Shirley

by Burgess, Muriel

  ‘El Rancho is one of the best,’ Sullivan told Shirley, ‘Eartha Kitt and Sophie Tucker have appeared there. All these hotels are there for the gambling but the bigger they are the more important are the stars who appear in them. After Las Vegas, they’ve booked us into Ciro’s in Hollywood. It’s a restaurant and nightclub. Everybody goes there.’

  For all his optimism, Sullivan knew that he was taking a big gamble. Berry, back in Reigate, had paid their fares and given them two hundred pounds spending money. In 1957 foreign exchange regulations were severe and obtaining dollars was very difficult. Until they reached Las Vegas and Shirley stood in front of a microphone and sang they had only Berry’s money to keep them going.

  It really was America on a shoestring budget and if anything went wrong they’d be in trouble. The William Morris office knew of their difficulties but they dealt in salaries and could only pay out what Shirley earned. Lily paid her own way and could help a little but she was also travelling on a restricted budget.

  Sullivan didn’t want Shirley to know exactly how bad his finances were. She was riding high on her success at the Café de Paris, telling journalists that she was going to buy a mink stole and Jaguar. The Café de Paris had been a great publicity coup, and had brought several offers of work. Hiring the diamonds had also been a good stunt, but the nine-week run, far from making money, had cost money. After deducting half of Shirley’s salary at the Café for Jack Hylton, the remaining one hundred pounds had to cover Shirley and the pianist’s salary plus Sullivan’s expenses. It was never enough. Sullivan did not expect Shirley to understand, but he knew that if his gamble succeeded Shirley would have New York, Las Vegas and Hollywood to add to her list of successes, and all of America would one day open up for her.

  An invitation to make a record for the Columbia label had brought them to New York. Although the session, with producer Mitch Miller, had been difficult and dispiriting, Michael had taken advantage of the visit to capitalise on an interview Shirley had given in London. She had told Ebony, the Afro-American magazine who ran a six-page feature on her, of her huge admiration for Sammy Davis Jr.

  When they arrived in New York, the magazine was on the news-stands and Sullivan hired a publicity man, Ed Gollin, to give Shirley a night on the town that included a visit to the theatre to see Sammy Davis starring in Mr Wonderful. If they went backstage and met Sammy, even better. Sammy, one of the nicest and most generous of performers, told Shirley he had read the feature, loved it, and promptly invited them both to supper because ‘You’ve been saying such nice things about me.’

  Sammy took them to a famous restaurant, Danny’s Hideaway, and afterwards to see Frank Sinatra, who was appearing at the Copacabana. Davis and Sinatra were close pals; they had formed a little group along with Dean Martin and Peter Lawford which became known as ‘The Rat Pack’.

  After the show Frank Sinatra came to sit at the head of the table. Frankie didn’t like being looked at, he didn’t like being spoken to, in fact that night Frankie didn’t care for human contact. Four gorillas in dinner jackets kept the uninitiated away. Shirley bent forward to take a look at him, another of her idols, and a woman shoved her back. The women were just as bad as the men.

  The owner of the Copacabana, Joe Padella, came and sat next to Shirley. He looked pretty tough, too. ‘Whadda ya do?’ he asked her. ‘Sing,’ she replied. ‘Where?’ he asked. ‘I open in Las Vegas next week.’

  ‘Okay, sing for me.’

  Shirley told him that she was under contract to the El Rancho. She was sorry but she couldn’t sing for him.

  ‘You gotta sing for Joe Padella!’ He got up, glaring at her, then he shouted, ‘Hey, Frank, this dame won’t sing for me.’

  He started getting mad and walking up and down. Sinatra ignored him which made him even more angry. ‘Frankie!’ he yelled.

  Frank Sinatra was busy talking to someone. ‘Never mind, Joe,’ he called back, waving a hand at him to sit down. ‘Never mind.’

  One of the gorillas came round to ask Joe to stop bothering Frankie. There was an argument. Somebody pushed somebody. The tension in the Copacabana suddenly increased.

  Shirley whispered to Ed Gollin, ‘Let’s go. I’m frightened.’ Sammy Davis noticed what was happening. Swiftly and discreetly he ushered Shirley and Ed Gollin out to his waiting car, and instructed his chauffeur to take them back to their hotel. The incident had rather taken the gloss off the evening, but it was nevertheless a special night for Shirley Bassey who before long would join the ranks of the famous in whose company she had briefly found herself.

  Las Vegas looks a magical place from the air, especially when seen for the first time. Night had fallen and the plane flew over miles of dark empty desert until, suddenly, a long strip of light appeared below. As the plane banked, the brilliant coloured neons of the ‘We Never Close’ hotels grew nearer and Shirley could even see the hotel where she was going to stay illuminated in a giant sign: El Rancho.

  On the drive from the airport, Shirley and Lily ooh’d and aah’d at the neon signs announcing that Peggy Lee or Tony Martin was appearing at this hotel or that. There was no sign over El Rancho that Shirley Bassey was coming, just a big one for the Lili St. Cyr show. ‘Isn’t she a stripper?’ asked Lily. Inside the hotel they were assaulted by the terrible clatter of dimes going into fruit machines. Gambling was what Las Vegas was all about, never mind Peggy Lee or Tony Martin or Shirley Bassey. Any singer and her manager were small fry, the entertainment was just to provide a pleasant background during dinner, and the quicker the punters got back to gambling, the better.

  Shirley and Lily couldn’t wait to get at the fruit machines, either, after Sullivan checked them all in. The management told him that Shirley would be expected to have three evening gowns, but she’d only got two. ‘Then get her another from the store in the arcade and we’ll take it off her pay check!’ The El Rancho management behaved in the grand manner, but their clientele was mostly composed of little old ladies wearing brightly coloured crimplene trousers and white canvas plimsolls. However, Michael soon found out that it was these little old ladies who paid for a highball and dinner and demanded that the singer wear haute couture dresses.

  Las Vegas brought one surprise after another. Shirley was installed in a beautifully appointed wooden chalet in the grounds, but Michael and Lily had to stay in a motel. It was Shirley’s only free night – she would open the following evening – so Michael took the two girls on the town to visit some of the other hotels on the strip. Next morning he was called to the apartment of Beldon Katleman, manager of El Rancho. In spite of the luxury of the apartment there seemed to be a hint of Mafia about the meeting. The handsome Jewish gent who lounged back in a white towelling bathrobe was, on the face of it, quite friendly about Sullivan’s lack of local know-how, but there was no mistaking the veiled threat as he took Michael to task about the previous evening’s outing. ‘No more nightclubbing with that girl of yours,’ Katleman warned. ‘Don’t do it again, unless you want to be stoned or beaten up. They don’t like it in this town. You’d better tell her.’

  But Michael never did tell her. He was shocked at this blatant racism, and couldn’t bring himself to mention it to Shirley, even when she voiced her surprise that nobody was asking her out on a date after the show. He had once asked her if she had ever suffered any discrimination and she’d replied, ‘It means nothing.’ She’d told him how her mother being white had made a big difference to her and how, when kids at school called her ‘Blackie’, ‘I didn’t cry. I used to punch them. Let them cry.’

  She had told him, too, about certain landladies on tour who would claim to be full. ‘I just turned my back and never let it get the better of me. If people stare at me then I tell myself it’s because I wear lovely clothes. Otherwise it would drive me mad.’

  At the El Rancho, the guest singer was something served up with the dinner. Shirley was instructed to sing louder if the audience couldn’t hear her – there was no question of their quietening do
wn during her numbers. That was the attitude and she had to put up with it. It was a far cry from the attentive silence at the Astor or the Café de Paris, but at least the pay was good. After this experience, Shirley vowed that when she was really famous, she would never again allow herself to be thrown in with the dinner.

  That, and the lack of male admirers, aside, Shirley enjoyed her first trip to Las Vegas. It was there that she bought a beautiful ranch mink, her first. It was a dream come true, which Michael allowed her to have on condition that she undertook to pay it off at a hundred dollars a week. At her first press reception, she wore the mink draped on her shoulders.

  Her first review came from a local columnist.

  ‘Have you heard Shirley Bassey sing at El Rancho? This is news of the highest order. This twenty-year-old wonder from Cardiff, England [sic] opened in the feature spot at the Lili St. Cyr show. She is unbelievable, her voice is sensational, her delivery is strong and she is charm itself to look at. That quotient X that makes her a star, a full time star, is present in Shirley Bassey in full measure.’

  The management of El Rancho booked Shirley to return for the next two years, but unfortunately the hotel caught fire and burned to the ground before the year was out. Shirley, Michael and Lily waved goodbye to Las Vegas with its Fort Knox hotels and mafiosi hoodlums with no regrets.

  Shirley Bassey was on her way to Hollywood.

  Sullivan rented a car and drove them across the desert to Los Angeles; ‘I want a hotel with a swimming pool,’ announced Shirley, as they drove down Sunset Boulevard. She’d been earning nearly two thousand dollars a week and deserved a swimming pool.

  That evening the girls dolled themselves up for a night out at the famous Ciro’s, Shirley had grown up in the postwar hey-day of cinema and loved to read all the fan magazines which peddled tales of stars such as Betty Grable or Rita Hayworth finding true love as they danced the night away at Ciro’s. Anybody who was anybody had to be seen at Ciro’s. When Michael and the girls walked in, however, it was obvious that ten years had passed since Tyrone Power danced with Lana Turner, and everyone knew Rita Hayworth had gone to live in Paris with her new husband, Prince Aly Khan.

  It was very dark inside the club, but Michael nevertheless totted up the heads of the paying customers through the gloom and realised there were only thirty people listening to Frances Faye, the talented and famously risqué American entertainer. He wondered how the owner of this no longer very popular nightclub, who had brought them over from England, was going to dredge up two thousand dollars a week for Shirley. They sat down and ordered a drink as the band began to play. It was surprisingly good. Shirley smiled. If anyone could do it, she could.

  Shirley’s opening made a great impact on Sunset Boulevard. Some of the English colony attended, including Pamela Mason, wife of actor James Mason and daughter of the man who owned the Odeon cinema chain. She was one of the leaders of Hollywood society, and declared that Shirley had great talent, that she brought youth and freshness with her. Shirley was at her most electrifying at the opening and business at Ciro’s improved. Unfortunately, even this didn’t help the owner, Herman Hover. He offered Sullivan three hundred dollars and the rest next week. This went on throughout the six-week booking. It paid for Shirley’s hotel but that was about all.

  Then a bill arrived from Las Vegas; Shirley’s gambling on the fruit machines had been put on to her El Rancho slate and this was one bill that had to be paid. Sullivan gave Shirley a stern lecture on the dangers of the little extras that mount up when put on your hotel bill. She must have taken this lecture to heart because for the rest of her life hotel bills were sacrosanct. One of the worst rows Bernard Hall ever had with Shirley was over the price of a cup of coffee he had drunk which found its way on to her hotel bill.

  The William Morris agency came to the rescue and booked Shirley into the Riverside Room in Reno with their own guarantee of one thousand five hundred dollars a week. They would also attempt to recover some of Shirley’s back pay from Herman Hover.

  Shirley came into her own in Reno, a typical ‘Wild West’ town, where cowboys in stetsons still ambled around in search of rich divorcees, and there was probably still a stereotypical Sheriff in town. Shirley was a smash hit at the Riverside and she was happy and confident. She’d taken Las Vegas in her stride, and they wanted her back next year. She’d wowed them in Hollywood, so Reno was more like a holiday. She could do her act, then afterwards she could take her pick from the many invitations that flooded in and go out to have some fun.

  There was no shortage of proposals in this town where divorce was so easy. Shirley was in a romantic mood when one of her suitors started talking about a wedding, and before she knew it she was engaged and being congratulated over the local radio. Fortunately, she quickly came to her senses, realising that she had fallen for a line, and broke the ‘engagement’.

  She had two more proposals which were fun – but she didn’t take them too seriously. There was a convention of midgets taking place in Reno and most of them fell in love with Shirley. One of her songs was the ‘Let’s Do It’, and one of the lines in the song was, ‘even little men who have to reach do it.’ One of her admirers, a gentleman midget, sat right in front. Shirley asked one of the Moroccan acrobats on the same bill, what she should do. ‘The last thing I want is to hurt him.’

  ‘Don’t change a word,’ came the sensible advice. ‘Just look him in the eye, give him one of your best smiles, and sing it.’

  The week before they left Reno to return home, a letter came from Johnny Franz with the great news that, ‘The Banana Boat Song’ had gone into the charts. Johnny Franz’s faith in Shirley had been justified and, in time, thousands of pounds of royalties would come rolling in. Michael Sullivan now had a top performer on his hands, and could bargain as never before. Back in England, Shirley’s record would be playing everywhere, on BBC TV, on ATV, and on all the radio stations.

  The name Shirley Bassey had real power now. Sullivan called Leslie Grade in London. Without hesitation, Leslie, a really great agent and booker, said he would like to present Shirley Bassey in variety, and would pay their airfares back to London.

  Shirley really began to grasp the fact that fame had arrived when Johnny Franz met her at Heathrow with a battery of press photographers and a toy boat filled with bananas. She was driven from the airport to a suite at the Mayfair Hotel, where she would meet the press and the booking agents. She loved the luxury suite to which she was shown. ‘It’s going to cost you sixty pounds a day,’ warned Sullivan, reminding her that she now paid her own bed and board; this was not Olivelli’s. Shirley beguiled the press and delighted the bookers and, the following day, told Sullivan she had received an invitation she could not refuse. She was going to stay with the mother of an old friend, absolutely rent-free. ‘Who?’ asked Sullivan, determined to keep his eye on this valuable girl. ‘Gloria Davies,’ replied Shirley.

  Gloria was the sister of Pepe Davies, the boy who gave her a backhander during the run of Such is Life, and who nearly ruined her first night at the Café de Paris when he wrapped his car around a steel gate. This boy was bad news for Shirley. ‘I thought that was all over,’ Michael said. ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’

  Shirley told him that the accident had changed Pepe. He had been very ill for a long time but now he was all right, and she could handle the situation. She’d be sharing a room with Gloria. ‘Where do they live?’ Sullivan asked. He was fearful of the situation, but Shirley was no longer the naïve teenager, and she had a mind of her own. Of course, saving sixty pounds a day was a consideration, but he thought Shirley would be unwise to allow this troubled boy back into her life. Sullivan remembered him as a fair, rather average-looking boy. Shirley, deliberately vague, waved away all thoughts of problems.

  Leslie Grade arranged another Hippodrome provincial tour for Shirley. This time, it was a number one tour and, for the first time, Shirley Bassey would have top billing. To her delight, the third week of her tour would
be in her home town, Cardiff. Sullivan too, was delighted at this news; there was nothing he enjoyed more than a publicity campaign. He got in touch with Jack Thomas, a friendly Welsh journalist based in London. ‘Tell me all about Cardiff,’ he asked. ‘We must plan a great big homecoming.’

  Shirley, of course, knew all about Cardiff. She was thrilled to be going home. The first thing she would do would be to see her mother and Sharon. And she had wonderful news. For the first time in her life she had earned big money in America, and now she had a hit record that would eventually bring in more money. At last she could find enough ready cash for a down-payment on a house for her mother, not just any house, but one in a nice location on the Newport Road, towards the soft green hills of Wales, and away from the docks and the sea and Splott.

  This was the first of three houses that Shirley bought for her mother. It wasn’t very big – just one bedroom – but her mother said it was big enough for her, and so light and airy. In the years to come Shirley would buy Eliza another larger house and then a bungalow.

  ‘I’ve got everything I want,’ declared Mrs Bassey Mendi. She’d been a widow for some time now. She had heard that her first husband, Henry Bassey, was dead, and that Mr Mendi had also died. She confessed to a journalist that she had never found problems with her mixed marriages. Living as she had done in Tiger Bay, where races intermixed freely, she had found no problems. She had never wanted to travel or leave her small corner of Cardiff. She did not think her marriages had affected Shirley. But her own life had been so enclosed, she could understand the problems that Shirley might encounter in the big world outside.

  Eliza Mendi loved all her family but, houses aside, Shirley’s visits always brought her special pleasure. She’d given Shirley a charm for her bracelet, a gold disc shaped like a gramophone record, which Shirley always wore. Her mother always said how generous her youngest daughter was; how she would pay to have the house painted when it needed it, how she always brought her mother the beautiful bouquets she’d been given. ‘She was always like that,’ Eliza recalled. ‘Even as a little girl everyone had to have a present at Christmas. She even saved up and bought me a teaset once.’ Shirley would talk about taking her mother abroad with her one day, but Eliza preferred to stay put, happy in her new home. She said, ‘I’ve had hard times, but now they are all over. I do worry over Shirley, it’s only natural isn’t it? But God rewards, and I couldn’t have anything better in the world than to know she thinks of me.’