They didn’t call it Tiger Bay, the people who once lived there, to them it was just The Bay, but now it has been turned into green lawns overlooking the sea. Only the ghosts of all those foreign seamen who lived in the lodging houses around the docks hover over these new grassy slopes where once stood the seedy, rowdy welcoming Ship and Pilot pub; the haven where the seamen used to gossip and drink and laugh when their ships were in port all those years ago. Shirley says she feels a stranger when she comes to Cardiff; it has changed so much she feels like a foreigner. When her mother died, she no longer saw any reason to return. Not that she forgets her family any more. When she sings in Cardiff the office now always leaves tickets for her sisters. The quarrel is forgotten, the hurt has been healed.
Sharon no longer lives in the pretty town of Thornbury. Just as Shirley predicted, she fell in love and married, – a builder from Henley-on-Thames. Her wedding day, in November 1987, marked the birthday of Samantha who had died two years earlier. It was Sharon’s decision to marry on her sister’s birthday as a remembrance of the talented little girl who once sang, ‘I’ll Be Your Sweetheart’.
The press said that Sharon stole the limelight on the day she married Steve Barton. There were fifty of Shirley’s fans waiting outside the quiet little church at Henley-on-Thames. The bride’s mother wore a beautiful wide-brimmed hat and a patterned silk dress, but the stars of the wedding day were Sharon and her husband Steve.
Sharon now has two more sons, and the relationship with her mother is close. They talk for hours on the phone though it hadn’t always been like that. There was once resentment on Sharon’s part because she felt Shirley had neglected her when she was young, but after the birth of her third son she discovered that having more than one child is not as easy as it looks. So she sat down and wrote Shirley a letter. Part of it said, ‘I understand after all these years, now that I have children of my own, that it was not your fault.’ Shirley says, ‘Wonderful letter, how I cried.’
In spite of the fans waiting quietly at Sharon’s wedding Shirley Bassey has never had a fan club. It is said that Shirley does not approve of fan clubs, but she has accepted a group founded by an American called ‘The Collector’s Club’. Not fans, as the president of the club hurries to explain, but people who like to collect memorabilia of the star. This American enthusiast from New Jersey soon found he had over a thousand members in the UK, Europe and the United States.
They travel for miles across continents to attend Shirley’s concerts, and usually fill the first two rows of the stalls. The British contingent are dedicated people and look more like a colourfully dressed literary group than rabid fans. After the concert where they have cheered and applauded the star, they will stand in the bars and cafés to discuss Shirley’s performance, her past triumphs, concerts, recordings and videos. They are generous in their help to new fans. The ‘Chief fan’ is a hardworking lady who keeps things together.
They love standing ovations. One of their favourites was Shirley’s performance at the Royal Variety Show at the London Dominion in 1994. Shirley appeared in a gown of silver beads and tassels. Every bead and tassel had a life of its own. Tassels have never moved so erotically as they did on Shirley that night.
Shirley has made a career out of entrances. Her opening number must always raise the spirits, then there is the soft song, ‘As If We Never Say Goodbye’. No longer belting out the sound her voice had achieved a lyrical quality. The song before her finale that night at the Dominion was ‘Hey Jude’ (take a sad song and make it better . . .). And then, the Bassey magic appeared in full strength, she is up there with the greats, echoing the power and sadness of Judy Garland and Edith Piaf. The song was a ‘tour de force’. She had done what her heroine, opera diva Maria Callas, used to do, taken the audience up with her.
The applause from the audience grew as Shirley brushed away her tears. People began to stand up. Over the avalanche of applause the whole of the audience rose. It was the first standing ovation for over twenty years at the London Dominion.
Shirley Bassey had indeed come a long way since she sang in pubs at the age of thirteen where, if they didn’t like her songs, they threw things at her. Maybe luck was on her side, but her attitude was always that one day she would sing before vast audiences, just like Judy Garland. Five or ten thousand people would applaud her and her show would be called something like Shirley Bassey in Concert.
Shirley Bassey was in Concert at the National Exhibition Centre at Hampton in Arden outside Birmingham in the summer of 1994. Good tickets started at twenty-five pounds and there were near enough ten thousand takers. The venue has about as much glamour or atmosphere as a giant aircraft hanger: a kind of stable for Jumbo Jets that might have strayed from Birmingham Airport down the road, but the audience poured in. More women than men. Grandmas, grandpas, people in wheelchairs. The volume of people was overwhelming. Down the wide aisles came boys wearing baseball caps and selling popcorn and coke. You had to be a crazed fan to be there – it’s togetherness with popcorn and coke and Shirley Bassey. It’s raining outside and everyone but Shirley Bassey and the first two rows of the audience are wearing anoraks. The first two rows are made up of fans from the Collector’s Club, the men in dinner jackets, the ladies in evening dress.
After the interval on comes Shirley, dashing from the back of the stage as if she’s catching a train. It’s a very big stage and it’s a long way to run. Off comes the dramatic cape and underneath is a dress of black net and ruffles. They call it ‘The Pizza Dress’ in the Collectors Club because of the two circles of black lace on the bodice. It’s an old dress, it’s been going for a long time. Unless you’re near the front you have to watch everything that Shirley does reflected on a huge screen. Shirley herself is just a little dot on the faraway stage. Even the front rows of ‘Collectors’ don’t see her very well but the songs are good and so is Shirley. For a few minutes one of her songs almost touches the heart. But not quite. This isn’t real life but big business; it is the merchandising of product Shirley Bassey. The star smiles from the cover of every large illustrated brochure lining the entrance hall.
Although Shirley had performed as a featured artist or a star in theatres all over the world from the age eighteen, it was probably not until she married Sergio Novak and became a tax-free wanderer that her ambition of taking over a theatre with her own orchestra really took shape. Early in her career in Las Vegas she had disliked the contemptuous way artists were treated, but Las Vegas paid fabulous salaries and it was difficult to refuse.
Sergio Novak has always said that he took her out of the one-night stand and cabaret circuit and made her an international concert star. But it’s difficult to believe that this man who knew nothing at all about showbiz until he married Shirley was the mastermind behind Shirley’s rise to concert stardom. Shirley’s reaction to Sergio’s claim was to state that she only wished she had finished with the Novak marriage years before the divorce was finalised. She should have left him much earlier on.
‘Neither of my husbands were at all supportive about the children,’ Shirley said, bitterly on one occasion, ‘I didn’t discipline my children, but you know the best mothers and fathers have children that go wrong.’
Shirley admits that Mark has been a bit of a worry for a long time. He still lives in Marbella on the monthly cheque for five hundred pounds which Shirley sends him.
In 1990 twenty-four-year-old Tissa Kimsey went on holiday to Marbella and fell in love with Mark Novak. At that time Mark was working as a waiter and getting over the mess he had nearly made of his life with drugs. He and Tissa lived together for two and a half years and in May 1991 Tatjana was born. Shirley wrote a letter to Mark from Adelaide, Australia, congratulating them both and expressing delight at having a granddaughter.
Tissa first met Shirley at a party at her house in Marbella and found her friendly but not completely approachable. Shirley told her that she loved babies but was always glad to hand them back to their mothers. But there was a happ
y moment when Mark and Tissa went to London to hear Shirley in concert at the Royal Albert Hall. After the finale, as Shirley stood at the edge of the stage receiving flowers and presents, Mark walked down and held up his daughter for Shirley to see. Smiling happily she lifted her pretty eighteen-month-old granddaughter in the air and showed her off to the audience.
Four years later Tissa and Mark had been separated for some time. Tissa was living at home in Skegness with her family and little Tatjana was going to a local school. It was a sad ending to what had begun as a happy holiday romance. In spite of Tissa’s resentment arising out of her belief that the Bassey family don’t do more for her daughter, it is not really Shirley’s problem; Mark is now a grown man and any girl takes him on at her own risk.
Shirley had always been a generous mother. Sharon’s latest house is one of a succession bought for her by Shirley. This one is big enough for Sharon and Steve and their growing family: Luke, Sebastian and Nathan – and Nana if she wants to come.
Anyone expecting to find a calm, sweet, placid person when they meet Shirley might be disappointed. Here is a woman who carries a whole industry on her shoulders, Shirley Bassey Inc. If she wants to give it up, she’s going to hurt a lot of people and put a lot of people out of work. She’s been working ever since she can remember; she doesn’t really know how to stop working.
Hilary Levy rejoined Shirley as her personal assistant and secretary in 1989, and although their first tour together had been a great success, there were subsequent quarrels. The last of these took place in Cape Town, South Africa with dire consequences.
There had been trouble for Shirley before over South Africa. Way back in 1982 she had performed at Sun City, the then fabled and sumptuous casino and hotel complex in Bophuthatswana, the ‘independent’ homeland on the borders of South Africa that was effectively a satellite state of that country. During the apartheid era, Sun City was not segregated, but Shirley didn’t realise the implications of performing in a place with close links to racially segregated South Africa.
However, when she was due to sing in Cardiff later that year things became serious. ‘Call off Shirley Bassey’s Show’ was the first indication of trouble ahead. Then came, ‘All trade unions will be asked to picket and demonstrate outside St David’s Hall if Shirley Bassey performs there next month – because she has appeared in South Africa.’
On Friday 3 September 1982, the ladies of Cardiff couldn’t care less where Shirley had been as they queued for tickets. ‘You shouldn’t mix politics and entertainment,’ said one, ‘Shirley sings for everyone, black, white and yellow. Her job is to entertain people.’
Another said, ‘I’ve been drinking coffee to stay awake all night and get tickets. I first saw her at the New Theatre in 1956, she was bottom of the bill, now she’s top everywhere. Call the show off? Rubbish!’
Hundreds queued all night, it was Shirley’s first appearance there in seven years, ‘I’ve seen her twenty-two times,’ said Mrs Mules of Dinas Powys. ‘She’s fantastic.’
Shirley solved it all. She released a pledge that she would never perform in South Africa or any country which would insist on an audience being segregated for any reason of race, colour or religion. Her manager, Tony McArthur, however pressed home the point that Shirley had not realised that Sun City was an integral part of segregated South Africa – blacks and whites mixed freely there.
Shirley said, ‘I would never perform in Johannesburg, Durban or Cape Town. But I went to Sun City because it was a fantastic project, and they didn’t stop blacks from going there. If you are an entertainer, you entertain. I don’t like politicians telling us what to do.’
As she said afterwards, ‘I’m in good company, Frank Sinatra and Rod Stewart and Elton John all sang there.’ And, she might have added, so did Cher, Liza Minnelli and Johnny Mathis among others.
Her name was subsequently placed on the United Nations blacklist of stars who performed at Sun City.
Shirley has never considered herself black. Her mother who had brought her up was white and she professes she does not remember her black father. Her stepfather was black and she loved him, but he was away at sea most of the time and he died early. She was reared by a white mother in the white suburb of Splott.
The end of apartheid meant the end of all barriers to going to South Africa. In December 1993 Shirley, her PA Hilary Levy, and Bo Mills and Yves, her personal managers, went on a South African tour and stayed at the Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town. After Shirley’s performance there was a party at the hotel where a great deal of champagne was imbibed by everyone.
What happened next became the evidence in a court case. Hilary Levy sued Shirley Bassey and her trading company, SSM Productions Inc., for alleged breach of contract and seven thousand six hundred and fifty pounds in lost earnings. It appeared that Shirley and Hilary had a quarrel after the party in the early hours of the morning. Part of it was witnessed by Bo Mills and Yves. Hilary said she had been sacked and alleged she had been physically attacked by Shirley. Shirley denied that she had sacked Hilary or that she had hit her. Hilary went home to London the next day and never spoke to Shirley again. It was an unpleasant and worrying time for Shirley. ‘It’s very distressing,’ she said. Both the accused and the plaintiff knew there would be a long wait before the case came to court. They didn’t know then just how long it would be.
‘You have your down moments,’ Shirley commented with an unpleasant court case hanging over her head. ‘Call them my vulnerable days, because you never know if people around you want you for yourself or because you are famous. I can count my real friends on one hand. Anyway at this stage in my life I’ve no time for new friends. They become acquaintances because friendship takes time to build, you need years for that. I don’t want to be around phoney people so I find myself more alone that ever before.’
‘I don’t mix much with showbiz people,’ Shirley says. ‘I hate parties because someone always traps me in a corner and asks me how I became a singer.’ And the men in her life have come in for some flak. ‘It’s hard for a man to live with a successful woman – they seem to resent you so much. Very few men are generous enough to accept success in their women.’
But there is the other side when she thinks she might have found the right man. Shirley has always been enthusiastic about the romancing, the chase, the wonderful feeling of being wanted, the lovemaking. As all her partners confirm Shirley is a good lover.
‘The first six months of a relationship are wonderful,’ said Shirley. ‘I love that intensity, the passion, the “can’t keep away from each other”, then it all starts to taper off. They don’t want to stay home and watch television, they want to go out. They don’t want to listen to what I say, they start putting me down and I won’t take that.’
She decided that she really doesn’t mind not having a man in her life. ‘Maybe I’m more comfortable nowadays not getting too close. If I find an older man, then he can’t keep up with me; if I take a younger one, they haven’t always grown up. They just look good.’
She thinks that perhaps the truth is that she’s frightened of being let down and being hurt so it’s easier to find a way of ending things before they begin. Shirley sounds horrified at the thought of getting married again. She insists that the idea of getting older on her own doesn’t worry her one bit. ‘It means that I can please myself and do the things I want.’
In spite of everything that Shirley has said, there lurks that uncertain feeling that suddenly one morning the headlines may read: ‘Shirley Bassey gets married.’
But, according to Shirley, ‘Only if Mr Wonderful comes along. I tell my life story in songs, the joys, pain, guilt, they all go into my performance. It’s my autobiography up there for my audience to listen to.’
In February 1994 Shirley took a few days leave from her American tour and flew to London for an important appointment: on 18 February she went to see the Queen at Buckingham Palace and receive a medal making her a CBE, a Commander of the British Empi
re. It is the honour given to those of Her Majesty’s subjects who have exceeded in good and noble works. Shirley was being recognised for the time and money she had given to charity, especially the Prince of Wales Trust.
Shirley, wearing a wide-brimmed hat trimmed with floating ostrich feathers, was accompanied by her friend and personal manager, Baudouin Mills and her daughter Sharon. She said, ‘This honour was the cherry on the cake, it means that all I have done has been recognised not only by Her Majesty but by the country where I was born.’
The Hilary Levy case took five years to get to court, but the trial lasted only two days. The hearing opened at Brentford in 13 January 1998; on 15 January, the headlines blazoned the news that, ‘Triumphant Shirley Bassey takes the applause after judge throws out allegations that she slapped her assistant in a drunken row.’
Hilary alleged that although the fateful South African tour started well, the relationship between Shirley and herself was deteriorating. The final quarrel came in the early hours of 11 December 1993. Hilary said that Shirley wanted her to go shopping for Christmas presents for her the next morning. Hilary said that meant she would hardly have any sleep as Shirley had to be woken with her breakfast at twelve-thirty. A row ensued during which, Hilary declared, Shirley called her a Jewish bitch, and she told Shirley she was anti-Semitic. Hilary then marched out to her own bedroom slamming the door. She claimed that Shirley followed her, hit her and Hilary fell on to the bed. This was when Shirley shouted, ‘You’re out tomorrow!’
Hilary was earning eight hundred and fifty pounds a week plus expenses, and agreed that until then she and Shirley had been close friends, ‘mates’ as Shirley put it. Shirley’s evidence was that she had called Hilary ‘a spoiled Jewish princess’, and she had not hit Hilary, but only pushed her. She had not sacked Hilary either, and Bo Mills had tried to persuade Hilary to stay but had failed.
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