In her own words
Her obituaries told only half the story. Here, in the joyously candid words of her memoirs, Cilla reveals the truth behind her fairy-tale rise
AS THE drumroll reached a climax, I was in the wings shaking like a leaf in a gale, clutching my boyfriend Bobby’s hand. Never in my life had I felt stage fright like this.
The theatre in Southport, where I had been booked at the last minute as a support act for The Beatles, was sold out. For my first ever gig on a proper stage, there hadn’t even been time to rehearse more than three numbers.
Clinging to Bobby, I thought: ‘Who in their right mind would want to do this?’
The answer came a moment later as I stepped into the spotlight. Looking out at the rows of upturned faces, I tipped back my head and let rip with the first notes of my opening number, Get A Shot Of Rhythm ’n’ Blues. Who in their right mind? Me! I wanted to be a singer, more than anything in my life. I always had. Maybe that meant I wasn’t right in the head, but I didn’t care.
With the applause and the whistles deafening me at the end of our set, I walked offstage all aglow, with my cheeks flaming. Br ia n Eps te i n , who had become my manager just a few days before, rushed i nto my dressing room.
‘They loved you,’ he insisted, beaming at me. ‘And I promise — this is only the beginning.’
Though I couldn’t believe it at that moment, Brian was right. The year was 1963, and I had just turned 20. Within 12 months, I would celebrate two No 1 singles.
Who could have predicted that, even a few weeks ago when I had been working as the cloakroom attendant at the Cavern Club at lunchtimes, and badgering bands to let me sing with them at night?
Music had been a huge part of my li f e, ever since I could remember. We didn’t have a television set until I was ten, so we listened to records and always had the radio on. I remember listening to Victor Silvester on Monday mornings if I was ill and kept at home from school.
My mam, bless her, was named Priscilla, but she was known as ‘big Cilla’ after I was born, and I was dubbed ‘little Cilla’. She was always singing, especially on Mondays, which was wash day in our home: she had an amazingly high voice and she loved opera — her rendering of One Fine Day f rom Madame Butterfly was second to none.
My DAD, John, was forever playing his mouth organ when he wasn’t tending his budgerigars or working at the docks. Handsome, with j et- black, Brylcreemed hair, he had a strong, guttural Liverpool accent, but he was a dapper man who loved his waistcoats, and his boots were always so beautifully polished you could see your face in them.
On a Saturday night, Dad and his mates would come back to our place — a flat above a barber’s shop on the Scotland Road — when the pubs turned out. They’d bring shandy for Mam and Guinness for themselves, with pigs’ f eet and f i sh ’ n’ chips, and everybody would do a turn.
I would crouch on the stairs, watching and listening, until one night when I was about five years old, my dad brought me downstairs, stood me on the table and said: ‘All right, Queen, you do something.’
Standing on that table, in my creased winceyette nightie, looking down instead of up for once at the gr own- ups, was t he most marvellous feeling in the whole world. And after I’d done my turn, an Al Jolson number, I basked in the adulation and applause.
From then on, I’d be up there on my stage, the kitchen table, on every occasion, singing and loving every moment of it.
When I was 12, the council upgraded our flat and, for the first time, we had an indoor bathroom instead of a tin bath in front of the kitchen fire. When our own tiled bathroom was installed, it took me all of 20 seconds to discover the echo. With a toothbrush for a mike, I’d sing at the top of my voice — Why Do Fools Fall In Love was a favourite.
By this time, I was convinced I had a talent that one day would be recognised. I didn’t confide in my big brothers Georgie or John, or in my little brother Allan, who was really my Auntie Ann’s son (it was a big family secret, but I’d soon found out).
But Mam never put me down. She never tired of my carrying son either, though I was pretty spoilt, being the only girl, an absolute cow if I didn’t get my own way, and a real attention-seeker.
I yearned for my lucky showbiz break. I was in a helluva hurry for it — I wanted to make a fortune, to have the big car, the grand house, the fabulous jewellery. I wanted everyone to adore me! The craze for rock ’n’ roll was sweeping Liverpool, and I spent every penny I had on singles.
We went dancing whenever we could at the Rialto club on Upper Parl i a ment Street in the
Protestant district, a ‘forbidden’ area for ‘left-footer’ Catholics l i ke us, but i t was irresistible. They played the most marvellous music amid a seductive aroma of cigarette smoke and rum, intermingled with Old Spice aftershave and hair tonic, and the girls’ syrupy sweet hair lacquers and eaude-colognes. The Iron Door Club was very different. It was a coffee-and-music cellar, and so dark and deafeningly loud that stepping i nside was l i ke a thunderclap to the senses.
But perhaps the most incredible thing was that, like all the jazz and Mers ey be a t dives, it was alcohol-free.
The first night I went, Rory Storm And The Hurricanes were playing, making a helluva din. My friend Pauline shoved her way to the front and I saw her talking to the band: ‘Oh, gaw on, fellers, she really can sing, give Cilla a chance!’
Wally, the bass player, gestured to the mic and said: ‘Show us what you’re made of!’ There was no backing out, and once I was up there I didn’t hesitate. Head thrown back, I belted out the Peggy Lee classic Fever.
I must have done OK because after that the audiences were shouting for me and the bands soon took the hint.
‘Our Cilla!’ one of the boys on stage would shout, ‘It’s your turn, girl!’ Pauline knew all the bands but what she didn’t tell me, on Saturday as we headed to the Iron Door, was that she was going out with the guitarist in the band which was headlining that night. His name was George Harrison and his band was called The Beatles.
Egged on by Pauline, the audience were yelling my name, and it was John Lennon who got fed up with it first. Pretending he hadn’t heard my name right, he said wearily: ‘OK Cyril, what song d’you wanna do?’
I didn’t need asking twice — Summertime, t he Gershwin standard that Sam Cooke had recorded. It was the kind of song you could put your body, heart and soul into, and that’s exactly what I did.
By now I was 16 and I’d started working as a typist at British Insulated Callender’s Cables (BICC) in Stanley Street.
There was a club round the corner i n Mathew Street where the manager, Ray McFall, had the brilliant idea of lunchtime sessions as well as evening gigs — for office workers who wanted some music with their bowl of soup. It was called the Cavern Club.
There was always a scrum around the cloakroom at the Cavern: people used to toss their coats in when they arrived and were never able to find them when they left.
When Ray offered me a part-time job hanging the coats up, at five bob a day, I leapt at it — I’d have done it for free, just to hear the bands, though I was only earning £3 and 11 shillings a week at BICC.
I didn’t get to sing much there because the audience just wanted to hear The Beatles — a scruffy group of urchins in stiff black leather jackets and torn jeans.
We all knew that John, with his hooded eyes and poetic nature, was destined to be a talented something; that Paul had sex appeal and charm; and that George, with his slow, wide, crooked smile, had a musical ear second to none. I fancied all of them at one time or another, but the best-looking was Pete Best, their drummer.
Ringo Starr hadn’t joined the band back then: he was still playing with the Hurricanes, and we’d sometimes duet together, me leaning over the mic above his drumkit as we roared through The Shirelles’ hit, Boys. I knew him by his real name, Richie.
Richie was always sauntering round to the BICC offices, which freaked me out. With his side whiskers, he looked every inch the Teddy-boy rock ’n’ roller, and there was me trying so hard to be a respectable office girl.
The reception bell would ring and when I slid open the office window, he’d be there: ‘Fancy coming to the pictures this afternoon?’ he’d grunt, chewing on his gum.
I’d hiss at him to go away before he got me the sack. ‘Great,’ he’d say, ‘you’ll be free to come to the pictures with me then.’
HE WASN’T my boyfriend, though. I was a terrible flirt who gave the impression I was much more confident than I really was, but I’d have run a four-minute mile if anybody had really come on to me. As I started getting more official gigs, someone else noticed me. Brian Epstein, the owner of a local record store, had recently become a band manager, signing up The Beatles, Gerry And The Pacemakers, and The Big Three.
In fact, he represented so many Merseybeat groups that he was known as the ‘Eppydemic’.
Brian always wore expensive suits with an immaculate white shirt and a spotted Hermes cravat, topped with a navy-blue cashmere overcoat. I thought he looked like a film star, with ‘ expensive’ written all over him. I nearly swooned when John Lennon brought him over to me at the Cavern.
‘This is Cyril,’ he said. ‘You should sign her up, too.’ An audition was set up, at the Majestic in Birkenhead, with The Beatles backing me. I decided we’d do Summertime again
— but even before we hit the first note it all went wrong. A terrible squeal of feedback howled from the mic as soon as I touched it, and Brian pressed his hands over his ears.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ I said, mortified. Worse was to come: with a wicked wink at me, John set the group playing . . . in the wrong key. I missed my notes, and as the boys tried to adjust to my pitch it got worse. Wanting to die, I struggled to the end and risked a peep at Brian.
‘Thank you, Cilla,’ he said politely, as he stood up and walked away.
Disappointed though I was, I was never going to stop singing. Maybe there’d be another chance. But I wasn’t expecting it to be at the Blue Angel coffee club in Seel Street, where I was doing a jazz spot for slightly upmarket clientele, singing songs like Bye Bye Blackbird.
As I came off stage, I was astonished to see Brian weaving his way towards me. ‘Why oh why,’ he said, ‘didn’t you sing like that at Birkenhead? That was absolutely wonderful. Have you ever thought of turning professional?’ As I laughed out loud in disbelief, he added, ‘Come see me in my office tomorrow.’
As I was under 21, Dad had to sign the contracts on my behalf. There was one clause he didn’t like: thanks to a Mersey Beat newspaper piece that had got my name wrong, everybody knew me as Cilla Black, not Cilla White. Brian thought Black was a much sexier name, but Dad argued for ages before he gave in to my pleading.
Poor Dad had a point. When I hit the charts, all his mates at the docks would tease him rotten, calling him the ‘Frustrated Minstrel’ — because he didn’t know if he was Black or White.
He was horrified at my next bit of news: soon after the Southport gig, Brian announced he was taking me for a fortnight to London, to audition for The Beatles’ producer George Martin. ‘Can’t you do it in a day?’ Dad demanded. ‘Where’s the hotel? Is it anywhere near Soho? There’s been a lot in the papers — white slave traffic operates in Soho.’
Eventually, he consented to let me go, so long as I was chaperoned at all times by Bobby, who had to stay in a different room. The chief clerk at BICC was horrified, too. He asked me why I was leaving, and when I told him I was off to become a star, he looked up to heaven and gave a faint smile.
After three years at BICC I was on £7 a week, and he must have thought I was mad to be throwing it all away. My leaving present from the girls befitted a star — a vanity case in cream leather, with compartments.
If I was impressed by that, the hotel room left me speechless. I’d never been out of Liverpool before, and here I was in Bloomsbury, in the kind of surroundings I had only seen in films. There was a white telephone . . . only I had no one except Bobby downstairs to call. No one we knew owned a phone. George Martin was an elegant beanpole of a man, who guided me through my audition in Studio No 2 — a little stiffly at first but soon becoming more smiley and open. I took that as a good sign. It helped that the session musicians were top notch.
Two days later, a bottle of champagne was delivered to my room. I eyed it suspiciously and spotted a card tied with ribbon to the neck. ‘Congratulations. The Blackbird has landed!’
It took me a moment to recognise Brian’s handwriting and realise what this meant. The Blackbird was me — and I had landed a record deal with the hottest producer in London.
‘Cilla, why didn’t you sing like that before?’ he said