15-year-old girl committed suicide in 1971 after dancing on Top of the Pops and spending the night with a “well-known disc jockey”

I came across this story by accident as I was researching other subjects in back issues of The Guardian.

In April 1971, 15-year-old Claire Ufland was found dead on her bedroom floor with empty pill bottles nearby.

She had danced on Top of the Pops four times. But her mother had banned her from doing so again after she read the daughter’s diary and discovered she had spent the night with a “well known disc jockey.”

From The Guardian in 1971

The DJ isn’t named and it seems Claire Ufland lived in Watford. But there’s a Leeds connection…

She had recently appeared on two editions of Junior Showtime, made by Yorkshire Television in Leeds, and the company was editing the tapes to remove her following her tragic death.

Update (October 7, 2012)

My latest post on this story following the recent ITV documentary.


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