‘How come you deliver flowers at midnight?’ Shirley asked. ‘Take them back to your mother in Bayswater.’ She put the phone down.
Peter Quinton knew all about this ex-boyfriend. As far as Shirley was concerned it was a love affair that was over long ago. She was still friends with Pepe’s sister, but he had to understand that she didn’t want to see him any more. The year before when he was in hospital after the car crash he had asked her to marry him. She didn’t take it seriously, but she said yes because the doctor told her not to upset him. Now the relationship was over once and for all, and she wished he’d leave her alone. And Shirley was leaving for Australia the next day. She asked Peter not to open the door to anyone unless he knew who was there.
While she was in the bathroom, Peter opened the door to the ‘two boys’ bringing the green gown. It was admired, and Shirley started packing it into her big blue travelling trunk. There was another knock and one of the boys innocently answered it.
That was when it all started. Shirley heard a shot. She jumped, and when she turned round the boys had gone. And Peter, with blood streaming from a wound on his forehead, was wrestling with Pepe. Shirley screamed, ‘He’s got a gun’; Peter had obviously been hit over the head with it. Suddenly Pepe moved towards her and Shirley felt the gun pressed into her stomach. Pepe yelled, ‘Tell him to get out or I’ll pull the trigger. I’ll kill you.’
Peter staggered out of the room to get help, and Pepe started barricading the door. He seemed to go mad. He pulled her heavy blue trunk across the room and pushed it against the door, then, suddenly gaining enormous strength, picked up a chest of drawers and heaved it on top of the trunk. He started shoving chairs and side tables, everything movable in the room, against the door. With that done, Pepe began shouting how much he loved her and why didn’t she love him in return? How many men had she had before him? His mother had told him about these men. Did she know what his mother had said? He was ranting and raving, she’d never seen him as bad as this.
He ordered her to switch on her record player and the room was filled with the sound of Sinatra singing ‘Night and Day’. Pepe demanded a drink. All she had was liqueur whisky. He poured some down his throat, didn’t like it, and spat it out. Then he made Shirley telephone his mother and tell her he was going to kill her then himself.
Shirley got his mother on the phone and passed on the message. Mrs Davies laughed, she didn’t believe her. So Pepe snatched the phone and repeated his threats. Then he fired into the instrument, which shattered into a hundred fragments. This noise made the police outside the door start shouting, ‘Let the girl out!’ The dog they had with them started to bark, and Shirley wanted to scream, but knew she must not do this. It did something to him. What was she going to do? She had to control herself because Pepe had these lightning changes of mood due to his injuries in the car accident. A sudden movement might make him pull the trigger.
In the meantime, police had moved the people out from a room that faced Shirley’s across the courtyard. Shirley’s curtains weren’t drawn so they had a reasonably good view of what was going on. Pepe sat on the bed fiddling with the gun. He demanded that Shirley change the record every time it finished, and he demanded that Shirley kiss him. She refused. He said, ‘Kiss me or I’ll pull the trigger.’ She shook her head. There was another explosion as he fired the gun again, and Shirley blacked out. The police watched from the room opposite. Shirley came to. ‘Now will you kiss me,’ Pepe demanded of Shirley, ‘or shall I kill you.’ This time she acquiesced. It was a nightmare.
Then Pepe’s father arrived to try and persuade his son to see reason. From beyond the locked door, Mr Davies shouted, ‘Come out, son. She’s not worth the trouble. It’s all her fault,’ but his pleading only enraged Pepe further, and he fired two shots into the door. Then he noticed the window. He jerked the curtains partly closed, and told Shirley to take off her clothes.
As Shirley recounted to Sullivan on her arrival in Sydney, ‘By now I was getting hysterical. I’d been in this room with him for over two hours. He kept jumping up and down, jerking the gun as if to shoot. Then he’d sit and listen to the music. “Take your clothes off,” he kept saying. So I removed my sweater and skirt. I was now in bra and pants. But, like Pepe, I realised that the peep show might still be going on. People were watching us. “Take it all off,” he said. I didn’t want to do it, but by now I’d given up. When I took the rest off, he pushed me on to the bed and started kissing me. And it was all quiet and I thought he would go all the way. Suddenly a detective got worried about the quietness in the room and started banging on the door. This made Pepe suddenly jump and seemed to take his mind off everything. He pointed the gun and fired at the door again.’
Shirley was now crying uncontrollably and begging Pepe to let her go. She was on her hands and knees and pleaded with him. Suddenly, his mood switched. ‘Do you want to go?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ begged Shirley.
At this, he shouted at the police outside the door. ‘Hey, you out there, are you still there? I’m going to let her go. I don’t want to see any of you when I open the door. Keep out of my sight. If I see you I’ll kill you. And I’ll kill her too.’
The detectives shouted, ‘All right, you won’t see us. We’ll go.’
‘I was frantic in case he changed his mind again,’ says Shirley. ‘I stood there waiting. I asked him if I could get dressed, and he said yes.
‘I didn’t dare fiddle around with underwear, so I reached for my skirt and sweater.’ She watched Pepe drag down the barricade and prayed that no one outside would interfere. He then opened the door and pushed her out. Shirley said, ‘I just collapsed. Somebody, I think it was a policeman picked me up and carried me to a bed. I remember seeing Peter with a towel around his head. I must have been conscious but inside there was this hysteria. I couldn’t move. I just lay on this bed. I never did sleep the whole night. Someone kept coming in and looking at me then going out, but I never knew who this was. I heard them say that they had got the boy out and he had fired into his own leg. A detective from Scotland Yard came in and said he wanted a statement. A few minutes after that a doctor gave me an injection.’
Sylvia back in Reigate had the first positive news. ‘She’s out. She’s alive!’ She never did find out who the man was that had first telephoned her to say that Shirley had been murdered. Sullivan had to wait a few more hours for relief, when the tape machine flashed ‘Shirley Bassey leaves London airport en route for Australia’.
Next morning the police questioned Shirley. She told them her story and they informed her that Pepe was in hospital, because he had indeed shot himself in the leg – accidentally, they said. The press got their stories, and one reporter came in and told Shirley that he had seen everything through the window. That worried her more than anything. How many people had seen her in the nude?
‘I’ve had a terrible time,’ said Shirley, when she spoke to the journalists. ‘I thought I was going to die. They were the most terrifying hours of my life.’ The daily newspapers in London printed Shirley’s story as she flew to Australia, but none of them could describe exactly what had happened, for Shirley was still in a state of shock at this point and the full details weren’t known.
Peter Quinton, a piece of plaster over the wound on his forehead, escorted Shirley in a chauffeur-driven car to Heathrow, and saw her safely in to the terminal. Shirley said goodbye to him and climbed aboard a plane for the arduous thirty-six hour flight to Sydney, Australia.
Only yesterday, when her two-week booking at the Bagatelle ended, she’d been packing her trunk and looking forward to going to the cinema with Peter. Suddenly on their return, in the small hours mayhem had erupted and brought her close to death. Now she was on a plane to Sydney, still suffering shock from the ordeal. Only Shirley’s strength of character and her fortitude had got her through the whole horrific experience, and would carry her through the testing days ahead.
AUSTRALIA WELCOMES SHIRLEY BASSEY
&
nbsp; A giant banner greeted the exhausted singer on her arrival at Sydney Airport, where Sullivan had laid on as much razzamatazz as he could muster. On the tarmac with her manager were three television cameras and crews, twenty journalists, bouquets of flowers and a big stuffed kangaroo. Inside the airport building was another TV crew where a special stage and microphone for Shirley had been set up beside a large table laden with drinks and an iced ‘Welcome Shirley’ cake.
Sydney airport in 1957 was comparable to the old Gatwick – a nice little country airport – but that day in November it was all geared up to receive the heroine of the hour. She came towards them looking drained and rather miserable, the result of her recent ordeal and a thirty-six hour flight. The journalists waved their notepads and shouted ‘Coo-ee!’ while the TV cameras took in the picture of Michael Sullivan with his arms wide getting ready to hug Shirley. She marched up to him, evaded the hug and hissed, ‘You sent me tourist class! Do you know what I’ve been through? Then you put me through thirty-six hours of misery!’ She stalked off, pent up with rage and fury, and in such a hurry that she collided with the mob of journalists.
Sullivan grabbed a bouquet and chased after her. Shirley pushed her way relentlessly past the journalists, giving them the old Tiger Bay heave-ho. One of them unwisely brought up the words ‘gun’ and ‘shooting’. Shirley snapped, ‘Why don’t you try it sometime?’
Another called, ‘How about now, Miss Bassey?’ She hit him with her handbag. ‘Get out of my way.’
Sullivan, still clutching the battered bouquet, worked his way through the crowd trying to soothe the offended journalists. ‘Poor girl’s exhausted, that’s what it is. Too much happening. All this is such a novelty for her.’
A boy who’d had his ankle kicked by mistake, groaned, ‘She’s a novelty all right.’
Then a tall handsome man stood in Shirley’s path with an outstretched hand. ‘Tivoli Theatres, Miss Bassey. I’m Bruce Gordon. Come with me. You’ve had a terrible time. My car’s waiting.’
‘Don’t forget the press,’ yelled Sullivan panting up to him. ‘Television’s waiting.’
Bruce Gordon was every girl’s dream come true: tall, dark, handsome and rich. He could tame any tough Australian Sheila and knew he’d have no trouble handling Shirley. ‘Just say hello to my folks all over Australia.’ Sydney radio was transmitted to the whole of the continent.
As good as gold, Shirley mounted the stage in front of the television cameras and told Australia how glad she was to be there. ‘You’ve no idea how glad. I just love the sunshine and I think that Sydney is wonderful.’ She looked as if she meant if and, indeed, she did. Shirley loved Australia from the word go.
When Shirley had had a week to settle down and talk to Sullivan about what had happened to her, she began giving interviews to the press. One of her most successful was headlined, ‘The Trouble I’ve had with Men,’ in which she was quoted as saying, ‘Everyone knows the trouble I had when my ex-boyfriend burst into my hotel room the night before I left to come here. I felt sorry for him. I liked him at first and went out with him for quite a while until I went to the States.’ Then, explained Shirley she had met so many interesting men during her American tour that by the time she came back to London she had outgrown him.
Finally, after detailing the many reasons why and how men had brought her trouble, the article concluded with Shirley’s declaration that, ‘When a girl’s reached the top she has to be careful of all kinds of things, but especially men.’
Shirley was indeed very attractive to many men; she had about her that touch of ‘forbidden fruit’ that was exciting, she was famous and glamorous. To Pepe Davies, she was the girl he loved with all his heart. After he had released her at the Cumberland, he had written and signed a suicide note which he pushed under the door to the waiting police. In it he wrote, ‘Shirley Bassey is not to blame for the killing.’
Fortunately Pepe did no more than wound himself in the leg. He was taken to St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, where he lay in bed, beat his chest and said, ‘I want to suffer. Don’t you understand what I have done?’
Superintendent Marner, who was at his bedside, told him that when he was fit to leave hospital he would be charged with an offence. He cautioned Terence Davies, who said, ‘I know that. Look, I could have shot Shirley if I wanted to. But why should I? I love her. I just went mad at the time and now I want to suffer.’
Sullivan had arranged that they would spend all the winter in the sunshine of Sydney and Melbourne. Shirley was having a great success with the same exciting performance she’d given at the London Hippodrome. A replica of the giant pink and grey oyster shell had been built and Shirley’s nightly entrance through it delighted the Australian audiences. There were plenty of offers for her from around the country.
Bruce Gordon had become her steady boyfriend and, when he was busy, Gaby Rogers of Phillips Records took her out, on trips to the Blue Mountains, the zoo and the beach. She was having fun at last. Her hotel room was always filled with flowers, she had a television, a record player and all the new records. Phillips were pleased that her records were selling well in Australia.
On a 100º Christmas Eve in 1957, Shirley, Sullivan and Lily, who was back on the scene and appearing at Sydney’s Tivoli Theatre, went to a champagne party that carried on till the early hours. At the party, Lily found Shirley sitting in a corner looking very miserable. She explained sadly that she was homesick and she wished she was in Wales with her family. ‘Every Christmas I used to get a pillowcase filled with presents,’ she began to cry. People crowded round to cheer her up, while Lily and Michael decided that Shirley should have her pillowcase filled with presents.
After Shirley was tucked up in bed, Lily and Sullivan went shopping in King’s Cross, where they found a funny old shop that sold knick-knacks. They bought enough to fill a pillowcase. They weren’t expensive gifts but they all looked very pretty when wrapped in gift paper and tinsel. Just before dawn Lily got herself up to look as much like Father Christmas as she could and crept into Shirley’s room with the pillowcase. Unfortunately, at that moment Shirley suddenly woke up and saw that someone wearing a hood and long coat had got into her room. Terrified she screamed blue murder until Lily switched the light on and gave her the pillowcase.
Next day it was still one hundred in the shade, but they were all so worn out that they spent most of Christmas Day in bed, getting up only to eat their dinner and have a drink to wish each other a 1958 that held no more problems for any of them.
Back in London, Pepe made a short appearance in court and was granted bail. Some months later, while Shirley was still in Australia, Pepe appeared before Mr Justice Cassels at the Old Bailey. Pepe’s barrister pleaded that his client had sustained brain injuries during his car crash and that, because of his ‘bangs on the head’, he was a very sick boy when he held Shirley Bassey prisoner at the Cumberland Hotel. Prosecuting counsel, Mr Christmas Humphries, called him ‘a stupid, silly, lovesick youth,’ and the Judge said in his summing up. ‘You were within a hair’s breadth of almost having to stand trial for what would have been a charge of murder.’ He sentenced the accused to three years in prison, but Pepe was still declaring his love for Shirley as he was led down to the cells.
It was thought that Pepe had received a prison sentence because he had fired two shots at the door knowing the police were outside and he might have killed one of them.
In January 1958, Shirley Bassey celebrated her twenty-first birthday. She was now legally in control of her career. Sullivan promised that her new white Jaguar would be waiting for her when she arrived back in England. For years she had been in a vulnerable position, needing someone to guide her and Sullivan had been the strong man behind her. However, she didn’t fully trust him. Interested parties, with an eye to taking her over themselves, told her that he was ripping her off financially and, although that may not have been true, she often believed it.
The relationship between Shirley and Michael would have to ch
ange.
Whatever his faults, however, Sullivan was an experienced member of his profession. He knew what to do when there was trouble, and when and if the next disaster struck Shirley, as it probably would, he could look after her and find some way to soften the blow. As it happened, trouble blew up quite quickly in the new year.
He was in the cinema late one particular afternoon. Halfway through the film his name was flashed on the screen with a request that he go at once to the Tivoli Theatre. He hurried there and found Shirley in her dressing room in hysterics. She was crying wildly but no one could get any sense out of her. She had broken down in the middle of a song and started to cry. As soon as Sullivan saw her he knew the show must be cancelled, she wasn’t fit to perform and he had to get her back to the hotel. He didn’t attempt to question her, but when they reached the hotel he learned that she had received a frightening telephone call from London earlier that day.
Up in her room Shirley began to calm down and, gradually, she told Sullivan what had happened at the theatre. ‘I was in the middle of the song’ – her voice broke – ‘suddenly it hit me. I know you always warned me and now it was happening. My career was over and everything was finished.’
They had found out about her baby; they were going to publish her story and make her out to be worthless, bad. ‘Oh, Mikey,’ What shall I do? I wish I was dead.’
10
A VERY IMPORTANT PROPERTY
THE GENTLEMAN’S AGREEMENT between Shirley and Fleet Street had ruptured just as Sullivan had predicted. Half the newspapermen in London had known for some time that Shirley Bassey had a daughter but they had sat on the story. Good luck to the kid, why harm her. Then someone wanted to sell a story, make a quick buck, and to hell with promises. Sullivan was philosophical about it. This story was too good to be kept under wraps much longer anyway now that Shirley was doing so well but, as Shirley said, it hadn’t happened to him, had it?
Shirley Page 14