like The very last thing you should do, in the Beeb's position, of course, is weld those two famously successful formats together in one pan-European charabanc, with a 'games-master, guide and guru' who looks like he's been styled by Basil Brush. No prizes for guessing then exactly what they've done with Destination X, hosted by the unfortunate The nuts of it is, though, a 'guess where the f*** you are in Europe ?' contest, with the furthest away contestant being eliminated at the end of each show. Low-level cunning An idea that probably sounded great at the first meeting. The practical issue here, though, is one road sign or chance encounter with a local could blow the entire project out of the water. And so, apart from the brief moments when the contestants are allowed to gawp at a location clue, via an electronically controlled blindfold called the X Goggles, they're just thundering around the continent in two blacked-out coaches, staring at nothing more scenic than each other. Fans stunned as THREE Destination X contestants are immediately axed in brutal opening twist Result? Not only does the show look more like Channel 4's Coach Trip has been hijacked by Hezbollah, during the Beirut leg, it sounds like it as well — especially when Ben and Saskia are left discussing on- board bathroom arrangements. 'I think we have to make a rule. Everyone has to sit down when they go to the toilet.' 'As opposed to what?' If, from that question, you've guessed it's not exactly the Brains Trust BBC1 has assembled here, then I should point out they seem to be a pleasant bunch with a relaxed, happy-go-lucky attitude to life. What they don't appear to have is a second language between them. Nor do they even possess the sort of low-level cunning that would realise, given the BBC is the most snootily middle-class institution in Britain, that Benidorm, Torremolinos, Hamburg's Reeperbahn or anywhere else serviced by EasyJet is probably off limits, but they'll be all over France and Italy like scatter cushions in an Islington townhouse. 6 BBC breaks one of television's golden rules with Destination X: If you've got a hit as big as The Traitors or Race Across The World, you leave it well alone Credit: PA If this process wasn't already disorientating enough, a whole new level of confusion is added by the clues, which are either so vague as to be pointless — 'This was one of the first places in the world to adopt street lighting' (relax, you're not in Tower Hamlets) — or they're questions which offer only two possible responses: 'How many times did Taylor Swift perform her Eras tour in the country you are now in?' A) Don't know. B) Don't care. Ungrateful gesture Occasionally, Rob will also offer to show one of them something 'at the back of the bus', and they can either tell another contestant or BBC1's head of HR, which seems to have been Mahdi's cue for making his excuses and leaving. A spectacularly ungrateful gesture from the lad, no matter how bored he got, if I'm honest. The one person I do actually feel sorry for, though, is Rob Brydon, a huge talent who's one of the very few people left on television capable of transforming a format and making you believe the medium is still some sort of meritocracy. The show may gather some momentum as it proceeds, obviously, but the only real comfort I've got for him at the moment is that Destination X could still make for one hell of a celebrity spin-off, with Terry Waite. Unexpected morons in the bagging area TIPPING Point, Ben Shephard: 'In 2020 Australia introduced a dollar coin design that celebrated which airline?' Liz: 'British Airways.' The Chase, Bradley Walsh: 'The terminal velocity of a free-falling parachutist is 150 miles per what?' Seb: 'Second.' And Impossible, Rick Edwards, offering alternative answers of B) Barron or C) Ivanka to the question: 'Which of Donald Trump's children was appointed an official adviser to the President in 2017?' Pete: 'A) Judd Trump.' Ella is having a giraffe 6 Ella Al- Shamahi starts this series in east Africa, where the scale of our development and migration cannot be fully understood unless you go on a safari and stare at some giraffes, apparently Credit: BBC BBC2'S grand new anthropology series Human marks ground-breaking territory for television. The first time the entire history of mankind has been told via the medium of bucket list holiday locations. You can only marvel then at the luck of presenter Ella Al- Shamahi who starts this series, like mankind itself, in east Africa, where the scale of our development and migration cannot be fully understood unless you go on a safari and stare at some giraffes, apparently. From there, Ella wafts her way round the globe via a waterfall in Sri Lanka, Morocco , Botswana, France's Rhone Valley, the Alps and a beach on the paradise island of Flores, in Indonesia, where our ancestors may (or may not) have first set off for Australia . Because these great milestones in evolution never seem to take place behind a shopping precinct in Grimsby, do they? Whatever exotic resort Ella wafts into, though, someone else has done the leg work for her already. In Flores it's Dr Thomas Sutikna, who discovered the 70,000-year-old skeleton of 'an adult woman, the size of a child, with a very small brain', yet somehow resisted the temptation to name her Homo Jimmykrankieus. For all the BBC's breathtaking extravagance, though, the most annoying thing about Human is the underlying political agenda of Ella, who was gazing into some beautiful European mountain valley, this week, wondering if the first homo sapiens to leave Africa, thousands of years ago, were driven by 'the same forces that drive migrants today?' A four-star hotel, Universal Credit and an Uber Eats bike? It seems unlikely, Ella. So just crack on with your gap year and spare us the lecture. TV gold AMAZON Prime's slow-moving but brilliant One Night In Idaho. Senior investigating officer Mick Pope, from the National Crime Agency, proving to be the break-out star of Channel 4's fascinating documentary series Operation Dark Phone: Murder By Text. Sky Comedy repeating the Palestinian Chicken episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which says more about the Middle East conflict, in one unbeatable episode of comedy, than most news reports. And ITV's ever- enthusiastic Ian Wright, who was the one Euros 2025 pundit who didn't hand his or her critical faculties in at passport control in Geneva – and certainly the only expert with the wit to check the England team's inappropriate Queen celebration music on account of the fact: 'Spain are actually Champions of the World.' Random irritations 6 C4 gave Bonnie Blue the oxygen of publicity Credit: Rob Parfitt / Channel 4 CHANNEL 4 giving the cold, dead eyes of Bonnie Blue the oxygen of publicity. Any show involving a QR code. Mastermind featuring the most clumsily worded questions on television. And a single caption on Good Morning Britain probably revealing exactly how much of a toss its rictus-grinning presenters and a lot of other people really gave about 'our Lionesses' at 8.21 on Monday morning. It's spelt Wiegman, not 'Weigman'. Great sporting insights ELLEN WHITE: 'I'm sure they have some strings up their sleeves.' Rachel Brown-Finnis: 'I initially thought it was nothing. But on the replay, it was less than that.' Karen Carney: 'Lucy Bronze has her hands in her head.' Lookalike of the week 6 Attorney General Lord Hermer and Corrie's Norris Cole Credit: supplied THIS week's winner is Attorney General Lord Hermer, the right-on cretin who helped land Britain with a multi-billion- pound bill for handing the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, and Corrie's Norris Cole. Emailed in by Steve Davis. EXCUSE of the week? Nigerian-born Ade Adepitan explaining his reluctance to get in the water on ITV Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters: 'When black people were taken as slaves from Africa to the Caribbean and the West, they were taken on boats and they saw people die on those boats. They saw people thrown into the ocean and they saw the ocean as a bridge taking them to hell. 'This trauma goes on through generations from family after family after family. 'It's stayed with us and we have to overcome it.' Which reminds me. Due to the Highland Clearances of 1750 to 1860, I am unable to review episode four, series 22, of Escape To The Country (Perth and Kinross). It's just too raw. LORRAINE , Tuesday, Nicola Thorp: 'What does it say to women that our PM is going to meet Donald Trump , considering what he thinks of women, rather than meet the Lionesses?' It probably says ending the war in Ukraine , signing international trade agreements and establishing a ceasefire in Gaza are a bit more important than a ball-kicking contest. Unless they're all as imperiously thick as yourself, Nicola. MEANWHILE, on Channel 5's Police: Suspect No1, DI Jim Clarke: 'In relation to these indecent exposures that have been happening on the track between Hull and Hornsea, the suspect's quite prolific, so we need to get a grip of it.' I wouldn't.
The Irish Sun
5 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
New Spider-Man movie will be filmed in Scotland after horror incident led to last gasp change of location
SPIDER-MAN is going Scottish for the next instalment of the Marvel franchise. My film insiders told me the next movie, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is going to be filmed in Glasgow in the coming weeks, with its stars Tom Holland and Zendaya setting up camp in the city. Advertisement 6 Spider-Man: Brand New Day, starring Tom Holland and Zendaya, is going to be filmed in Glasgow Credit: Getty It's a key change for the production, which I understand was originally going to be shot in Liverpool. But my sources said that, after the A source said: 'The next Spider-Man will be filmed in Glasgow in Scotland. 'Production has started now and locals will see Tom and his co-stars out filming on location. Advertisement read more on zendaya 'It's really exciting for film fans living in Glasgow as they will see their city in the next movie. "American flags have been planted around town to make it look like New York. 'It's uncanny when you look at some of the buildings and streets, it looks just like the Big Apple. 'Originally the plan was to film a lot of it in Liverpool but after the crash, they changed the plans. Advertisement Most read in Bizarre 'There were discussions about whether it was appropriate to stage big stunts, including car chases and explosions, in light of the awful incident. 'Filming is due to start in the coming days in Scotland so fans should keep their eyes peeled for webs on street corners.' Zendaya's half-sister fears she'll be snubbed from wedding over rift but family still loves 'down-to-earth' Tom Holland Tom is reprising his role as Peter Parker alongside Zendaya, who plays his love interest MJ in the movie. Jacob Batalon is also back as Ned Leeds, while Advertisement Details about her role have been kept under lock and key, but it's rumoured she will be introduced on screen as X-Men character Jean Grey. The film is slated for release next July but if you're lucky enough to be in Glasgow, you'll definitely be getting a glimpse of the action. 6 Filming is due to start in the coming days in Scotland Credit: Alamy DON'T MISS BECKY AND GARY BECKY HILL and Gary Barlow have become an unlikely partnership, teaming up for a new track called Don't Look Down. Advertisement Gary said: 'It was the first time Becky and I met. "She wandered in and we spoke a bit and then the music started to flow. "I played a couple of chords, and she came to life.' The track is out today, as is Renee Rapp's album Bite Me, Chapell Roan's single The Subway and Sam Ryder's The Feeling Never Went Away. Advertisement Sam's track will feature on the Eurovision runner-up's second album Heartland, out on October 17. The singer said: 'The wish is to find a connection with you no matter where you are in the world.' YACHT A KLASSY MOV MYLEENE KLASS gets the last laugh on holiday after setting the cat among the pigeons back home in Blighty. She shared this bikini snap from her yachting trip, following the release on Tuesday of podcast We Need To Talk, in which she dropped a showbiz bombshell. In the interview – covered in yesterday's paper– she claimed she once Advertisement 6 Myleene Klass shared this bikini snap from her yachting trip Credit: Instagram Speculation has been rife about the identity of the mystery woman, with the Bizarre team bombarded with questions about it all week. We are staying schtum for now, though, and it looks like Myleene couldn't be happier to have stirred up a scandal. JUSTIN: MY BATTLE WITH LYME DISEASE JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE has revealed he has been diagnosed with Lyme disease – amid criticism he wasn't singing during his live shows. Advertisement 6 Justin Timberlake has revealed he has been diagnosed with Lyme disease Credit: Getty But now he has opened up about the condition, which is transmitted through the bites of ticks. Celebs including Bella Hadid, Shania Twain and Justin Bieber have also suffered with it. Advertisement In a post last night, Justin said: 'I've been diagnosed with Lyme disease. "Living with this can be debilitating, mentally and physically. 'But I decided the joy that performing brings me far outweighs the fleeting stress my body was feeling. I'm so glad I kept going.' Bizbot MILEY CYRUS has been working on something big for next year to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Disney Channel show Hannah Montana, which gave her her big break. She said: 'I want to design something really special for it because it really was the beginning of all of this. "Without Hannah, there wouldn't be this kind of… this me.' 'WORTH A GO, LADS OASIS documentary maker Mat Whitecross has backed brothers Noel and Advertisement Speaking exclusively at a screening of his 2016 film Supersonic at London store Selfridges, Mat said: 'It would be great if they did, they should definitely do it. 6 Oasis documentary maker Mat Whitecross believes the brothers will play Knebworth next year Credit: Getty 'It would be mad if they didn't. "I know they are doing some European dates next year so it would be mad if they did not do it to mark 30 years.' Advertisement Mat is now looking to his next project and has the brothers' mum He think she's just as much of a character as Liam and Noel. 'She deserves her own film,' he explained. 'Peggy told me her entire life story when we made the Supersonic film. 'She is just a very sweet and funny person and has a surreal, filthy sense of humour, which has been inherited by the children.' Advertisement Mat also gave me his thoughts on Coldplay's recent 'kiss-cam' scandal, which revealed CEO Andy Byron's seemingly clandestine romance with his HR manager Kristin Cabot to the world earlier this month. The director, who is the brains behind a number of the band's music videos, said: 'The kiss-cam thing was crazy. "I don't understand the way it took off in the way that it did, but I guess that is the age we live in. "Their reaction was ludicrous. But it is probably what a lot of people would do.' Advertisement Of the lawsuit Andy is rumoured to be bringing against CHRIS MARTIN and Co, Mat added: 'I don't think it is going to cost the band anything.' And he hopes Coldplay haven't axed the kiss-cam by the time he next watches them live. He said: 'I am going to see them in a couple of weeks and I wonder if they will change anything about the show. "It is part of the act. What they do with the camera is funny and sweet and it is not supposed to catch people out.' Advertisement STORMZY OFF HIS BOX UNTIL 1AM AT OASIS GIG STORMZY wins the prize for the wildest Oasis after-party. He enjoyed himself in his private box at London's Wembley Stadium until 1am on Wednesday. 6 Stormzy enjoyed himself in his private box at London's Wembley Stadium until 1am Credit: Getty My insiders told me the Advertisement And as elated fans flooded down Wembley Way to jam themselves like sardines on to the Tube after the show, Stormzy and his mates kicked back in style. A source said: 'Stormzy loved the Oasis show and got all his mates to join him there. 'Tickets were like gold dust so they were over the moon. 'Once the show was over, he kept the box open and they partied until just after 1am. Advertisement 'They were having a great time and you could hear laughter coming out of their room for hours after the Gallaghers came off stage.' I'm heading down to Wembley to watch Noel and Liam in action for a second time tonight and I cannot wait to see them again. Whether I'll be able to last as late as Stormzy though, I'm not so sure. BILLIE WEDNESDAY SNUB IT'S a good thing BILLIE PIPER and Joanna Lumley don't have big egos. Advertisement The pair, who are new additions for series two of Netflix hit Wednesday, were on the purple carpet for its premiere in central London, but weren't invited on stage with lead Jenna Ortega and director Tim Burton. Instead, they were left clapping politely from the audience, having been asked to stand up with their co-stars for a round of applause. Jenna appeared to cover a yawn with her hand before exiting the stage. She plays Wednesday well, both on and off screen. Advertisement Unlock even more award-winning articles as The Sun launches brand new membership programme - Sun Club.
