Joe Longthorne was a regular on light-entertainment shows from the age of 14

In the Longthorne household there was a broken television, with no screen, no workings, just the frame. Young Joe would stick his head in it and sing for his mother: “Sugar in the mornin’, Sugar in the evenin’, Sugar at suppertime.” She would applaud and tell him that one day he was going to be a star.

It seems there was never a time when Longthorne did not sing. “Singing is the thing that makes me want to live,” he wrote in his autobiography, Sugar in the Morning. “I can remember listening to my mam singing, and then singing myself before learning to walk.”

Longthorne won a talent show when he was four, became a regular on ITV’s Junior Showtime variety programme at 14 and eventually had his own slot on television. He appeared on the Royal Variety Show and played sell-out concerts at the London Palladium and in Las Vegas and Blackpool, where he made his home.

A talented mimic, Longthorne could sing in the style of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr, Tony Bennett, Barry Manilow, Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey and many others. Yet he was also an accomplished singer in his own right, with several hit albums to his name.

Dogged by cancer and ill health for years, he was still singing virtually right up to the end of a rollercoaster life of fame and fortune, drugs, financial problems and tabloid revelations of an illegitimate son who went to jail. Yet Longthorne remained upbeat. “I don’t sing for the money,” he said. “I sing because I want to sing.”

Joseph Patrick Daniel Longthorne was born in 1955 in Hull. The family lived in the Hessle Road area, where many travelling families had settled. His father, Fred, was Romany, a “general dealer” and metalworker who played the piano in local pubs. Joe would go out with his father on the horse and cart, while his mother, Teresa, who was from Irish travelling stock, worked in a fish factory and sang in bars. She had nine children, but only four survived childhood.

His parents’ marriage was described as a “combustible mix”, although Longthorne’s website talks of “a very warm, safe upbringing”. Although they struggled for money, the family always had a working television set — as well as the broken one. Longthorne recalled that they could get rental sets for a week’s free trial and in one year the family tested 52.

He loved dressing up in outfits that he found at his grandmother’s second-hand clothes shop. “I’d wear everything,” he recalled. “Hats, shirts, skirts, trousers, shoes and wigs. There was just so much stuff to play with, to try on and to try out new characters.”

His mother encouraged him to sing and to do impressions, beginning with Al Jolson and, unsurprisingly, Steptoe and Son. He found himself in demand in pubs, old people’s homes and even at funerals, sometimes standing on top of coffins to sing.

He passed an audition for Junior Showtime singing I Believe and playing the spoons, even though he was too young to read the scripts. He spent two years on the show and appeared in a televised version of the pantomime Cinderella. It was only later that he learnt he was dyslexic. He built an adult following on the club circuit in the northeast and then further afield, with his father acting as his manager. His career took off when he reached the final of the ITV talent show Search for a Star in 1981.

Other television appearances followed: he won a Variety Club award as most promising artiste in 1983, was a regular on The Les Dennis Laughter Show and had his own series in the late 1980s and early 1990s. At the peak of his career, however, Longthorne had lymphoma diagnosed. “Cancer is not a word you expect to hear when things are going so well,” he said. “I felt invincible and suddenly out of the blue I felt helpless. I had two choices: to give in or fight. I chose the latter. I got up, dusted myself off and got on with life.”

He went on touring, but struggled with recurrences of cancer. Around the same time financial problems left him on the point of bankruptcy, with more than £1 million of debt. He was also drinking heavily, taking drugs and suffering from depression. He had a nervous breakdown and took an overdose.

Life took a turn for the better when he met James Moran at a party in Blackpool in 1998. Longthorne had realised earlier in his life that he was bisexual and ultimately felt comfortable with it. He is survived by Moran, whom he married quietly in December, and by a son, Ricky Moore, whom he had at 18 with Susan Moore, a factory worker. They were not in regular contact.

In his spare time Longthorne enjoyed sitting in his garden with his cats and free-range chickens and playing music. After concerts he would make a point of meeting his fans, shaking hands and signing autographs. He said he had two mantras: “There’s no business like Joe business” — and “Memories live longer than dreams”.

Joe Longthorne, MBE, singer and musical impressionist, was born on May 31, 1955. He died of cancer on August 3, 2019, aged 64

Longthorne shows off his Albert Steptoe impression alongside the Sun TV critic Gary Bushell