THE actress and dancer Joyce Blair was one of the brightest stars in light entertainment in postwar Britain. She performed a double act with her brother, the dancer and choreographer Lionel Blair, and as a solo performer appeared in leading West End revues and musicals. Later she enjoyed a separate career as a dramatic actress in films and television.

She had an affinity with comedians and worked with such names as Morecambe and Wise, Benny Hill, Stanley Baxter, Charlie Drake and the American comic Milton Berle.

She was born Joyce Ogus in London in 1932, the daughter of Myer Ogus and his wife Deborah. She began her theatrical career as a child, entertaining people in London air raid shelters during the war, and made her first professional appearance at 13 in the play Quality Street (Embassy Theatre, 1945).

With her brother Lionel, she formed a dancing act, appearing at the Windmill Theatre, with Bruce Forsyth, and then London cabaret venues. Her big break in the West End was her appearance in South Pacific (Drury Lane, 1951), with Mary Martin. The chorus of that production included two unknown actors, Sean Connery and Larry Hagman.

With her stunning looks and vibrant personality, Joyce Blair quickly began to make a name for herself in musical comedy. She played Bianca in Kiss Me Kate (UK tour, 1952), was in Guys and Dolls (Coliseum, 1953), opposite Edmund Hockridge, and she co-starred with Binnie Hale and Alfie Bass in The Punch Revue (Duke of York’s 1955), which was written and designed by contributors to Punch.

She and her brother were something of a fixture on TV variety shows in the late Fifties and Sixties with their slick dance routines. They made several TV specials, including one featuring a last performance by George Formby.

Her other musical theatre credits included Grab Me a Gondola (Lyric, 1956), Little Mary Sunshine (Bromley, 1963), Irma La Douce (Vaudeville, 1963) and Dames at Sea (Duchess 1969). In 1976 she toured the UK in the comedy Pajama Tops, with the comedian Chubby Oates.

She began appearing in films in the early Fifties notably in J. Lee Thompson’s capital punishment drama Yield to the Night (1956), in which she played a confidante of Diana Dors, and comedies such as Crooks Anonymous (1962), with Stanley Baxter and Leslie Phillips, and Mister Ten Per Cent (1966), a vehicle for Charlie Drake.

In 1969 her talents were pitted against a formidable array of comedians, including Milton Berle, Stubby Kaye and George Jessel in Anthony Newley’s sprawling musical fantasy Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?. She was a regular in The Benny Hill Show and on drama series such as The Saint and Z Cars.

In 1976 she played a manhungry widow in the TV version of the stage hit The Mating Game, opposite Forsyth. When asked by a reporter what it was like to work with him she said: “I’ve known Bruce since I was 15 — and we felt quite at home. At one point we had to exchange a big squelching kiss. I’d wanted to do that for 30 years.”

Her later work included playing the role of Lucretia in the TV mini-series The Last Days of Pompeii (1985) and she had a cameo role in the TV biopic of Lucille Ball, Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter (1991).

She is survived by her brother and by a son and daughter.

Joyce Blair, actress and dancer, was born on November 4, 1932. She died of cancer on August 20, 2006, aged 73.