Shirley by Muriel Burgess Page B

careful and canny thought. ‘Imagine that we’re in a nightclub,’ he said. ‘Imagine beautiful girls, men wanting to sow a few wild oats looking at them; getting ideas, wondering. Staying up late. Burning the candle at both ends. That kind of thing.’
    ‘What do you want to sell, Mike?’
    ‘Sex.’
    ‘I think Shirley Bassey has a very good voice and she’s got a great future,’ said Ross. ‘Let’s write her a very good song. Why don’t we start with your idea about burning the candle. Lovely light. Fabulous flame. Let’s think about heat . . . burning . . . sex. The girl needs help, the man needs help. Let’s call this song “Who’ll Help Me Burn My Candle”. At both ends . . .’
    Ross Parker was an inspired lyric writer. It took him alittle time, but when the song was finished, it was full of wit and innuendo. Shirley would need to learn fifty lines, and she still had one last booking, in Hull, before her tour was over. On the whole, the tour had gone smoothly, but in Workington an almighty row had erupted between Shirley and Michael over money. Most of their rows were over money. Shirley, it turned out, owed forty pounds in back commission to her first agent, Georgie Wood, and had held on to one of the salary cheques in order to pay it.
    ‘You’ve been using my money,’ declared a furious Sullivan. ‘You know you have to take your salary out and give the rest to me.’
    ‘I earn the money,’ argued Shirley. ‘I pay you.’
    Resentment and anger escalated on both sides and led to Shirley in tears, while Sullivan insisted that he paid her and she owed him money. He drew up a balance sheet demonstrating just how much she was in debt to him. He was promoting her, he told her, and if she didn’t like the arrangement, he would tear up the contract there and then.
    Never mind that she’d just had an unqualified rave review in Workington: ‘Shirley Bassey has a magnetic personality. We want to see much more of her.’
    Never mind that next week she would be second-billed on her home ground, the New Theatre in Cardiff, where she would be going home to Sharon and to her mother . . . and Shirley wept because she couldn’t bear it if she didn’t go.
    And so they made up. The week at Cardiff was a complete sell-out. All the Bay Girls came to the show and to Shirley’s dressing room afterwards, where she gave each of them a little keepsake that she had bought and wrapped.At last, Shirley Bassey was ‘The Rose’. In Tiger Bay the most beautiful girl in the community had always been called The Rose. The label had connotations of grace and charm and elegance. It was a great honour, far more so than simply being called the most beautiful girl, and it was an honour that had never been accorded to Shirley.
    Now, at the New Theatre, wonderfully lit in her beautiful dress and full make-up, Shirley Bassey brought prestige to the community. Now she really was ‘The Rose of Tiger Bay’.
    Ross Parker had gone up to see Shirley in Hull so that they could rehearse the new song and try it out in front of an audience. Shirley often remarked later in her career that, at first, she didn’t understand half the words she sang in that song. That may have been so, but Ross was very pleased with her and agreed that he would act as her accompanist when she opened at the Astor club. Shirley relied on his guidance for the correct phrasing and emphasis – without his help, she still lacked the experience to put the song across to its best advantage. It was as important to Ross as to Shirley and Michael that his new song should be a success.
    Shirley was having a new dress made for the Astor: rich white silk, moulded to the contours of her body down to the knees, then flared out in stiffened folds to the floor. White suited her wonderfully, and this dress for her London debut was a prototype for the sort of clothes that became her trademark. Not for her the diaphanous little numbers in flimsy chiffon that reveal