Acclaimed opera star Beverley Sills has died from lung cancer at the age of 78. The singer was born Belle Miriam Silverman in New York in 1929, the daughter of Ukrainian and Romanian immigrants, and began singing lessons at the age of seven. She began her professional career on the stage in 1945, working with a number of different opera companies, gradually developing a high profile that saw her dubbed 'America's Queen Of Opera' by Time Magazine in 1971. The soprano also cultivated a mainstream appeal, recording eighteen operas before her retirement from singing in 1980, and making frequent appearances on US TV talk shows.
Sills also chaired the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera and The Lincoln Centre during the course of her long career, and also worked on a number of charitable concerns, in particular birth defect and infant mortality charity March Of Dimes.