Samantha Juste - obituary

Samantha Juste, who has died aged 69 following a stroke, will be remembered by readers of a certain age as the “disc girl” who applied needle to record on early broadcasts of Top of the Pops.

The first show was broadcast on January 1 1964 from a converted church in Manchester. The opening band was The Rolling Stones — followed by Dusty Springfield, the Dave Clark Five, The Hollies, The Swinging Blue Jeans, Cliff Richard & The Shadows and Freddie & The Dreamers. With a limited budget, the studio had no facilities for artists to perform live and all the early shows were mimed. Making a virtue of necessity, Radio Times admitted that miming was “a departure from normal BBC practice”, but explained that the normal rules were being relaxed “because the purpose of the programme is to let you hear the discs exactly as recorded, though within the setting of a television programme”.

As a result the early shows featured disc jockeys (Pete Murray, David Jacobs or Alan Freeman) presenting a rundown of the charts alongside Samantha Juste (who replaced Denise Sampey after a few shows) looking pretty and spinning the records on a turntable while the artists mimed the songs.

It was not a difficult job, though on one occasion Samantha Juste played a record by The Swinging Blue Jeans at the wrong speed. To begin with she was paid 10 guineas a show. Her good looks and turntable skills soon made her as popular as the DJs. Simon Dee, who joined the show in 1966, recalled that: “I got my introduction right... didn’t get too distracted by the luscious Samantha Juste, my lovely co-host.”

Samantha stepped out from behind the turntables to perform No One Needs My Love Today on the show in November 1966. Though one critic commented that “any vocal shortcomings on this single are outweighed by her charming delivery”, it was not a hit. Two months later, when The Monkees arrived at the studio to mime I’m A Believer, she caught the eye of the group’s drummer, Micky Dolenz. “She is tall, blonde, beautiful, and wearing an emerald green outfit that ends up in a short skirt (very short) which tops off her unbelievably gorgeous legs,” Dolenz recalled in his memoirs, I’m a Believer: My Life of Monkees, Music, and Madness (2004). “She holds [my] glance briefly then looks quickly away with that haughty sophistication that only the British can do so well.”

Soon afterwards she left the show to accompany him on tour, prompting headlines such as “Samantha traps Monkee” and “Pops girl goes ape”. The pair married in 1968, but divorced in the mid- 1970s.

Though she appeared on Top of the Pops for only a little over three years, Samantha Juste left such an impression that the former Sixties pop star Cilla Black recently admitted that she selected male companions on the basis of a “Samantha Juste test”, explaining: “In my view, if a man doesn’t know who Samantha is, then we won’t have anything in common.”

Samantha Juste was born Sandra Slater in Manchester on May 31 1944. While studying textile and dress design at Rochdale College of Art, she became a model, taking the name Samantha Juste. It was while working as a personal assistant to Cecil Korer, the assistant producer of Top of the Pops, that she was chosen to be the show’s disc girl.

Samantha Juste and Micky Dolenz had a daughter, the actress Ami Dolenz, and became famous for throwing wild house parties at their home in Laurel Canyon, California. But Dolenz’s drug and alcohol abuse took their toll on the marriage. They divorced in 1975, Samantha retaining custody of their daughter.

Afterwards she moved to Acapulco, Mexico, where she ran a fashion business. Subsequently she went to Ireland to teach design. She eventually returned to California, where she and her daughter established a jewellery business.

Her daughter survives her.

Samantha Juste, born May 31 1944, died February 5 2014