IN IT TOGETHER
What happened to the Nolan sisters? From 80s pop stardom to raising awareness after their ‘cancer curse’
Linda shocked the nation posing for saucy photos
THE Nolan sisters have enjoyed an illustrious career as a chart topping girl group.
However, the family have been struck by tragedy with Linda passing away aged 65 today following a long battle with cancer.
18
18
18
18
18
The Nolans were a chart-topping Irish girlband formed of sisters Maureen, Coleen, Denise, Linda and Bernie.
They were originally part of family band, The Nolan Family, which included their parents and two brothers.
Linda Nolan was "the Naughty Nolan", who first shocked the nation by turning her back on her family's squeaky-clean girl band to pose for saucy photos.
She was a household name from the time she was 15 thanks to The Nolans, whose biggest hit was 1979's I'm In The Mood For Dancing.
Read more TV News
The sisters were a mainstay of Saturday night television in the Seventies, showing off matching gowns and cutesy dance moves on everything from Morecambe and Wise to The Two Ronnies and The Cliff Richard Show.
But aged 24 Linda quit the group, posed for Page 3 and declared: "I wanted to go out on my own – and away from being Mary Poppins."
That led to the first, but not the last, feud among the sisters, and their highs and lows became another mainstay of British entertainment.
Linda always seemed to be the most headline-prone of the Nolans, including a brush with bankruptcy, her husband's conviction for thieving £20 on Blackpool's South Pier, an accusation of benefit fraud, and being widowed aged 48.
Most read in TV
And her attacks on comedian Jim Davidson on Celebrity Big Brother in 2014 were the stuff of legend: she called him everything from a "little snidey s**t" to "a f'ing ahole".
But underneath this bold exterior was a woman who in her later years shared her struggles and vulnerabilities with painful openness.
Loose Women's tribute to Linda Nolan after star's tragic death from cancer
Her diagnosis with breast cancer aged 46, then the loss of her husband from alcohol-related disease and the death of The Nolans' lead singer Bernie from cancer aged 52 hit hard.
Then there was the revelation that oldest sister Anne had been sexually abused her by their beloved father from the age of 11.
Linda spoke honestly of her suicidal thoughts, her referral to mental health services – and of just how gruelling and grim cancer can be.
Linda hated it when she was called brave, writing in her 2018 autobiography: "It drives me mad. I'm not 'being brave' at all."
18
18
18
She was found to have secondary cancer in 2017, which later spread to her liver and then to her brain in early 2023.
The only upside, she said, was that after years of feuding, her surviving sisters drew closer again, surrounding her with love and support.
She wrote: "Looking back at my life has made it crystal clear what it's all been about.
"And actually, what's important is so very simple … to love and to be loved."
Linda Nolan was born in Dublin on February 23, 1959, the sixth of what would be eight children born to parents Tommy and Maureen.
Her mother and father sang in dance halls and in early 1963 moved the family to Blackpool to cash in on the thriving club circuit.
There her parents were billed as "the Sweethearts of Song" and became such a local institution that when Tommy died in 1998, the flag on top of Blackpool Tower flew at half-mast.
What Linda and her siblings did not realise was that soon after the move Tommy began sexually abusing Anne.
Linda and her other sisters and two brothers only found out the truth in 2001.
She later wrote: "Looking back, I can see we were all caught up in something really quite warped."
Her older siblings soon joined their parents for an act billed as "The Singing Nolans, Blackpool's own Von Trapp Family".
Aged five, Linda used to beg to join in, and was sometimes allowed.
By nine she was a regular, belting out numbers like Hey Big Spender in clubs all over the North.
Then at a performance on Christmas Day 1973, they were talent-spotted by a London club-owner, who offered the sisters – but not the other family members – a contract.
So soon after she turned 15 she headed south with Anne, Denise, Maureen and Bernie, although youngest Coleen stayed at home for a while longer.
Under the new name the Nolan Sisters, later shortened to The Nolans, they packed out the West End club and were soon popping up everywhere on TV too.
As Anne later put it, "It sometimes felt as though were were on TV more often than the news."
Blonde, blue-eyed Linda was quickly a household name: "It was all our dreams come true, and more."
They were Britain's first superstar girl band, beloved for their joyous, natural harmonies, clean-cut looks and sweet smiles.
But they did not have a huge hit single until 1979 classic I'm In The Mood For Dancing.
Linda later said: "That was the start of everything."
In Japan the track made them more famous than The Beatles: there were Nolan breakfast cereals, Nolan towels and even Nolan toilet paper.
And at the height of the group's fame, Linda fell in love with agent Brian Hudson.
He was representing sister Denise at the time, who had been first to leave the group, followed within a few years by Anne.
18
18
18
They married in August 1981, when Linda was 22.
She later said: "Brian was my first love and the love of my life."
The problem was her sisters could not stand him.
He had become their tour manager but the others felt he wanted too much control.
Eventually, in 1983 the other sisters, led by Anne who had by then rejoined the group, told her that he had to go.
Linda reported back to him: "If you're going, I'm going."
She did not speak to her sisters again in more than a year.
And in April 1984 Linda proved how keen she was to give her wholesome Nolans image the boot by posing for Page 3
The photo, in which she knelt on a bed with her modesty only just covered by a sheet, caused a sensation, and it was the first of many risque shoots for "the Naughty Nolan".
While her solo recording career never really took off, Linda became a mainstay of pantos and musical theatre.
Cancer types, signs and symptoms
Everything you need to know about different types of Cancer
Bowel cancer symptoms: What are they and when should I start to worry?
What is prostate cancer? Signs and symptoms of the condition
What are skin cancer symptoms and what does the disease look like?
How to check your breasts for signs of cancer
Stomach cancer: Symptoms, causes, and treatments
What is a brain tumour and what are the symptoms?
What does a cancerous mole look like?
What are esophageal cancer symptoms?
How to tell the difference between haemorrhoids and cancer
Are sunbeds safe and can they cause cancer?
What is glioblastoma and what are the symptoms?
Her run as raunchy "lady of the night" Maggie May on Blackpool's Central Pier lasted eight summer seasons in a row from 1986 and was seen by hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers.
As of 2024 she still holds the record for the longest-running residency by a woman in the seaside resort.
But the job also meant she put off having children: in the end, she never did.
Decades later she called it "the only regret of my life."
Meanwhile, looking back, she later admitted: "Brian was probably drinking too much." But at the time she ignored it.
Their loved-up relationship also survived embarrassing headlines in 1995.
First up, to her horror, newspapers reported she had been declared bankrupt after missing payments on her Nissan Laurel.
Brian looked after the money: it was the first she had heard of it.
18
18
18
18
Then in October Brian was fined £200 for stealing £20 from comedian Frank Carson's dressing room while he was on stage at Blackpool’s South Pier.
But they remained soulmates and Brian was at her side when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006.
She underwent a mastectomy and 18 rounds of chemotherapy, and later wrote powerfully of the remorseless effects of her treatment.
They included terrible blisters on her feet and wild mood swings – at one stage she became incandescent with rage when she noticed the colours of the flowers in the garden did not match.
Incredibly, she kept working through it all, in the touring version of the musical Blood Brothers.
Then, as she was still undergoing treatment, Brian's liver began to fail. He died in September 2007, aged 60. She said: "My life felt over."
At the time, Linda announced he had died of skin cancer. It was not until years later she revealed that in fact he had been an alcoholic.
She explained in 2021 book Stronger Together, which she co-wrote with sister Anne: "I never mentioned his drinking and that he died from too much drink because I wanted people to love him like I loved him."
Her siblings – who Brian had dubbed "The Cavalry" – rallied around but Linda later admitted she slipped into deep depression.
She wrote: "Many, many times I thought about ending it all."
She rang the Samaritans in the early hours three times: once she had even lined up pills she planned to take.
But she wrote: "The only thing that stopped me was my brothers and sisters … I couldn't put them through the pain I was now going through."
In 2009 she grabbed at what seemed a chance for a new beginning: a Nolans reunion tour.
The show was a sell-out in the UK and Ireland.
But it caused the deepest rift so far in the family, because only Linda, Coleen, Bernie and Maureen were invited to take part.
Anne was so hurt she announced: "They are not my sisters any more."
She believed she had been frozen out because the previous year she had publicly revealed their father’s abuse in her autobiography.
Linda later admitted she could not bring herself to stop loving the memory of their dad despite the sickening revelations.
She told interviewers: "The man who abused my sister is not the man I knew as my dad."
However after Bernie was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010, the sisters gradually reconciled.
By that stage, Linda's own cancer battle was seemingly won, and she was declared cancer free the following year.
Bernie, the sister Linda was closest to, was not so lucky. She died in July 2013, aged 52.
It was a huge blow, and Linda was still grieving when she agreed to be on Celebrity Big Brother early the following year.
Her outbursts at Jim Davidson, who needled her about her husband, made for ratings gold, but saw her voted out.
She walked out to boos from the crowd, while Jim went on to win.
Even worse came a few months later, when she was accused of benefit fraud for failing to disclose dribs and drabs of income from things like TV interviews the previous year.
She was once again suicidal but to her amazement, when the news broke letters of sympathy ad understanding poured in from fans.
She later wrote: "It really was those people and all that support which kept me alive."
Linda eventually accepted a civil caution over the matter, and once again tried to move forward with her life.
Then in March 2017 she learned her cancer had come back, and this time it did not go away.
Sister Coleen – who like Anne has herself been treated for cancer – revealed in 2024: "When I said to Linda, 'Do you ever think, why me?' she always says, 'No, I always think, 'Why not me?'"
READ MORE SUN STORIES
But Linda admitted: "I think about dying and what happens afterwards, and I get scared."
So she clung to one thing: "I hope there is somewhere we go to where I can see Brian and Bernie once again."
18
18
18
Topics