Cleo with her ‘sister’ Cecilia Darker

MICK Jagger reached for his phone this week and posted a heartfelt tribute to an “old friend”.

After all, Cleo Sylvestre, co-director of the Rosemary Branch Theatre in Shepperton Road, had been, he explained, “the first female vocalist to sing with the Stones”.

If you look her up, the chances are that her single To Know Him Is To Love Him, recorded with the band in their fledgling mid-1960s days, will be soon mentioned.

She had befriended the Rolling Stones at a blues night in Soho and Jagger became a close friend who even came around to her mother’s flat. It was touching that he was still thinking about those times this week.

But Cleo, who died on Friday aged 79, had a life rich with many more stories too and was by no means someone who just once sang with the Stones.

She grew up in Camden but spent her adult life living in De Beauvoir, where she worked at the Rosemary Branch from 1996 to 2016.

In 1969 she became the first black woman to star as the main character at the National Theatre, in Peter Nichols’ satire The National Health.

To Know Him is to Love Him, recorded in Denmark Street

Her last performance at the renowned stage on the Southbank was in 2021 for Under Milk Wood.

In between, she had appeared in countless shows and productions across the country.

Her partner at the Rosemary was Cecilia Darker, who still owns the pub and theatre venue. She told the Tribune that the pair, who called each other “sister”, first met in the playground of Rosemary Gardens where they had taken their children to run around.

It turned out that they lived just around the corner from each other.

Ms Darker said: “We started running the theatre when her husband died and she was at a bit of a loose end. It came to be a place for her to connect and network and for her to be proud of her work.

“She said in the olden days that she had no idea how when she was 17 she got a starring role in the National Theatre, but she always said these young people that come out of drama school where do they practice? What are they going to do? The place they’re going to practice is at little theatres like ours so we have to give them all the help they need.”

Ms Darker added: “Free rehearsals, encouragement, we cooked meals for them sometimes if they were rehearsing and everybody was there for hours and hours. We’d come in with a lasagne or shepherd’s pie and she used to make her famous flapjack.

“She was very very very well loved. I’ve had over 50 messages this week and every single one of them said when we came to your theatre we were always met with such kindness and fun and full support. How wonderful is that.”

After she stopped working as a co-director, Ms Sylvestre returned to the Rosemary Branch in a different role. She played a regular blues night on a Friday with her band, called Honey B Mama and Friends, which was also known to perform at venues in Camden too.

Ms Darker said: “People would flock to come to Cleo’s gigs. It was packed. You could barely get your big toe in much less a seat. Sometimes it was full on and people would do wild dancing all over the place.”

The band’s drummer Alan Savage said: “The Rosemary Branch is quite young – the people that drink there – and they loved her. For a woman of her age, not that age has anything to do with it, they loved it, they used to go nuts at the end, wanting more which was great to see younger people enjoy her music,” he said. “She was just fabulous, she had so much charisma and a great sense of humour. I’ll never forget her laugh.”

Her last performance was in January. She put together a show that told her life story but at the end of the second show she had a stroke and took time off gigging to recover.

Mr Savage added: “She played blues and rock’n’ roll, and put so much energy into it – she put real energy into what she sang, she also played harmonica.

“The charisma, the energy, the humour – she was just wonderful, she was a special lady.”