Shirley

by Burgess, Muriel

  Associated Television were keen to please Shirley; she was a big star after all. They brought in an eighteen-piece orchestra especially for her and agreed to engaging Kenny Clayton as her musical director. But Kenneth Hume started making trouble at rehearsals before the live programme went out, declaring that the sound of Shirley’s voice was not coming over well. He announced that he was not happy. Shirley’s song was tried again. Kenneth was still not pleased. He barged into the control room and announced that, to ensure TV listeners would get the full Shirley Bassey impact, he himself would take personal control of the sound balance mechanism. This was an unprecedented demand. Producer Malcomn Morris and the TV technicians were incensed and told Kenneth this was out of the question; he was asked to leave the control room.

  ‘I am not an enthusiastic amateur,’ spat Kenneth through gritted teeth. ‘I am a technician talking to other technicians on equal terms.’

  Malcomn Morris again asked him to leave; again. Kenneth refused. The arguments grew heated, Kenneth’s language became unpleasant, and security guards were called to remove him.

  While all this mayhem was going on off camera, the first two thirds of The Eamon Andrews Show, which had been pre-recorded was being transmitted to the nation. When it finished, Eamon Andrews, live, appeared before the cameras to say that, unfortunately, Shirley Bassey was losing her voice and might not be able to appear. He omitted to mention that everyone had been running around frantically looking for a substitute who could go out live in Shirley’s place.

  The commercial break came and went, and it was back to the show. Music! Applause! And who is this lovely scantily clad lady making her way to the microphone? Miss Shirley Bassey, whose voice has miraculously returned. She opens her mouth, filling the air-waves and a million living-rooms with ‘Don’t Take the Lovers From the World’.

  ATV were incensed over the incident, but Kenneth told the press they had been fortunate to get Shirley Bassey’s services for a mere two hundred pounds, considering what she was paid elsewhere. ‘Miss Bassey,’ he announced ‘has just landed a one hundred and seventy five thousand pounds contract for the next three years at Las Vegas.’

  Kenny Clayton was thoroughly ashamed of Kenneth Hume’s behaviour, his scorn at the low fee while all the time it was just an extra bonus he was picking up. To get ‘Don’t Take the Lovers From the World’ on to The Eamon Andrews Show was a great stroke of good fortune which stood to give a huge boost to the sluggish record sales. Kenny recalled, ‘The bad language he used was deplorable. I know you get much more done by speaking quietly and being nice to people.’

  After this debacle, Kenny Clayton said he would rather not work for Kenneth Hume again. With Shirley it was different, she had her tantrums, but there was no nastiness in her nature. He would work for Shirley, tour with Shirley, but never again work with Kenneth Hume, who was his own worst enemy.

  There was one piece of good news in all this. Although, ‘Don’t Take the Lovers from the World’ failed to top the charts, it was an unusual song which demonstrated that Shirley was moving into more adventurous material than previously, and the release of her first United Artists album, ‘I’ve Got a Song for You’, did very well.

  Shirley has said, ‘In the very early years of recording I had sung whatever was given to me, but deep down inside I said to myself that if ever I made it, nobody would ever again tell me what to sing.

  ‘When I signed with United Artists in 1966, my voice was changing just like the new material. I didn’t consciously attempt to change the way I sang, it was more of a natural development. I recorded the early United Artists albums in the USA, but I didn’t particularly enjoy the experience of doing them there. I was much happier recording in the UK.’

  Kenneth was full of all the clever bookings he had made for her. Apart from Las Vegas there were many worldwide contracts, a film to be made in Paris, and other American engagements. Kenneth told Shirley that she wouldn’t have much time available to spend in London.

  Shirley very much wanted to spend time in England in order to be with her children, which was why Kenneth’s idea of a long-running musical in London had appealed to her. He talked about it again when, unusually, he accompanied Shirley to Venice for a gala appearance at the Hotel Excelsior on the Lido. There, they became friendly with one of the managers of the hotel, a tall handsome man called Sergio Novak, who looked more like a Serb than an Italian. He was charming and made sure they were well looked after. Kenneth liked him, and so did Shirley.

  Shirley talked to her old friend Tony Helliwell, the journalist from The People, about life and love. ‘It seems that I had to get married then go through a divorce to really become mates with Kenneth, my manager,’ she told him. ‘He’s helped me a great deal about money. I’ve learned to save and invest.’ She went on to say that by the time autumn of 1967 came around she should be starring in a musical play, Josephine.

  Kenneth and Shirley’s friendship with Lionel Bart had been the inspiration for Josephine. Lionel’s East End origins and cockney talent appealed very much to Kenneth. If Lionel could do it, so could he. Shirley’s recording of ‘As Long as He Needs Me’ had sent Lionel’s hit song to the top of the charts, and Carol Reed’s interest in her for the film of Oliver! augured well for a musical with Shirley Bassey.

  Shirley discussed the play in Hollywood with Anthony Newley, the new boy wonder, who was then married to Joan Collins, and at one time it was thought he might co-star as Napoleon to Shirley’s Josephine. Kenneth fancied the idea of Napoleon as the hero of the show. He and Napoleon were both short (and, as many might have noted, both dictators!), and Shirley, like the Empress Josephine, who was a creole from Martinique, was a mixed-race beauty.

  After various stops and starts, Kenneth Hume approached two young men to write the music and lyrics for his wife’s musical play. The pair had written a musical called Barnado Boy, which they hoped would shortly be presented in the West End. Someone was commissioned to write the book, with its historical background. Then came a typical Kenneth Hume proviso, their show Barnado Boy was not to be staged in London until Josephine had opened. The two young men agreed and set to work at once. By the beginning of 1967 everyone was talking rehearsal schedules and Shirley said she would cancel all her bookings whenever it became necessary. There were great plans about the musical going to Broadway after London, and then, possibly, becoming a Hollywood film.

  At last it seemed that Kenneth was going to make all of Shirley’s dreams come true.

  15

  THE ITALIAN LOVER

  SHIRLEY BOUGHT HER mother a new house at 2 Glastonbury Terrace, Llanrumney. It was on the outskirts of Cardiff, further from the city than the previous one. ‘It’s so big,’ exclaimed her mother, ‘three bedrooms upstairs, and Shirley says I can have an even bigger one if I want.’ At her age, however, getting on for seventy, she certainly didn’t want a bigger house but she’d now got a garden, the first one in her life, and already she’d planted daffodils and tulips and crocuses that would come up in the Spring. ‘I’ve got everything I want,’ she said, as she always did. She was so happy when her daughter came down on one of her visits. There was a shiny sports car parked outside and the house was filled with flowers.

  Kenneth Hume had never visited Eliza, even when he was married to Shirley. They had met just once and that was enough for both of them. ‘I couldn’t stand the man,’ said Shirley’s mother. Kenneth was spiteful about Shirley’s family, claiming she was ‘just a meal ticket for them.’ Marina, Shirley’s sister repudiated this accusation. ‘I clean other people’s houses so that I can be a meal ticket for my children.’

  Shirley could never do enough for her mother, but the rest of the family were less important to her now. Iris and Bill, who had been Sharon’s foster parents, were still a part of Sharon’s life. Ella, who had once lived in Islington, and Shirley’s other sisters who lived in Cardiff, saw her now and then when she came to visit their mother, but their biggest thrill always came when Shirley lef
t them tickets at the box office for her latest show.

  Her sister Eileen remarked that, ‘Shirley gets a bit confused at times when the whole family with all our children pile into her dressing room after the show. But they don’t stay long, and then we sisters and Henry, our brother, get an hour with her. And the champagne flows. There’s lots of gossip and cross-questioning and hugs and kisses. She tells us about her trips abroad and her cabaret shows.’

  Of the five sisters and one brother with their families living around Cardiff, only two of them, apart from Shirley, could sing – Marina, who is two years older than Shirley, and brother Henry, four years older. Henry always had an excellent voice, but he was too shy to go for auditions and never sang professionally. Marina looks like Shirley and has told how, when getting on a bus in Cardiff, if any pals of hers were sitting inside, they would always tease her by singing ‘Kiss Me, Honey Honey, Kiss Me’.

  In June 1967 Shirley was getting ready for her annual six-week season at the Talk of The Town. The title of the show that year was to be ‘Farewell to Cabaret’. Perhaps the title was a good omen, she thought; with her new musical play she might really be able to say goodbye to cabaret, and the grind of continual touring would be over. While she was rehearsing she heard that Kenneth was ill. She accepted that he always smoked too much and never took care of himself. Shirley rarely asked questions and she didn’t know of the awful illness that had plagued Kenneth for a long time. Now it seemed that the depression had a grip on him and kept coming back relentlessly.

  She knew that he always worried about getting cancer, but he was only forty and, despite his constant moan that, ‘my machine is cracking up,’ she didn’t take him seriously. She knew he took sleeping pills, she took them herself. In showbiz it was almost compulsory.

  Kenneth recovered and felt able to face life again. His energy returned and he became over confident. When he saw Shirley to discuss the opening at the Talk of The Town he poured out his grandiose plans for Josephine, but told her it was taking a little longer than he thought to get it all together. However, he said, the advance publicity would soon begin and rehearsals would start shortly afterwards.

  But this time his recovery didn’t last very long. He had pneumonia, and became depressed again and couldn’t sleep. He woke up one morning to find his doctor at his bedside. ‘How many pills did you take?’ the doctor asked.

  ‘One, two, maybe three. I had to sleep.’

  ‘You were deeply unconscious. We were all worried.’

  His doctor brought in help so that Kenneth would not be alone. He brought in a psychiatrist for consultations. The main problem seemed to be the sleeping pills. Depression, even manic depression, is treatable, but no one knew exactly how many containers of sleeping pills were hidden all over the house.

  Kenneth promised he would be more careful in future. His doctor was not sure how capable he was of remembering, and worried that his patient wasn’t eating. He was very emaciated. Eight days later, on 26 June, 1967, Kenneth Hume died. He finally took one pill too many, but it seemed unlikely it was suicide, as many people thought. Kenneth Hume had wanted to be well; he had wanted to live.

  The front pages of the London papers carried pictures of Kenneth Hume taken when he was young and good-looking. ‘Former husband of singer Shirley Bassey, Mr Kenneth Hume, aged 40, was found dead in his London home yesterday. A Scotland Yard spokesman said there is no suspicion of foul play, it is being treated as sudden death. Mr Hume had been ill for some time.’

  As is common practice with sudden death, an inquest was held on 8 July. Professor Keith Simpson, the well-known pathologist said that the cause of Kenneth Hume’s death was an overdose of barbiturates. He thought that Mr Hume had taken three or four sleeping capsules before his death. This was slightly excessive to the normal maximum dose but it is in no sense a massive overdose.

  The Coroner asked, ‘If this dose were given to one hundred healthy men of forty, how many would survive without treatment?’

  ‘I would expect them all to survive if they were healthy,’ replied the Professor.

  The press reported that ‘Mr Leslie Simmons, a business partner of Mr Hume said that although Mr Hume was divorced from Miss Bassey he had become friendly with her again and had established a harmonious business relationship with her. He was busily engaged in the preliminary stages for a new musical, Josephine, for which everyone entertained the highest hopes. It was the largest venture he had been engaged in.’

  The Coroner said the outstanding thing in the case was that although Kenneth was depressed and suicide is a well-known risk during depression, he had never stated that he intended taking his own life.

  A verdict of accidental death was recorded.

  The former Mrs Hume was not present at the inquest and so she did not hear the result of the post-mortem or the verdict. She did not learn that the pathologist found out that Kenneth had quite serious coronary heart disease.

  Kenneth’s death came as a great blow to Shirley. It was completely unexpected. The truth about Kenneth’s death had been kept from her and she had been fed various stories. London buzzed with gossip and rumour. Kenneth, it was said by some, had committed suicide by taking an overdose; others that he had killed himself because he had cancer. None of this was true. He had become so weak and emaciated and he so desperately craved sleep and one or two pills over the normal dose had killed him.

  To this day the general belief is that Kenneth Hume committed suicide. A group of fans at one of Shirley’s concerts only last year were heard arguing between themselves, still speculating as to the reasons for Hume’s death.

  Bernard Hall in New York had it right. When he read the news of Kenneth’s death, he said. ‘That chirpy little cockney wanted to keep his life. He had a lot of faults, but lack of courage was not one of them.’

  ‘Kenneth would have wanted me to carry on,’ Shirley told the press soon after Kenneth’s death. She would open at the Talk of The Town, where she was booked for six weeks, as arranged. Nothing would bring Kenneth back, he’d have wanted her to sing at the Talk of The Town, he always insisted that she fulfil her contracts. He was the only man she had ever been able to rely on. So many men had let her down and now he had gone.

  When she married him Shirley may have really believed that Kenneth would change his sexuality for her. There was an innocence about Shirley when she started her career and homosexuality was shrouded in mystery at the time. Bernard Hall was muscular and exciting and if he could make passionate love to her, why couldn’t Kenneth Hume? She fell in love with Kenneth and always remained sympathetic and drawn to him. He’d always been there at the end of a telephone to give advice.

  In spite of all her brave words to the press, Shirley did not get over Kenneth’s death easily. For the past seven years he had occupied a central position in her life. First as a friend, then as a husband and always as the rock she could lean on when trouble came. She wanted him back again, in spite of the earth shaking rows they used to have, when they called each other every name under the sun. He never really upset her deeply, or put her down. She could even forgive the money he gambled away.

  He’d always been there, telling her she was strong, helping her to believe in herself, but now she was on her own. At night she was filled with morbid fears that if she did not sleep it would affect her voice, that her career would be over. She was used to sleeping pills, she’d taken two each night for years, but nowadays it took much longer to fall asleep. On one particular night she was desperate for sleep. She took another pill and waited for sleep to come, an hour passed, she took another pill, more hours seemed to go by, and it seemed as though the night would never end. She was obsessed with the thought that in the morning she would find herself with a harsh dry throat and she wouldn’t be able to do her show. She found another pill. She had to sleep . . .

  Shirley recalled later what happened next. She had a flash of awareness and it made her very frightened. What was the matter with her? Had she taken
too many pills? She tried to get up but it was difficult. Now she was floating, and it felt warm and good. Now if she closed her eyes she would sleep, but some sixth sense warned her – this was not sleep, this was death.

  Fear made her stagger to the door. She couldn’t call out, all she could do was mumble. Through her haze she dimly knew her secretary, Jean, was in a room down the landing. She managed to get there, she fell against the door, it opened, and then she remembered no more.

  Shirley said that Jean undoubtedly saved her life. Jean realised there was no time to waste, not even time to ring for an ambulance. Shirley was only half-conscious and mumbling about pills, Jean somehow got her down two flights of stairs and into the car, and drove her straight to hospital.

  The experience taught Shirley that sleeping pills can lull the desperate and the frightened into forgetfulness. After three pills, few people can remember how many they have taken. Kenneth had gone that way, and Shirley had almost followed him.

  There was another tragic postscript. Shirley says that Jean Lincoln, the secretary who saved her life, was her best friend, that they were like identical twins. She was the only female best friend she had. Subsequently Jean, too, took an accidental overdose of sleeping pills, but she wasn’t found in time. ‘When she died I was so upset,’ said Shirley. ‘She didn’t mean to kill herself, I don’t think I have ever allowed any woman to get that close to me again. I loved her.’