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Out of the South Wales | 0:00:02 | 0:00:04 | |
poverty-stricken docklands of Cardiff's Tiger Bay in the 1950s | 0:00:04 | 0:00:08 | |
rose a star with a voice like a force of nature | 0:00:08 | 0:00:11 | |
about to take the world by storm. | 0:00:11 | 0:00:14 | |
MUSIC: "Big Spender" by Shirley Bassey | 0:00:14 | 0:00:18 | |
# The minute you walked in the joint... # | 0:00:18 | 0:00:20 | |
Shirley Bassey soon became the first Welsh artist | 0:00:20 | 0:00:25 | |
to have a UK number one | 0:00:25 | 0:00:28 | |
and the most successful British female chart artist ever. | 0:00:28 | 0:00:33 | |
She moved rapidly from singing in pubs to | 0:00:33 | 0:00:35 | |
performing for American presidents, | 0:00:35 | 0:00:38 | |
from bars to Bond movies. | 0:00:38 | 0:00:40 | |
But what made her records sell in their millions? | 0:00:40 | 0:00:43 | |
Was it just her amazing voice? Her style? | 0:00:43 | 0:00:46 | |
Her onstage drama? | 0:00:46 | 0:00:48 | |
Or did toughness and determination play a role? | 0:00:48 | 0:00:51 | |
Did her manager make her? | 0:00:51 | 0:00:53 | |
Or was she lucky? The right girl at the right moment? | 0:00:53 | 0:00:57 | |
What was Bassey's x-factor? | 0:00:57 | 0:01:00 | |
The record shows Shirley Bassey quickly became | 0:01:00 | 0:01:03 | |
one of the greatest divas of all time. | 0:01:03 | 0:01:06 | |
A Welsh diamond, still shining | 0:01:06 | 0:01:09 | |
and now celebrating her 60th year in show business. | 0:01:09 | 0:01:13 | |
MUSIC: The Girl From Tiger Bay by Shirley Bassey | 0:01:16 | 0:01:19 | |
# I bought the ticket of a lifetime | 0:01:19 | 0:01:22 | |
# There's no denying who I am... # | 0:01:22 | 0:01:27 | |
SHIRLEY BASSEY: 'I was born in Tiger Bay | 0:01:27 | 0:01:29 | |
'over an Indian restaurant. | 0:01:29 | 0:01:31 | |
# Forever, I will stay the girl from Tiger Bay... # | 0:01:31 | 0:01:35 | |
'This seemed to be the only place in the world | 0:01:35 | 0:01:38 | |
'until, of course, I left at the age of 16 | 0:01:38 | 0:01:40 | |
'and I discovered that there were other places.' | 0:01:40 | 0:01:43 | |
# ..the girl from Tiger Bay. # | 0:01:43 | 0:01:45 | |
My mother said I was singing before I could talk | 0:01:50 | 0:01:54 | |
and instead of crying, I would sing. | 0:01:54 | 0:01:56 | |
Uh... | 0:01:56 | 0:01:58 | |
But... I mean, I didn't want to be a singer. | 0:01:58 | 0:02:00 | |
It's something that happened. | 0:02:00 | 0:02:03 | |
Shirley was the youngest of seven. | 0:02:03 | 0:02:05 | |
Her father Henry, a black West African seaman, | 0:02:05 | 0:02:07 | |
her mother Eliza, white, from northern England, | 0:02:07 | 0:02:10 | |
moving to Cardiff, probably | 0:02:10 | 0:02:12 | |
because Tiger Bay was a more racially tolerant community. | 0:02:12 | 0:02:16 | |
As a vibrant melting pot of all races and religions, | 0:02:16 | 0:02:20 | |
it also had a lively nightlife of music | 0:02:20 | 0:02:23 | |
and gambling in the pubs, clubs and shebeens. | 0:02:23 | 0:02:26 | |
She grew up in an area where | 0:02:26 | 0:02:28 | |
it was almost the New Orleans of this country, Cardiff, it was, | 0:02:28 | 0:02:33 | |
you know, it was docks, it was a lot of mixed race people there then. | 0:02:33 | 0:02:38 | |
Henry Bassey, Shirley's father | 0:02:38 | 0:02:40 | |
used to run a shebeen over there on Bute Street. | 0:02:40 | 0:02:43 | |
A shebeen was like an illegal nightclub. | 0:02:43 | 0:02:46 | |
You would turn your home into a nightclub, | 0:02:46 | 0:02:48 | |
make sure nobody could see from outside, | 0:02:48 | 0:02:50 | |
you would have blackout curtains in there, | 0:02:50 | 0:02:52 | |
and people could pay to come in your house, buy a drink and have a dance. | 0:02:52 | 0:02:55 | |
Her dad wanted to dance all night long down in Tiger Bay, | 0:02:55 | 0:02:59 | |
you know, this was the time when pubs shut at ten o'clock, you know, | 0:02:59 | 0:03:04 | |
but life never stopped in Tiger Bay. | 0:03:04 | 0:03:06 | |
Tiger Bay was the part of Cardiff to be avoided. | 0:03:06 | 0:03:12 | |
It was very cosmopolitan but it was troublesome. | 0:03:12 | 0:03:17 | |
It was supposed to be notorious and all that. | 0:03:17 | 0:03:20 | |
Tiger Bay wasn't like that. | 0:03:20 | 0:03:22 | |
OK, there was a gambling corner, and... | 0:03:22 | 0:03:26 | |
it was just great. | 0:03:26 | 0:03:28 | |
At the age of four, after her father had left home for good, | 0:03:31 | 0:03:35 | |
Shirley moved with her family across the docks to Splott | 0:03:35 | 0:03:38 | |
where stepfather Joe helped provide stability at home. | 0:03:38 | 0:03:42 | |
As a mixed race pupil at Moorland Primary School, Shirley stood out. | 0:03:42 | 0:03:48 | |
'I think we were the only coloured family that lived in Splott | 0:03:48 | 0:03:53 | |
'but we were accepted, you know, like anybody else. | 0:03:53 | 0:03:57 | |
'I hated school, though. | 0:03:57 | 0:03:59 | |
'I was a terrible tomboy when I was in school. | 0:03:59 | 0:04:03 | |
'I loved playing football, climbing trees, playing cricket, | 0:04:03 | 0:04:08 | |
'I was just wild.' | 0:04:08 | 0:04:10 | |
I was always singing and always being told to shut up. | 0:04:11 | 0:04:15 | |
I had no encouragement, so I don't know how I became a singer. | 0:04:15 | 0:04:20 | |
You know, even when I was in the school choir, the teacher... | 0:04:20 | 0:04:23 | |
I was in the front row, then in the middle, then I was in the back, | 0:04:23 | 0:04:26 | |
and then in the end, I found myself in the hall singing all to myself. | 0:04:26 | 0:04:30 | |
But Shirley was still friends with the Tiger Bay girls | 0:04:31 | 0:04:34 | |
and, in fact, I think she also went to Mr French's dance classes. | 0:04:34 | 0:04:39 | |
All the girls would go and do tap dancing | 0:04:39 | 0:04:42 | |
and Mr French, an old African from West Africa, he used to say, | 0:04:42 | 0:04:46 | |
"I'm going to turn you into film stars." | 0:04:46 | 0:04:48 | |
Her mother Eliza always knew Shirley had a special talent. | 0:04:48 | 0:04:53 | |
As a child, Shirley would sing from under the table, | 0:04:53 | 0:04:55 | |
too shy to come out | 0:04:55 | 0:04:57 | |
but as a teenager, she blossomed and began to | 0:04:57 | 0:05:00 | |
belt it out, soon singing around tables in pubs, clubs and parties. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:06 | |
Weekends, I found there was somebody looking for a singer | 0:05:06 | 0:05:11 | |
to sing at working men's clubs, you know, because... | 0:05:11 | 0:05:15 | |
And I was only 14. | 0:05:15 | 0:05:16 | |
It was just for extra money to buy my mother a birthday present | 0:05:16 | 0:05:20 | |
and that's how it all started. | 0:05:20 | 0:05:22 | |
Tiger Bay was this unique place on earth, | 0:05:22 | 0:05:24 | |
unbeknownst to me at the time how unique it was. | 0:05:24 | 0:05:27 | |
And Shirley was really an expression of it. | 0:05:27 | 0:05:30 | |
It's the talent of having a little essence of everything in you. | 0:05:30 | 0:05:35 | |
And Shirley had it in her. She was a natural show woman. | 0:05:35 | 0:05:40 | |
A bit of a show-off, if you will. | 0:05:40 | 0:05:43 | |
People would go to parties in Loudoun Square | 0:05:43 | 0:05:46 | |
and it was common, everybody sang in chorus, | 0:05:46 | 0:05:48 | |
everybody sang the latest songs together, | 0:05:48 | 0:05:50 | |
but Shirley would then belt it out, and they would go, "Oh, listen to her." | 0:05:50 | 0:05:54 | |
Ladies and gentlemen, we present Welsh Rarebit. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:58 | |
Wyn Calvin was a young Welsh comic working on a BBC radio talent series | 0:06:02 | 0:06:07 | |
called Welsh Rarebit when he heard of a young singer in Tiger Bay. | 0:06:07 | 0:06:11 | |
I had been down in the docks and heard about a kid who was singing | 0:06:13 | 0:06:18 | |
and I heard her singing in... | 0:06:18 | 0:06:21 | |
I think it was called the Ship and Pilot pub in the docks. | 0:06:21 | 0:06:26 | |
I thought, "She's tremendous." | 0:06:26 | 0:06:28 | |
I told Mai Jones, who was the producer of Welsh Rarebit, | 0:06:28 | 0:06:33 | |
I told her about this wonderful kid. | 0:06:33 | 0:06:37 | |
She was 15. | 0:06:37 | 0:06:39 | |
And I arranged a audition at the BBC in Park Place in Cardiff. | 0:06:41 | 0:06:45 | |
Afterwards, I was told not to waste their time | 0:06:47 | 0:06:51 | |
with rubbish like that again. | 0:06:51 | 0:06:53 | |
So, not professional enough or Welsh enough for the BBC. | 0:06:55 | 0:06:59 | |
But there was another way out of Tiger Bay and into show business. | 0:06:59 | 0:07:03 | |
In that era, lots of shows used to come to London from America | 0:07:04 | 0:07:09 | |
and some of these shows were all-black revues. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:12 | |
They used to say to these groups, you have to have a certain number | 0:07:12 | 0:07:16 | |
of British actors or dancers and singers or whatever within the show. | 0:07:16 | 0:07:20 | |
Somehow, it was discovered there were these beautiful girls in Tiger Bay | 0:07:20 | 0:07:25 | |
and so they came from London deliberately | 0:07:25 | 0:07:28 | |
to look for girls to just be the background in Show Boat | 0:07:28 | 0:07:32 | |
and all those kinds of shows that they had needing black people. | 0:07:32 | 0:07:35 | |
So, our girls went en masse. They couldn't wait. | 0:07:35 | 0:07:38 | |
So, in 1953, a very young Shirley joined the touring revue | 0:07:38 | 0:07:43 | |
of Memories Of Jolson, followed by Hot From Harlem. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:47 | |
One of the Tiger Bay girls was dancer Louise "Lulu" Freeman, | 0:07:49 | 0:07:53 | |
who became a close friend and room-mate of Shirley while on tour. | 0:07:53 | 0:07:56 | |
I first heard her voice when she came into Paris After Dark | 0:07:57 | 0:08:02 | |
and she used to sing Ebb Tide. And I thought, "God, she is fantas..." | 0:08:02 | 0:08:07 | |
You could tell, it was star quality, | 0:08:07 | 0:08:09 | |
it was fabulous, she had a fabulous voice from then. | 0:08:09 | 0:08:13 | |
It was... I mean, it was untrained, she had an untrained voice. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:18 | |
But Shirley had to leave. She was shocked to find herself pregnant. | 0:08:20 | 0:08:25 | |
Suddenly, back in Cardiff as a single mum, | 0:08:25 | 0:08:29 | |
her career seemingly over before it had begun. | 0:08:29 | 0:08:33 | |
She was working as a waitress in a local factory | 0:08:33 | 0:08:36 | |
when she was asked to join a new show, Caribbean Heatwave. | 0:08:36 | 0:08:40 | |
Urged on by her mother, who looked after baby Sharon, | 0:08:42 | 0:08:45 | |
Shirley went to London to audition. | 0:08:45 | 0:08:48 | |
This girl was unkempt, um, and although she had a voice, | 0:08:53 | 0:09:00 | |
she had no style then. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:02 | |
She had impact. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:05 | |
But there was nothing smooth about her approach. | 0:09:05 | 0:09:09 | |
The show's agent, Mike Sullivan, who died in 1995, | 0:09:10 | 0:09:14 | |
said in his autobiography | 0:09:14 | 0:09:15 | |
that Shirley made a poor first impression. | 0:09:15 | 0:09:18 | |
He said she was wearing crumpled jeans, a dirty yellow sweater, | 0:09:18 | 0:09:22 | |
had a short crop fuzz of black hair and didn't know what key to sing in. | 0:09:22 | 0:09:26 | |
He nearly sent her away, | 0:09:26 | 0:09:27 | |
but he had hired the rehearsal room and paid her fare. | 0:09:27 | 0:09:30 | |
Then, she sang. | 0:09:30 | 0:09:33 | |
# Don't know why... # | 0:09:33 | 0:09:37 | |
"I shivered, an uncanny spine-tingling sensation. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:41 | |
"This had never happened to me before | 0:09:41 | 0:09:43 | |
"and I was hardened to singers in auditions," said Sullivan. | 0:09:43 | 0:09:46 | |
He had discovered gold. | 0:09:46 | 0:09:49 | |
So, Shirley passed the audition | 0:09:49 | 0:09:51 | |
and was off to Jersey to join the show led by her friend, | 0:09:51 | 0:09:53 | |
choreographer Ben Johnson, who had a lasting influence on her. | 0:09:53 | 0:09:58 | |
I liked this choreographer, I think, in fact, that's where I got all my movements from. | 0:09:58 | 0:10:02 | |
I used to stand in the wings and watch him | 0:10:02 | 0:10:04 | |
and God, he was so graceful. | 0:10:04 | 0:10:06 | |
Finally, it all started to come into play, | 0:10:08 | 0:10:11 | |
so one day, I found out my hand had moved, but at the right... | 0:10:11 | 0:10:15 | |
Not just moving like a windmill | 0:10:15 | 0:10:18 | |
but moving to make a point of what | 0:10:18 | 0:10:21 | |
I was actually singing about at that moment. | 0:10:21 | 0:10:25 | |
He was all...this. He was all... | 0:10:25 | 0:10:28 | |
# When they begin the Beguine... # | 0:10:28 | 0:10:30 | |
And all that was Ben. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:33 | |
He would have said to her, "I want more movement," | 0:10:33 | 0:10:36 | |
or, you know, "Give it a bit more," you know, when she was singing. | 0:10:36 | 0:10:39 | |
And then she sort of went further with it. | 0:10:39 | 0:10:43 | |
The show's agent, Mike Sullivan, | 0:10:43 | 0:10:46 | |
then came to Jersey to sign up Shirley as a solo act. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:49 | |
He had plenty of average acts in his books | 0:10:49 | 0:10:51 | |
but here was a diamond, rough around the edges | 0:10:51 | 0:10:54 | |
but unmistakably a gem, and Sullivan needed a break. | 0:10:54 | 0:10:57 | |
He was heavily in debt, desperate for the big time. | 0:10:57 | 0:11:01 | |
She said, "Oh, I'm going to join his agency | 0:11:01 | 0:11:04 | |
"and he's going to look after me and he's going to spend... | 0:11:04 | 0:11:07 | |
"they're going to spend £100 on gowns." | 0:11:07 | 0:11:10 | |
And we were like... "£100 on gowns!" | 0:11:10 | 0:11:13 | |
We were like, "Oh, that's fabulous!" | 0:11:13 | 0:11:17 | |
You know... £100! | 0:11:17 | 0:11:20 | |
And after Jersey, she went... | 0:11:20 | 0:11:23 | |
I don't know whether she went to live with Mike and his wife | 0:11:23 | 0:11:27 | |
but they took her over then | 0:11:27 | 0:11:29 | |
and then, that was the start of Shirley Bassey. | 0:11:29 | 0:11:32 | |
# I'll get by... # | 0:11:32 | 0:11:36 | |
Sullivan promised stardom, but not with a baby in tow. | 0:11:36 | 0:11:40 | |
Shirley made the heartbreaking decision to | 0:11:40 | 0:11:42 | |
leave baby Sharon in the care of her mother and sister Iris. | 0:11:42 | 0:11:46 | |
In the following months of 1955, | 0:11:46 | 0:11:49 | |
Sullivan then claims | 0:11:49 | 0:11:50 | |
he and his wife trained Shirley into being a star, | 0:11:50 | 0:11:54 | |
taught her stagecraft, gave her a style and selected her songs. | 0:11:54 | 0:11:58 | |
At the time, many British artists covered the hits of American stars | 0:12:00 | 0:12:03 | |
like Eartha Kitt and Lena Horne. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:06 | |
Now, Sullivan believed he had a British version. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:10 | |
She was dubbed the Tigress of Tiger Bay. | 0:12:10 | 0:12:13 | |
They always give this sexual image of black singers. I don't know why. | 0:12:14 | 0:12:18 | |
But they always identify certain black singers | 0:12:18 | 0:12:21 | |
like a sexual animal thing what they're supposed to have, etc. | 0:12:21 | 0:12:27 | |
So, that's where they coined it for Shirley. | 0:12:27 | 0:12:29 | |
They were looking for a black British Eartha Kitt | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
and she came at the right time. | 0:12:32 | 0:12:34 | |
Shirley's solo career was launched softly | 0:12:34 | 0:12:38 | |
here at the out-of-the-way Hippodrome in Keighley, Yorkshire. | 0:12:38 | 0:12:41 | |
About to go on, Sullivan said she was near to panic | 0:12:41 | 0:12:45 | |
but she went down well, especially with the older audience. | 0:12:45 | 0:12:48 | |
Next stop, the toughest place in Britain to perform - | 0:12:48 | 0:12:52 | |
the Glasgow Empire, | 0:12:52 | 0:12:54 | |
notorious for its raucous audience. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:56 | |
I was singing... # I've got you under my skin... # | 0:12:56 | 0:13:02 | |
And, then, they started. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:04 | |
They let me have it! | 0:13:04 | 0:13:06 | |
"Yes, take it off!" And whatever... | 0:13:06 | 0:13:09 | |
SHE GASPS | 0:13:09 | 0:13:11 | |
And this went on throughout the song and I kept going. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:14 | |
And, then, when I finished that song, | 0:13:14 | 0:13:17 | |
before I went on, I stopped, and I said in my broad Welsh accent, | 0:13:17 | 0:13:22 | |
"Now, listen here, | 0:13:22 | 0:13:24 | |
"I've come here tonight to entertain you | 0:13:24 | 0:13:29 | |
"and if you don't want to listen, I'll go home. | 0:13:29 | 0:13:33 | |
"But, first, give me a chance." | 0:13:33 | 0:13:35 | |
Silence. I thought, "God, what have I done?" | 0:13:37 | 0:13:41 | |
Silence. | 0:13:41 | 0:13:43 | |
I peeped out because it was very dark, and they were still there. | 0:13:43 | 0:13:47 | |
And at the end, a round of applause. It was great. | 0:13:47 | 0:13:51 | |
So, it went through the grapevine that I passed | 0:13:51 | 0:13:54 | |
and I got a contract for all the Moss Empires. | 0:13:54 | 0:13:58 | |
The incident demonstrated Shirley's determination to succeed | 0:13:58 | 0:14:02 | |
and her toughness forged in her Tiger Bay upbringing | 0:14:02 | 0:14:06 | |
and in the sacrifices she had already made - | 0:14:06 | 0:14:09 | |
personal qualities she acknowledged at the time. | 0:14:09 | 0:14:12 | |
'Because of that time, | 0:14:12 | 0:14:15 | |
'I can cope with all the toughness of show business.' | 0:14:15 | 0:14:19 | |
And... But that was a good background | 0:14:19 | 0:14:24 | |
for my...way up the ladder to success. | 0:14:24 | 0:14:30 | |
She saw that there was a chance of Shirley Bassey being | 0:14:30 | 0:14:35 | |
something bigger than the kid from Tiger Bay. | 0:14:35 | 0:14:40 | |
And her determination became so obvious | 0:14:40 | 0:14:43 | |
when she was performing because before going on stage, | 0:14:43 | 0:14:49 | |
she would be quite quiet and quite reserved and then, | 0:14:49 | 0:14:53 | |
when she got on there in the lights, | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
she lit up like a huge bulb. | 0:14:56 | 0:15:00 | |
From Glasgow on, Shirley was up and running | 0:15:00 | 0:15:02 | |
and growing by performance around the British variety circuit. | 0:15:02 | 0:15:07 | |
But Sullivan needed to break through, so switched track, | 0:15:07 | 0:15:10 | |
moving Shirley into the London cabaret and club scene. | 0:15:10 | 0:15:13 | |
I remember seeing her at a club, I am sure it was the Astor Club | 0:15:13 | 0:15:17 | |
in Berkeley Square, and she was singing | 0:15:17 | 0:15:20 | |
all very sexy stuff, quite innocent but suggestive stuff, | 0:15:20 | 0:15:24 | |
and to be honest with you, she had some rough edges then. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:29 | |
She was just starting. | 0:15:29 | 0:15:32 | |
She didn't look quite right, she didn't sound quite right | 0:15:32 | 0:15:34 | |
but there was something about her that made her different. | 0:15:34 | 0:15:38 | |
Watching her at the Astor was Jack Hylton, | 0:15:38 | 0:15:42 | |
one of the biggest impresarios of the time, who asked Shirley to | 0:15:42 | 0:15:46 | |
appear the next night at the famous Adelphi Theatre | 0:15:46 | 0:15:49 | |
and then on Hylton's fledgling TV shows. | 0:15:49 | 0:15:53 | |
This was Shirley's big break. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:55 | |
She was now armed with her own signature song and first record. | 0:15:55 | 0:16:00 | |
# Who's got a match for striking? | 0:16:00 | 0:16:03 | |
# Don't say it all depends | 0:16:03 | 0:16:06 | |
# Who wants to help me burn my candle | 0:16:06 | 0:16:09 | |
# At both ends? # | 0:16:09 | 0:16:11 | |
Burn My candle was deliberately full of sex and innuendo. | 0:16:11 | 0:16:15 | |
Sullivan wanted an impact, wanted her noticed. | 0:16:15 | 0:16:20 | |
# After he's sown wild oats | 0:16:20 | 0:16:22 | |
# Who wants to take a chance and help me | 0:16:22 | 0:16:25 | |
# Burn my boats? # | 0:16:25 | 0:16:27 | |
This saucy single was duly banned by the BBC | 0:16:27 | 0:16:30 | |
but while it stirred things up, | 0:16:30 | 0:16:32 | |
her apparent innocence balancing the lewd lyrics, it didn't sell. | 0:16:32 | 0:16:37 | |
# ..at both ends! # | 0:16:37 | 0:16:42 | |
Commercially, it remained a safer bet to cover American hits | 0:16:46 | 0:16:50 | |
so, with Calypso fever gripping the UK, | 0:16:50 | 0:16:53 | |
she covered Harry Belafonte's huge chart topper, | 0:16:53 | 0:16:56 | |
the Banana Boat Song, then left for New York and Las Vegas. | 0:16:56 | 0:17:01 | |
Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Shirley Bassey! | 0:17:04 | 0:17:07 | |
There, Shirley enjoyed the Rat Pack company of Frank Sinatra | 0:17:09 | 0:17:12 | |
and Sammy Davis Junior, but also experienced racial segregation, | 0:17:12 | 0:17:17 | |
not even allowed to walk down a Vegas street with her white manager. | 0:17:17 | 0:17:21 | |
Returning from Vegas, the Banana Boat Song was climbing the charts, | 0:17:23 | 0:17:27 | |
reaching number eight in the spring of 1957. | 0:17:27 | 0:17:30 | |
Shirley's first hit. Sullivan wanted to capitalise on the success. | 0:17:30 | 0:17:35 | |
Shirley had been out of the country, | 0:17:35 | 0:17:37 | |
out of the British press for a while, | 0:17:37 | 0:17:39 | |
so a triumphant homecoming to Cardiff was planned. | 0:17:39 | 0:17:43 | |
Coming off the train was so staged by Mike Sullivan, | 0:17:43 | 0:17:48 | |
magnificently, | 0:17:48 | 0:17:50 | |
with a huge open car and the children from the Rainbow Club. | 0:17:50 | 0:17:57 | |
He got it all set up wonderfully, | 0:17:57 | 0:18:01 | |
and had me there, helping to make sure of this big welcome for her. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:07 | |
Shirley was upstairs and my mother was there, and they were waiting for her to come down and all | 0:18:07 | 0:18:12 | |
the kids from Tiger Bay and the docks | 0:18:12 | 0:18:15 | |
were waiting for her to come on stage. | 0:18:15 | 0:18:17 | |
And my mother said she walked to the top of the stairs and stopped | 0:18:17 | 0:18:23 | |
and my mother had the foresight to think, oh, | 0:18:23 | 0:18:29 | |
she was in the presence of something regal | 0:18:29 | 0:18:31 | |
and that she was waiting for a lady-in-waiting or something like that | 0:18:31 | 0:18:35 | |
and so my mother went to the stairs before her | 0:18:35 | 0:18:38 | |
to walk down, so Shirley immediately walked behind Mrs Sinclair | 0:18:38 | 0:18:42 | |
and of course, my mother was the first to arrive on the stage | 0:18:42 | 0:18:45 | |
and as she came out, everybody was screaming, "Shirley, Shirley!" | 0:18:45 | 0:18:48 | |
And then along comes Shirley behind my mother, you know, | 0:18:48 | 0:18:51 | |
the real star! | 0:18:51 | 0:18:53 | |
Back in London, Shirley topped the bill in the Hippodrome. | 0:18:56 | 0:19:00 | |
But sales of her new single flopped | 0:19:00 | 0:19:02 | |
while her private life, always turbulent, turned violent. | 0:19:02 | 0:19:06 | |
A boyfriend held her hostage at gunpoint. | 0:19:06 | 0:19:08 | |
She fled to tour Australia, but the British press hounded her there | 0:19:12 | 0:19:16 | |
about her so-called "secret" daughter Sharon. | 0:19:16 | 0:19:19 | |
Returning to the UK in the summer of 1958, agent Sullivan | 0:19:22 | 0:19:26 | |
once again conjures up publicity, even pretending Shirley was missing. | 0:19:26 | 0:19:31 | |
With this and other devious tactics, | 0:19:31 | 0:19:34 | |
Shirley was soon back on stage in the limelight | 0:19:34 | 0:19:36 | |
and then recording in quick succession | 0:19:36 | 0:19:39 | |
the ballad As I Love You and the up-tempo Kiss Me Honey Honey. | 0:19:39 | 0:19:43 | |
# Kiss me, honey, honey, kiss me | 0:19:43 | 0:19:47 | |
# Thrill me, honey, honey, thrill me... # | 0:19:47 | 0:19:50 | |
The single sells slowly, but then, Shirley appears on TV | 0:19:50 | 0:19:54 | |
in Sunday Night At The London Palladium | 0:19:54 | 0:19:57 | |
hosted by a young Bruce Forsyth. | 0:19:57 | 0:19:59 | |
# Welcome to Sunday Night At The London Palladium... # | 0:19:59 | 0:20:03 | |
And record sales take off, | 0:20:04 | 0:20:07 | |
reaching number one and three in February 1959, | 0:20:07 | 0:20:11 | |
the first Welsh artist to top the charts. | 0:20:11 | 0:20:14 | |
And, now, I would like to sing for you the song that introduced me | 0:20:14 | 0:20:21 | |
to number one position in the Hit Parade. | 0:20:21 | 0:20:24 | |
# I will love you | 0:20:26 | 0:20:31 | |
# As I love you all my life | 0:20:31 | 0:20:40 | |
It was a number one out of nowhere, | 0:20:40 | 0:20:43 | |
and rarely gets played these days. | 0:20:43 | 0:20:44 | |
You will still hear Climb Every Mountain, | 0:20:44 | 0:20:47 | |
or Kiss Me Honey Honey Kiss me, | 0:20:47 | 0:20:49 | |
there are some that will still get played, but As I Love You just came | 0:20:49 | 0:20:53 | |
out of nowhere, was a number one. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:54 | |
Who bought it? I don't know. I guess the older people bought it. | 0:20:54 | 0:20:58 | |
And there weren't as many shop windows then, of course. | 0:20:58 | 0:21:01 | |
There were two or three TV shows that she might have been on, | 0:21:01 | 0:21:05 | |
there weren't the big chat shows then, it was probably | 0:21:05 | 0:21:08 | |
Sunday Night At The London Palladium watched by 20 million people | 0:21:08 | 0:21:13 | |
and if one million bought it, you've got a number one. | 0:21:13 | 0:21:16 | |
# As I love you... # | 0:21:16 | 0:21:19 | |
With the stardom came confidence. | 0:21:19 | 0:21:21 | |
Shirley always felt overworked, | 0:21:21 | 0:21:23 | |
bullied and exploited by Mike Sullivan | 0:21:23 | 0:21:27 | |
and shortly after opening a new West End show called Blue Magic | 0:21:27 | 0:21:30 | |
with Caerphilly's comedian Tommy Cooper, | 0:21:30 | 0:21:32 | |
she sacked her ruthless but ingenious agent. | 0:21:32 | 0:21:36 | |
Her new husband Ken Hume | 0:21:38 | 0:21:41 | |
took over managerial role | 0:21:41 | 0:21:42 | |
as Shirley now enjoyed being part of a set of rising stars. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:46 | |
Her new friends included Anthony Newley, who had his own TV show | 0:21:46 | 0:21:51 | |
and co-wrote Goldfinger. | 0:21:51 | 0:21:53 | |
Then of course, I did an all-time winner, of course, | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
which went something like this. | 0:21:56 | 0:21:57 | |
# I'll never let you go | 0:21:57 | 0:22:00 | |
# Why? Because I love you | 0:22:00 | 0:22:04 | |
# I'll always love you so Why? Because you love me. # | 0:22:04 | 0:22:11 | |
How about that, then? | 0:22:11 | 0:22:13 | |
# I will love you | 0:22:14 | 0:22:18 | |
# As I love you all my life... # | 0:22:18 | 0:22:25 | |
Bond theme composer John Barry | 0:22:25 | 0:22:27 | |
also had a close relationship with Shirley, | 0:22:27 | 0:22:30 | |
asking her to sing Goldfinger | 0:22:30 | 0:22:32 | |
even before their friend had written the lyrics. | 0:22:32 | 0:22:35 | |
So, we go to John's apartment at 11 o'clock in the morning | 0:22:35 | 0:22:39 | |
and we sit there, and John goes... | 0:22:39 | 0:22:40 | |
# Dun! Dun-dun! # | 0:22:40 | 0:22:43 | |
And we both went... # Wider than a mile... # | 0:22:43 | 0:22:47 | |
which was not a good way to start a collaboration | 0:22:47 | 0:22:49 | |
with a film composer. | 0:22:49 | 0:22:51 | |
But Mancini had just won for Moon River the year before | 0:22:51 | 0:22:56 | |
so it was also that era. | 0:22:56 | 0:22:57 | |
Um... And then, we wrote this very weird lyric, but of course, | 0:22:57 | 0:23:02 | |
we were hearing someone playing the piano, | 0:23:02 | 0:23:04 | |
we did not hear that orchestration that was yet in the future. | 0:23:04 | 0:23:08 | |
So, we took the tape, and the next day, | 0:23:08 | 0:23:11 | |
we did it at my little apartment and gave it back to John. | 0:23:11 | 0:23:16 | |
The next thing we ever heard was, "When are you going to come | 0:23:16 | 0:23:20 | |
"and pick up your gold record?" | 0:23:20 | 0:23:22 | |
MUSIC: Goldfinger by Shirley Bassey | 0:23:22 | 0:23:26 | |
And I tell you, I just heard those opening bars and I got goose pimples. | 0:23:29 | 0:23:34 | |
# Goldfinger | 0:23:39 | 0:23:43 | |
# He's the man, the man with the Midas touch | 0:23:44 | 0:23:48 | |
# A spider's touch. # | 0:23:51 | 0:23:53 | |
It was an experience to do that, | 0:23:54 | 0:23:56 | |
we were in the studio with 60 musicians. | 0:23:56 | 0:23:59 | |
And I had to sing Goldfinger to what was happening on the credits, | 0:23:59 | 0:24:06 | |
but we got to the end | 0:24:06 | 0:24:08 | |
and the credits didn't seem to end and I had to hold this note. | 0:24:08 | 0:24:12 | |
And it was like forever. | 0:24:12 | 0:24:14 | |
And I was looking at John, I was going blue in the face... | 0:24:14 | 0:24:16 | |
# ..finger... # | 0:24:16 | 0:24:18 | |
No, he loves... # Go-o-o-o-o-old... # | 0:24:18 | 0:24:24 | |
The credits are going, the credits are going and he's going... SHE MOUTHS | 0:24:24 | 0:24:28 | |
At the end, I just... I nearly passed out. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:31 | |
She liked John's simplicity. | 0:24:31 | 0:24:33 | |
There was something about that | 0:24:33 | 0:24:35 | |
because John was a very blunt Yorkshireman. | 0:24:35 | 0:24:38 | |
He would say... When she said, "I don't how to do Goldfinger," | 0:24:38 | 0:24:41 | |
he said, "Just do the bloody thing and stop thinking about it." | 0:24:41 | 0:24:45 | |
Goldfinger, if you read the lyric, it's a bit daft. | 0:24:45 | 0:24:49 | |
It's a very unlikely lyric, but there it is. She made you believe it. | 0:24:49 | 0:24:55 | |
She believed it when she was singing. She believed what she was saying. | 0:24:55 | 0:24:58 | |
She was saying beware of this heart of gold. | 0:24:58 | 0:25:01 | |
And she sang it with all the drama | 0:25:01 | 0:25:03 | |
and she was a great actress in her conveying a lyric to people. | 0:25:03 | 0:25:08 | |
She has a way of seducing you into the lyric. | 0:25:08 | 0:25:12 | |
It is that come-hither, | 0:25:12 | 0:25:15 | |
and you feel that lure of the forbidden about her, there is | 0:25:15 | 0:25:18 | |
something about Shirley Bassey and Bond that is irresistible. | 0:25:18 | 0:25:22 | |
Goldfinger, the album, sold in its millions, reaching | 0:25:22 | 0:25:26 | |
the top of the charts in America at the height of Beatlemania. | 0:25:26 | 0:25:31 | |
# I like the free, fresh, wind... # | 0:25:31 | 0:25:38 | |
Shirley had now reached superstardom both sides of the Atlantic. | 0:25:38 | 0:25:42 | |
Her return to the States was attended by Hollywood's finest. | 0:25:42 | 0:25:46 | |
She sang for President John F Kennedy and back home for the Queen, | 0:25:46 | 0:25:49 | |
beginning her record-breaking sequence | 0:25:49 | 0:25:51 | |
of Royal Variety performances | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
and a friendship with her Royal admirers. | 0:25:54 | 0:25:57 | |
# Funny how I often seem... # | 0:25:59 | 0:26:00 | |
In the '70s, Shirley Bassey flourished. | 0:26:00 | 0:26:03 | |
Now, with her family around her, two daughters and a second husband, | 0:26:03 | 0:26:07 | |
she became one of the biggest stars on the planet, | 0:26:07 | 0:26:10 | |
with more Bond movies, her own prime-time TV show | 0:26:10 | 0:26:13 | |
and more record-breaking album sales... | 0:26:13 | 0:26:16 | |
..as well as playing her part to perfection in a comedy classic. | 0:26:18 | 0:26:23 | |
AUDIENCE LAUGHTER DROWNS OUT SONG | 0:26:23 | 0:26:29 | |
The thing about Shirley's career which I have always loved, | 0:26:31 | 0:26:35 | |
she has never been diminished, you never see her on one of those | 0:26:35 | 0:26:40 | |
third-rate quiz programmes like so many people did. | 0:26:40 | 0:26:44 | |
She was always remote. Great stars should be untouchable. | 0:26:44 | 0:26:48 | |
Like Streisand. Those sort of people. | 0:26:48 | 0:26:50 | |
And Shirley Bassey is very fussy about what she does. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:54 | |
She doesn't just do anything and when she does perform, | 0:26:54 | 0:26:57 | |
the orchestra has to be right, the rehearsals have to be right, | 0:26:57 | 0:27:01 | |
she is a perfectionist and it shows | 0:27:01 | 0:27:03 | |
and that's why her career is as strong now as it has ever been. | 0:27:03 | 0:27:07 | |
In the '80s and '90s, she moved from being a star to being an icon. | 0:27:07 | 0:27:13 | |
Honoured as a dame, she was now a legend. | 0:27:13 | 0:27:17 | |
# Aside set the little bits of history repeating... # | 0:27:17 | 0:27:21 | |
Celebrated by a new generation of musicians and fans, | 0:27:21 | 0:27:24 | |
culminating in a memorable appearance at Glastonbury. | 0:27:24 | 0:27:28 | |
CROWD CHANT: Shirley, Shirley! | 0:27:28 | 0:27:31 | |
CROWD CHEER | 0:27:31 | 0:27:33 | |
'This strange thing took hold, | 0:27:33 | 0:27:36 | |
'this electricity in the air, you know, | 0:27:36 | 0:27:39 | |
'and I was away with it, I got caught up in it.' | 0:27:39 | 0:27:43 | |
MUSIC: Big Spender | 0:27:43 | 0:27:46 | |
# The minute you walked in the joint | 0:27:51 | 0:27:54 | |
# I could see you were a man of distinction | 0:27:54 | 0:27:58 | |
# A real big spender | 0:27:58 | 0:27:59 | |
# Good-looking, so refined | 0:27:59 | 0:28:04 | |
# Say, wouldn't you like to know what's going on in my mind? | 0:28:04 | 0:28:08 | |
Shirley Bassey is the most successful British female | 0:28:08 | 0:28:12 | |
chart artist of all time. | 0:28:12 | 0:28:14 | |
She is also the oldest female person to chart. | 0:28:16 | 0:28:20 | |
She charted with Get The Party Started in 2007 | 0:28:20 | 0:28:24 | |
when she was over 70, so she's the oldest one to chart. | 0:28:24 | 0:28:27 | |
She's the most successful, | 0:28:27 | 0:28:29 | |
she was voted in the Top 100 Greatest Black Britons, | 0:28:29 | 0:28:33 | |
in the top ten, and of course, | 0:28:33 | 0:28:35 | |
Shirley then later got the Legion d'Honneur, | 0:28:35 | 0:28:38 | |
she became a CBE, she became a dame, | 0:28:38 | 0:28:40 | |
um, she got so many awards, she got the UNESCO Peace Prize. | 0:28:40 | 0:28:44 | |
I mean, this for a girl dragged up, | 0:28:44 | 0:28:47 | |
really dragged up on the back streets of Cardiff. | 0:28:47 | 0:28:49 | |
Born a diamond in the rough of Tiger Bay, | 0:28:49 | 0:28:53 | |
over her 60 years in show business, | 0:28:53 | 0:28:56 | |
Dame Shirley Bassey | 0:28:56 | 0:28:58 | |
became a diamond the world will cherish for ever. | 0:28:58 | 0:29:01 | |
# Diamonds are forever, forever, forever | 0:29:01 | 0:29:06 | |
# Diamonds are forever, forever, forever | 0:29:06 | 0:29:10 | |
# Forever | 0:29:10 | 0:29:13 | |
# And ever. # | 0:29:15 | 0:29:22 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:29:22 | 0:29:24 |