DI V I NE D I
IN a world where image often comes first and healthy living is a prime virtue there is at least one superstar with a refreshingly honest approach to life.
A solid eight hours’ sleep a night is alien to Dionne Warwick. She has only four.
As for diet, she is OK with Mcdonald’s fries. And you won’t find her working out in the gym. She admits to being too lazy.
But the international star must be doing something right because at the age of 78 she is about to start a residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
It is 55 years since Dionne had a huge hit with the Burt Bacharach song Walk On By, yet 100 million record sales later and she is still going strong.
And while she shows mixed feeling about the gruelling residency, there is no doubt about her love of performing.
Dionne said: “I’ll keep working until the joy goes out of what I do.
“Where do I get the energy? I don’t know, I don’t think about it. I just do it. I love getting up on stage every night. The performance part is what I enjoy.”
She remembers the “magnificent” heyday of Vegas when it attracted legendary performers such as Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. She said: “I start my residency in September. I don’t know if I could say I’m excited. Vegas has changed so drastically. me. It was a wonderful
“I did a month in April relationship. I adored him.” and it went exceptionally Presley and Warwick well so they asked me to do w were fans of each other and a true residency. sa sales of her albums soared
“I’m going to try it, see how wh when he told shops to put I feel and see how long I stay.” au autographed pictures of
“It is no longer the Vegas I knew. himself i in sleeves of her records. I look at the names now and think, ‘Who She said: “It was one of the kindest, is that?’ It’s not a place I’d want to see most generous things that ever happened someone. If I want to see a show with to me. He was a true gentleman. He was dancing girls and boys, I go to New York, the most beautiful man.” to Broadway.” In May she released She’s Back, her first
The swing, swagger and style of Sinatra album in five years, and picked up a helped cement Vegas’s reputation as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. glamorous playground for grown-ups. Dionne, who grew up in New Jersey,
He put Warwick on the path to greatness. said: “It made me very proud. I look at it She would also be championed and every day. It’s on my dining room table.” mentored by Dean Martin, t , Lena ea Horne, o e, On She She’s s Back she re re-recorded recorded her 1965 Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan.
Dionne said: “I was their baby. They very much looked out for me. They gave me everything I needed. They loved me.” Sinatra was 25 years older than Dionne. Both were born on December 12.
She said: “I would call him Papi. He was a magnificent man and exceptionally talented.
“He was just one of those very giving people.
He was always there for song What The World Needs Now. Its l lyrics i calling for love and harmony certainly chime with Dionne.
She said: “It is time for that song to resonate again, it really is.
“We’ve got to get back to being human beings. We need to love and look after each other instead of what’s currently going on in the world, which is chaotic.
“It needs to be changed. The only way we can get to that is to let people know love’s the answer.”
She does not think modern technology and the internet has helped.
She said: “Nobody talks to each other any longer. Social media has got out of hand. People are saying and doing anything they want to over that medium.
“It’s It s taken all the personality of people away. I’ll ’ll b be in i airports i and d I see a group of kids looking down at their phone texting each other, instead of talking when they’re stood next to each other
– it’s crazy.”
She is staying close to at least two members of her family because granddaughter Cheyenne
Elliott is singing with her on her current tour and her eldest son, David is the drummer in her band.
Dionne has performed with the greats of the industry, including Boy
George in 1985, and recently had lunch in Beverley Hills with Stevie Wonder, 69, who has revealed he is having a kidney transplan was with Stevie about thre He’s going to be OK. He’s man, he believ knows it will b
Walk on By i on The Easy compilation al
She said: “T special to me. my first major
“People love grew up with i with people.”
She attribute of her career t her songs and She said: “My music has the