Shirley (19 page)

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 change.

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.’

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’s phone call that morning was from the Sydney representative of the London
Daily Sketch,
asking if she would be available to talk to a reporter from their London office. She would? Then they would book a telephone call to her from London. Shirley thought it was just another routine publicity call to ask her how she was getting on in Australia.

That afternoon the call came through, but instead of the
usual cheerful greeting a brisk male voice said, ‘It’s about your baby, we’re going to publish on Monday!’ Shirley was stunned, paralysed with shock, as she listened to this strange man’s voice. ‘You can’t stop us, we’ve got the birth certificate, that’s proof enough.’ He was talking about Sharon, her baby, her little daughter, as if she was some kind of commodity he was putting up for sale.

Shirley’s shock and devastation was not overdone. This was the Fifties, and if a girl of sixteen had a baby she got rid of it by adoption, fast. Never mind if she wanted to keep the baby; usually the family could not bear the social stigma or, as in Shirley’s case this baby had to be supported, so she sent part of her salary home every week. Sullivan had told her three years ago that if the newspapers found out about Sharon it might go against her badly and damage her career. In the popular imagination she was the tigress, the firebrand who tempted men, not the girl who hurried home to put a baby to bed. Brave single mothers were not welcomed by the English, and Australia was even more prudish. The news of an illegitimate child would not go down well here in Sydney.

When Shirley had the call Sullivan was unavailable, he’d said he was going to the cinema. Shirley sat on her bed, overcome with shock. She hadn’t fully recovered from her ordeal in London; she still had nightmares about that night at the Cumberland. Would it never end?

She told Sullivan that she had lain down and closed her eyes. She could only take so much. Her whole being slowed down, and she must have fallen asleep. When she opened her eyes again she felt strangely numb and she didn’t know why. To her surprise it was time to go to the theatre. Shirley
said later that the shock had completely eradicated the phone call from her mind. All she knew was that she must go to the theatre.

At the theatre she went on as usual and was into her first song when her memory came back ‘The telephone call! . . . It really hit me like a blow,’ she says. ‘For three years I’d had this secret, now it had ben ripped away from me and there it was. My wickedness would be splashed across a newspaper for everyone to see. I loved my daughter, I was not ashamed at all. But it was the way this was being done to me, so cold, so calculated. Selling my dearest secret for money. I seemed to turn to stone. I could not sing. I don’t know what happened to me. And then someone put an arm around my shoulders and led me away to my dressing room.’

Sullivan had heard enough. He took over, he knew exactly what to do, they’d still got time. If this little bastard wanted to hurt Shirley, he knew he could find another newspaperman who might be willing to spike the little swine.

Arthur Helliwell, Tony to his friends, had a Sunday column in the high-circulation tabloid,
The People
. Tony had been with Sullivan that night at Churchill’s nightclub three years ago when they had seen Ben Johnson’s Ballet for the first time and Louise Benjamin had said, ‘I know a singer called Shirley Bassey.’ If the British public read an article slanted in Shirley’s favour – and God knows the kid needed some luck – if the article came out the day before the
Daily Sketch
exposé, it would help her.

Sullivan put in an urgent call to Tony Helliwell and explained what had happened. Shirley then talked to Tony for three quarters of an hour. She told him the truth about
what had happened to her, how much she had wanted her baby, how she had never considered allowing Sharon to be adopted in spite of great pressures. Sharon lived with her sister because her mother worked. If she had her way Sharon would be here in Australia with her. Shirley poured out her worries and her hopes. Tony said he would do his best, and his column on Sunday would be mostly Shirley’s story.

An Australian magazine interviewed Shirley at Sullivan’s instigation and the article was headlined, ‘Give the girl a break.’ In London on Sunday
The People
’s column scooped the
Sketch
’s unkind article, but on Monday the Australian radio and local newspapers did make the most of what they considered a juicy scandal. Reading the papers, Shirley grew increasingly anxious about appearing at the Tivoli that evening.

When she burst through those pink and grey folds of the oyster shell what would she find? A half-empty house? Would she smell the hatred and distrust that can rise like a miasma from an audience? Would they boo her? Shirley was very vulnerable, alone on that stage and very frightened.

She emerged through the clouds of chiffon and everyone seemed to be holding their breath, even the orchestra. A brief silence, then someone shouted ‘Keep your chin up, Shirley!’ Another yelled, ‘Good on ya, Shirl!’ The Australian audience knew it took guts to stand there in front of them. Sympathy for the girl suddenly overflowed and the clapping started. The applause grew, there was cheering, and Shirley bowed low to her audience. Then she brushed away her tears and sang.

After the show Shirley went back to her dressing room which, empty at the beginning of the evening, was now filled with flowers. Sullivan had not been at all sure which way the pendulum would swing. An audience cannot be influenced by a newspaper article, even if they’ve bothered to read it; admiration for a performer comes from the heart. Sullivan had kept the flowers hidden. If things went wrong they might be used as a comfort, but this was what they were really meant for – a celebration.

Shirley felt some good had come of this latest ordeal, despite the agony and fear. Her daughter, Sharon, was now hers in front of the world. During the rest of her Australian tour, the people took Shirley to their hearts. When they were in Melbourne and the Queen Mother arrived on a State visit, Sullivan and Shirley were invited to a garden party. Shirley was excited at the prospect; she adored the Royal Family.

By the time they’d been in Australia for six months Sullivan knew it was important to go back to England or they might risk losing the momentum of Shirley’s career there. As an added inducement to leave Australia, he told Shirley that her belated birthday present now had a number plate ‘SB 19’. ‘Two years late,’ declared Shirley, but no girl minds losing a couple of years off her age.

Before they left Shirley developed abdominal pains that would not go away. It was the old trouble of an inflamed appendix and the doctor who was called advised her to stop swimming, whether in hotel pools or the sea, until the pains went away. The three of them, Sullivan, Lily and Shirley were going home via Hawaii and San Francisco.

Unable to swim, Shirley went shopping instead.
Honolulu was designed for ardent souvenir hunters like Shirley, and she spent every dollar she had, determined to give her family the best gifts ever – and there was a big Hawaiian doll for Sharon.

Sullivan had warned Shirley about the dollar shortage and overspending and refused to pay Shirley’s hotel bill. How did she think he was going to find the money?

‘I don’t know, you’re my manager. You find it.’

Sullivan lost his temper, Shirley lost her temper and there was a great row. This was not unusual, everyone knew that they quarrelled constantly, but this was a particularly nasty one. Shirley shouted that she didn’t expect him to give her the money, she just wanted to borrow it. ‘Find me the fare to Milwaukee,’ she cried, ‘and I’ll go and stay with my sister Gracie and get out of your way.’

He snapped back that he wasn’t in the States for fun, he’d come to find Shirley some lucrative bookings.

‘You’re supposed to be my manager,’ she shouted at him, ‘and you can’t find me one hundred dollars.’

Shirley telephoned Berry and Sylvia in Reigate and asked them to wire money to her. She returned to London the next day and the Beresford Clarkes met her at the airport. Shirley had learned a lesson she never forgot. She had finally realised that she had to come to grips with her financial affairs and, in the years to come, she learnt as much about money matters as an accountant. Managements held their breath when she arrived. It wasn’t easy to do Shirley Bassey down on a contract.

She had learned her lesson the hard way. Sullivan afterwards insisted he had left money for her at the hotel, that he had returned to the hotel later to make sure she was
all right, and discovered she had not taken his money. Instead she had left him a note. In it she wrote, ‘I hope you are happy with what you have done. May God forgive you because I never shall.’

It is quite likely that she meant those last few words, and probably the relationship between Shirley Bassey and Michael Sullivan began to deteriorate from that day. Berry was sure that Sullivan would never have abandoned her, but now he and Sylvia had a sick, unhappy girl on their hands and the first thing was to get her well. The consultant who was called in to see Shirley agreed that her appendix needed watching and she must rest.

She was in an ideal place to recuperate, a large country house on the top of Reigate Hill that had thirty rooms and acres of land. Shirley fell in love with Sylvia’s white Pekinese dog called Bumble. ‘I wish I had a little dog like this to sit with me in my white Jaguar,’ said Shirley and then mentioned Michael for the first time since her return. ‘And where’s the Jaguar that he promised me?’ Which meant that she was now prepared to overlook the quarrel in San Francisco.

Michael arrived with the press and photographers and a white Jaguar with blue leather upholstery, and a big blue bow. Sylvia had arranged something else. In the driver’s seat sat a little white poodle with a blue satin ribbon around his neck, straight from the Pilgrim’s Rest Kennels on Reigate Hill. As Sylvia said, ‘I’m not sure which Shirley liked best, the Jaguar or the dog.’

Leslie Grade was unimpressed with the press photographs of Shirley and her Jaguar. ‘They’ll be saying Shirley who?’
he said scathingly. ‘She’s been away too long.’ He agreed to send Shirley off on a provincial tour, but she had to climb back to the position she had held before she had gone to Australia.

Getting Shirley lost for a few days was Sullivan’s first publicity ruse. S
HIRLEY
B
ASSEY MISSING
! N
ATIONWIDE SEARCH FOR GIRL SINGER
. I
S SHE STILL ALIVE
? Sullivan’s ruse worked. Even the police believed him. The country was alerted to her face on the front page of every newspaper. Then a wily journalist found out that Sullivan had bought a return ticket to Bath, and the ruse turned sour. Sullivan had holed up a disgusted Shirley in a hotel in Bath. She was spending her time watching television while everyone was looking for the missing star. The police nearly locked up Sullivan, and Shirley was able to leave the hotel in time for her first night at the Chiswick Empire. Someone threw an egg at her from the gallery. It missed and Shirley thought it was some nice person throwing her a flower.

Sullivan’s next plan focused on the biggest show business event of the year, one that would be televised and transmitted to every sitting room in the land. It was ‘The Night of a Hundred Stars’, to be staged at the Palladium at midnight in late July. Shirley just
had
to be up there with Sir Laurence Olivier and all Britain’s biggest stars.