)
| The
Magic Dragon
From FHM Magazine, by Mike Peake, Oct 2000 |
Legendary Seventies pop belter, turned ironically
cool singing pensioner - FHM catches up with Shirley Bassey)
It's
only recently that Shirley Bassey has started to mean something to people who
don't yet have an eye on a plot in the local churchyard. She might be as old as
your Gran (she is a Gran), but she has earned her place in the James Bond
history books thanks to the theme songs to Goldfinger,
Diamonds Are Forever and Moonraker, which Shirley made
unforgettable by wrapping them up in her huge, soaring voice. Way back in 1968,
Sean Connery - 007 himself - underlined Shirley's burgeoning popularity by
agreeing to write the sleeve notes to her new album,
12 Of Those Songs: "A new collection of songs recorded by Shirley Bassey,
like a new James Bond film, is an event" scribbled the charitable Scot.
Recently, Bassey has won credibility amongst a new generation of nerdy music
fans on the back of smooth big-band hit History Repeating, which was
written especially for her by Propellerheads. There's even more kudos to come
with the release this week of a new Shirley remix album, Diamonds Are Forever,
which features some of her best-known songs tweaked by Moloko, Groove Armada and
Superfunk, among others. "It's weird," says Shirley - now Dame Shirley - talking
to FHM in her luxury Monaco home. "Just when I'm thinking of taking it
easy, something magical happens and off we go again.")
Sixty-three
years old, and with just the tiniest trace of her native Wales evident in an
accent best described as "posh", Shirley Bassey has led an incredible life.
There have been some truly bizarre relationships, an arrest (for shoving a
policeman), a court case, deaths, booze, tragedies, fights - and even a siege.
That incident is described in the biography Shirley, An Appreciation Of The
Life Of Shirley Bassey, and centres around the singer - then aged just 20 -
and a besotted ex-boyfriend called Terence Davies, who was given the disarmingly
harmless sounding nickname of "Pepé". According to the biography, "a terrified
Shirley was trapped in her room at the hotel with a loaded gun to her stomach.
She knew the gun really was loaded because Davies had already blasted the
telephone to pieces.")
A male friend of Shirley's took
a bullet in the incident, and Shirley was ordered to strip naked while Frank
Sinatra discs were played by the armed psycho on the record player. The siege
ended when the police - who had been anxiously watching the ordeal from across
the street - steamed in.
Sadly, Bassey has long since
buried this story, one of a number of eye-popping tales that today's crop of
publicity-hungry divas would be quite delighted to share with the world. "We
won't go there, thank you," Shirley tells FHM, with a verbal rap of the
knuckles. "That was far too long ago."
Equally off-bounds are
Shirley's relationships with a gay man and a bisexual man - one of whom she
married. She does, however, admit that her career has always stood in the way of
a quality love life. "Men get overawed by who I am, by the power thing, and they
can't handle being 'Mr. Bassey'. It's been a hindrance."
)
Born in Tiger Bay near Cardiff
in 1937 to a white mum and a Nigerian dad, Shirley's working-class upbringing
saw her sleeping three in a bed with two of her sisters, clothed in
hand-me-downs. When the family moved to the unromantically-named steel town of
Splott after pops was deported in 1939, Shirley was soon subjected to racist
taunts. She quickly developed a reputation at school as a fighter, and one old
friend is reported to have said, "Anyone who called her 'darkie' got a real
walloping."
Even now the Bassey temper is
renowned. "I'm like a tiger," she tells FHM. "When people are not doing
their jobs properly and I'm doing mine, that's when I become a tigress. If I'm
working hard I demand that from the people around me."
In
1993, Shirley's assistant Hilary Levy filed a lawsuit against the singer after
being dismissed. The assistant claimed she was belted by Bassey, but Shirley
denied it and the allegations were eventually thrown out of court.
"I did once push one of my
husbands," Shirley laughs. "But he was so tall I had to get on the toilet to do
it. I said, 'Come here,' he did, and I went - whack! If he'd have gone up to
anyone the next day and said, 'See this bruise? She did it!' no-one would have
believed him, but he didn't want anyone to think I'd hit him, so he made up this
story that he walked into a window - and no-one believed a word of that."
)
In a career spanning almost 50
years, Shirley Bassey has earned dozens of gold discs, sung for JFK at the White
House, and played to millions of people in everywhere from New York and Vegas to
Japan and Australia. She's still touring now - this summer she played seven
sold-out dates - that's 3,000 people each night - at London's Royal Festival
Hall. (See: 10 concerts at the RFH) And
with so many years in the spotlight, it's little wonder that her renown as a
fiery perfectionist is as well-known as her other reputation - as a bit of a
minx. Even when Shirley was a teenager there were reports that she was up for it
- and that she'd cunningly fashioned a mannequin to put in her bed so she could
go out man-hunting...
I know you'd like that to be
true, but it isn't," Shirley chides. "It's wishful thinking that people have
spread around trying to make out that I'm some sort of sex maniac."
But Shirley Bassey does have a
revelation about her sex life, just for FHM. "I haven't had it for ages,"
she laughs. "What's the word I'm looking for - celibate. I have been for three
of four years now."
)
But you did say a couple of
years ago that it's sex that keeps you fit...
Well, that was a long time ago. I don't know what it's like any more. I've
no-one serious in my life and I haven't for a long time. Now I keep fit at the
gym.
The
entertainer's stalker stood out a mile
Do you find yourself looking jealously at all the young girls with their
firm, hard, bodies?
No way! They're looking at me!
Can you share any hot sex
tips with the FHM readers?
Well, I'd be working from memory. But no. You can't write what I'm thinking
about, I'm afraid. It's all too X-rated!
On that very subject, your
costumes have always been rather revealing: have you ever been mistaken for an
"exotic dancer"?
No, but I do think there's a frustrated stripper in me trying to get out. When I
do (the supremely raunchy) Big Spender, I'm away. I love doing that - I
never get tired of it.
Have
you ever "popped out" by accident?
All of those old costumes were treacherous. In the early days I was taking my
body into my hands every time I performed! Whenever I heaved my bosom to take in
a breath for a top note... oh, God! But I learned to live with it and not worry
about things going wrong - and then one day the dreaded thing did happen. The
gown split and started to fall, and I grabbed my breast - but it looked like I
was grabbing my chest and everyone thought I was having a heart attack. And the
song, believe it or not, was The Lady Is A Tramp.
)
Having half the world know
what you look like must be a major pain in the arse - what's the worst thing
about fame?
Just being successful. Everyone wants a piece of you, and they want to touch you
and be there with you because they think it might rub off on them. And you're
never sure whether you're being invited somewhere for you, or because of what
you represent. So I just tell myself I'm being invited somewhere for what I
represent, because if I hadn't become Shirley Bassey the entertainer, I don't
think I'd be quite so interesting. And I accept that.
Do you disguise yourself to hide from drooling fans?
I put on a hat and dark glasses, but it doesn't make any difference, because the
minute I open my mouth I blow it. There's something about my voice that makes
everybody look around. I was on a tour of America once and couldn't see my
assistant so I called out. Instead of my assistant turning up this man suddenly
popped up in front of me and said, "I knew it was you - I'd know that voice
anywhere!"
Are there many deranged
Bassey admirers?
No, but I do have problems with mothers who insist on shoving their little
children in front of me in the street. That's not the ideal place to be stopped.
It happened one time in Bournemouth and I said, "Look, I'm sure your daughter
doesn't want my autograph" - the child was about two years old and wasn't even
looking at me. So I said, "I'm sorry, Madam," and the woman started screaming at
me: "I'm never buying your records again!"
)
What about other strange
people lurking in the wings. Mobsters, for example - from your Vegas days in the
Sixties?
There was one time in Los Angeles when a mobster approached my manager and said
he wanted to buy my contract. My manager said, "Yes, I'll sell it to you, as
long as I remain her manager." Luckily, the Mobster didn't want the contract if
he couldn't manage me and that was that.
Of all
the stars you've rubbed shoulders with, some of them must have been boring as
hell. Or just plain nuts. Who was the most disappointing?
That would have to be Madonna. I thought she was going to be as outrageous as
her videos, but I met her at a function and she was very quiet and really rather
disappointing.
Who are the coolest stars you've hung out with?
Probably Sean Connery and Michael Caine, because we were all mates together, and
then Sean went on to do James Bond and Michael did Get Carter. I met Sean
because I was the mascot for a showbiz 11 football team - I would go round with
them and kick off the ball at the start of the match. I was lucky for them so
they adopted me - and I was the only girl travelling with all these handsome
showbiz people. I met Michael through John Barry (the legendary James Bond
composer). (See: Goldfinger)
Connery or Caine - who's the
sexiest?
It would have to be Sean. I mean, when he was Bond he was just so sexy.
Those eyes. And that mouth; he was just sort of wickedly sexy. Whoah! And he was
the best Bond, too.
)
Did you ever get it on with
him?
No, we were just mates. But I would have liked to!
Of all those useless
Seventies TV impressionists, which one used to have you snarling at the telly?
All of them. They always got it wrong. They overdo the movements. Though once I
did see an American impersonator, who was incredible. A man, blond - and I
wondered how the hell he was going to do me. But he came out and he was
me. It was scary. He had a wig on and he put brown contact lenses in and brown
make-up on, and he'd copied one of my gowns... and for 10 minutes he took away
my whole identity. It was freaky.
Now you've passed 60, do you
have three years'-worth of pension gathering dust in a post office somewhere?
I still have a British passport and I pay taxes when I work in England. But I
don't collect my pension, no. That would be quite a sight, wouldn't it, queuing
up for my pension? And I haven't got my bus pass, either.
If you were alone in the
desert, Dame Shirley, and a complete stranger ambled past, would you throttle
him - just to see what it felt like?
No! My mind doesn't work like that. Most people aren't murderers unless they
want to defend themselves. To kill a stranger isn't normal. If you asked me if
I'd do it in self-defence, then yes, but not in the desert just for the hell of
it. No way!
Finally, what are you hoping
for in the next few years?
Well, I think I'd like to have a relationship with someone. I'm ready for it now
- I've had all the success and there's nothing more that I want to achieve. I'm
ready to settle down. She says! Ha!
And what's your ideal man
like?
Someone I can get on with, who will respect me and someone who can live with my
success.
And a shit-hot lover in bed?
Well, that goes without saying...
© FHM Magazine 2000
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