MY HELLUVA LIFE
HER obituaries told only half the story. Now, in the joyously candid words of her memoirs, Cilla Black reveals the truth about her fairytale rise in a special threepart series. On Saturday, she told of getting her first big break at Liverpool’s Cavern Club. Today, stardom comes calling …
Pop in the Sixties was a world of little white lies. I found that out early, with my first single, Love of The Loved, by Lennon and McCartney. Brian Epstein, who was the boys’ manager as well as mine, let the media think the song had been specially written for me by John and Paul.
It was cobblers, of course. I’d heard The Beatles doing the song myself during lunchtime sessions at the Cavern.
Worse, though, were the lies about my private life. Brian was protective to the point of paranoia about even minute personal details: sales, he insisted, could drop to rock-bottom overnight if fans discovered their favourite pin-up was going steady, or even married.
In answer to any prying questions about Bobby Willis’s constant presence at my side, I had to say that my feller was just my road manager. I could have added that he was also a talented songwriter, who had penned Shy of Love, the B-side on my first single.
I wanted a No 1 very much, but Love of The Loved peaked at No 35. Just before Christmas I recorded my second single, Anyone Who Had A Heart, and I told Bobby on New Year’s Eve that I wouldn’t settle for anything less than a chart- topper. ‘Then we won’t,’ he replied, resolutely. ‘Not now: not ever.’
our New Year’s pledge came true: by the end of February 1964, I was top of the hit parade.
The truth is I couldn’t believe it was happening, because I never really rated the song, a Burt Bacharach number, as No 1 material. I knew I’d arrived, though, when a dozen lusty workmen wolf-whistled me from a building site near Leicester Square and began to sing the chorus! That was as exciting, in a daft way, as collecting my NME poll-winner’s award as Top Female Vocalist a few weeks later.
Not all the attention was so great. This was the Beatlemania era, when fans could get out of control. Leaving the Southern TV studios one evening, I was mobbed by a crowd of girls who tore the buttons off my shiny black Mary Quant mac and ripped it to shreds. I was in shock, really upset. I loved that mac, and you can’t repair plastic.
Being a pop star could be dangerous work. To promote my next song, You’re My World, a photographer took me to the roof of the President Hotel off Russell Square and had me stand on a narrow wall, just a ledge really, with my arms thrown wide.
There was nothing between me and the ground below but certain death. Because I was young, obliging and stupid, I did as I was told.
The publicity helped do the trick, though, because You’re My World became my second No 1.
Success came in other ways. I joined a show at the London Palladium called Startime, with singer Frankie Vaughan and comedian Tommy Cooper as the headliners. Between May and December, I did 13 shows a week, a total of over 400 performances — but I didn’t understand at first what a colossal privilege this was.
I was naive and a bit arrogant, and I got into the bad habit of missing the final curtain calls with the rest of the cast. I just couldn’t see the point of walking back down a load of steps when I’d already been on and sung my heart out. I’d rather get my tights washed and head back to the hotel.
The stage manager was so angry that he threatened me with a £5 fine if I ever did it again. That cured me.
For my 21st birthday, Brian took me to dinner at Le Caprice with George Harrison, who had also turned 21 that year, and then to a party at his Knightsbridge flat. I phoned my Mam from there, and spoke to all my relatives. I really did miss Scottie Road that night. I’d much rather be having a knees-up with them than standing around at a cocktail party.
Bobby and me never had wine in restaurants: we’d order steak and Coca-Cola. In fact, I’d never touched alcohol till well past my 21st.
If grown-up glamour was a puzzle to me, I loved shopping expeditions with my pal Cathy McGowan [presenter of Ready Steady Go!]. We’d take a joyful cruise in her Mini round the King’s Road and Carnaby Street boutiques, spend an absolute fortune on miniskirts and dresses in ten minutes, and have a girlie gossip of the ‘Have you heard?/ She never did!’ variety.
one thing I missed was Liverpool’s club scene. Everywhere in London catered for an older generation — until the Ad Lib opened in a Soho penthouse, with fur-covered walls and an aquarium filled with piranhas.
The Stones, the Animals and the Hollies all went there. I used to fancy Keith Richards on the quiet. He was just the kind of pretty boy that caught my fancy at that time.
The Ad Lib’s DJ never played our own music to us — it was all heavy American rock. We loved going mad to Daddy Rollin’ Stone by Derek Martin, and sharing the floor with hairdresser Vidal Sassoon, celebrity photographers David Bailey and Terry o’Neill, and actors Terence Stamp and Michael Caine. I remember the celebrated transsexual April Ashley was there one night, in a gob- smacking see-through black chiffon top that drew a lot of attention.
Everyone was drinking Mateus Rosé wine, and then whisky and Coke, until The Beatles came back from the States with a new cult drink — Bourbon and Seven Up. I tried to get the taste for