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Feature: Nothing like a Dame By Melanie Rickey, Sunday Times Style Supplement, 7 Sep 2003

When Shirley Bassey auctions her gowns for charity this month, 50 years of memories will go with them

She's here, she's here! In she strides, 5ft 5in of cocoa skin, pixie-cut hair, toned muscles and excellent "work". And only 40 minutes late. Her upper arms don't jangle. Her booty is solid. The beautiful long nails are all hers. She's wearing Sonia Rykiel shoes, a pair of tight jeans, a sparkly T-shirt and - here's the giveaway - a lilac, tailored Escada jacket. "I've only seen one other set of naturals like that in my career," the manicurist shrieks, "and they belong to Joan Collins." Dame Shirley Bassey may be 68, may have been performing for 50 years, yet she can hold an audience rapt with a sustained note better than any of the young pop tarts bopping around today. There's no doubt, the lass from Tiger Bay, Cardiff, is still a world-class diva.

Today, Bassey is on top form, whooping and laughing over designer suits and diamonds as she gets made up for the shoot. She chats away to her hairdresser, John Chapman. "Joan (Collins) always says to me, 'Shirley, what do you do with your arms?' I say, 'Lift weights, Joan!'" At which point she affects a biceps curl. Chapman is the one who, last year, persuaded her to do away with her collection of wigs and go natural on tour for the first time in her career.

Dame Shirley (she was knighted in 2000) doesn't normally give interviews or do fashion shoots. Hell, she doesn't need to. Her 50th-anniversary tour was a sell-out this year, she released an album, Thank You for the Years, and then went back to her home in Monaco to "lounge around in M&S pyjamas" and spend time with new boyfriend, the theatre producer Greg White, with whom she says she is madly in love.

But this year, she is also saying goodbye to a very important part of her career - her stage gowns. Most women have a wardrobe; Bassey has a warehouse. In it is every dress she has ever worn throughout her career. Each has a story, a song or a tour it was made for, and each one has been loved, worn and updated over the decades. "We did a gold dress for Goldfinger in 1964, and a diamond dress for Diamonds are Forever in 1971." In fact, it's made of thousands of tiny Swarovski crystals and weighs 6kg. She calls it "the workout dress".

On September 18, Bassey is selling every one of those gowns for charity at Christie's. Most of the lots come with matching capes. "I have always worn them for effect, so the audience can gasp when I take it off," she says. The bright, glamorous, Swarovski-encrusted dresses are as much Shirley Bassey as the music and the woman.

Amazingly, they have all been designed by the same man, the couturier Douglas Darnell, who, since they met in the late 1950s, has worked exclusively for her. It's a unique showbiz relationship. "The ingredients of a Bassey dress?" she says. "Sex - and glamour, glamour, glamour. Only, what do they call it now? Blinger?" "No," her hairdresser interjects. "Now it's bling-a-bling." "Bling-a-bling!" cries Bassey. "I love it! You have to wear the make-up - lips, lashes, liner, the lot. I'm the complete opposite in real life. But I would be lost without eye pencil and lipstick."

Selling the frocks will close a chapter in her life. "They were lying in a warehouse doing nothing, and they are gowns that I will never wear again. They meant so very much to my career. Why wait until I am dead? They are my gowns, my career, and I wanted to see where the money would go." Proceeds from the sale of the dresses will go to the Noah's Ark appeal to raise funds for a children's hospital in Wales, and the Dame Shirley Scholarship, awarded to young people of outstanding musical talent who want to train at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

Bassey's first brush with fashion and glamour came at 16, at her debut show. "I didn't have a gown. I had a merry widow (bodice) and I borrowed a long, lavender net skirt and an elastic belt with a big buckle. And that's how I went on stage. That was the start of everything - the see-through dress, underwear as a top. Everybody's wearing that now - it's so in." Bassey knew nothing of Paris fashion or Hollywood stars. "I came from Cardiff, for goodness' sake, it was the 1950s - we would never go out without a hat and gloves."

It didn't take long before her frocks became more outrageous. The 1960s harem dresses with crisscross bodices cut out to reveal the torso were scandalous at the time, today they are pure Beyoncé. In the old days, Bassey had to develop a Japanese geisha-girl walk for the tight little dresses, but she got tired of mincing. "That's when the big splits came in - I wanted to stride the stage. One dress split right up to my bum, where I have a birthmark - and you could see it! So they taped a knicker to me with gaffer tape. We didn't have tit tape in those days, only gaffer tape."

When the dresses go under the hammer, her drag-queen impersonators will be out in force. "I don't know who will be buying them, but I have heard that my friend who runs a drag club in Germany will be there." Few of her impersonators impress Bassey, although one did. "It was Adnan Kashoggi's 50th birthday in Marbella, and I said to this boy, would you do me a favour, sing for Adnan Kashoggi and be my surprise for his birthday?' He said, 'Yes, if you lend me your wig.' So I took my wig off and gave it to him. He was blond and blue-eyed, for God's sake - well, he came out with my wig on and in dark make-up, with dark contact lenses. It was spooky, it was me, the walk! " Bassey starts to sing: "I, I who have nothing; I, I who have no one ... I freaked out. For 10 minutes, I lost my identity."

Bassey would like Cardiff to buy one of the gowns and put it in the museum. "Swarovski are also after one, because they're all made of their crystals. When we started using them, they just had a tiny little shop in London, making components for binoculars and cats' eyes for motorways. I used to have a villa in Sardinia, and the Swarovski's had one next door - they are such a lovely family." She says she will be sad to see the dresses go, but she's proud they will help others. "To last that long is incredible, and to still have the success is just mind-boggling," she says, her voice cracking. "I sit there and think: where has it all gone? It brings back memories, like my first performance. I wish I had that first outfit, just so I can see where I came from. It's a Cinderella story. I could put it next to all the other dresses to complete the history."

Despite all the press to the contrary, Bassey seems surprisingly down to earth, until the camera turns on her, and suddenly a diva is in the room. She is wistful, too, though. "My kids didn't inherit either my glamour or my talent." Cue laughing. "I mean, where did I get mine? Being a star is very hard work, and I don't think the kids today want to put that in. They think you can become famous overnight. But keeping yourself famous ... " She pauses for effect. "That is the secret."

Dame Shirley Bassey, 50 years of glittering gowns, a gala charity auction, is at Christie's, London on September 18: 020 7839 9060

© Sunday Times 2003
 

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