Shirley (21 page)

At one nightclub Shirley found the audience were very loud. They never stopped talking and didn’t seem to care whether she sang or not. Finally, she had enough and decided to ask her pianist to play her off. Sullivan made a scene in her dressing room. ‘The audience expect to have the whole programme . . .’ Shirley cut him short. ‘I had finished my act. As an encore I would have sung another song if they’d wanted it, but I decided that they didn’t.’ Sullivan knew finally that he was no longer in control.

On the way home from Australia they decided to spend a few days at the Americana Hotel in New York. It was always useful to renew old contacts and make fresh ones.

Shirley seemed very happy to have met a friend from London in the hotel lift. Later she introduced him to Sullivan; his name was Kenneth Hume. Sullivan remembered having met Hume once in London. He was in television, and one of his many jobs was making advertisements for ATV (Associated Television). He was a bit of an all-rounder, a bit of a mystery.

Kenneth Hume was shorter than Shirley, about five-foot-four, and sandy haired. He was in his late thirties, and had a bit of a pixie look, with a turned-up nose and rather big ears. He was obviously a Londoner and there was just a touch of the cockney barrow boy about him now and then when he raised his voice. He was making a great fuss of Shirley and she loved every moment of it.

Once back in London Sullivan was negotiating a six-week season at the Opera House in Blackpool for Shirley when the owner of the exclusive Les Ambassadeurs club in Park Lane telephoned to say that Shirley and Kenneth Hume were in the club and had just announced their engagement. Sullivan could hardly believe it. ‘Give them a bottle of champagne from me,’ he said.

Shirley herself gave an interview in which she explained in greater detail what had happened. ‘I liked Kenneth,’ she told the interviewer, ‘but I didn’t fancy him. It was one of those things that crept up on me. Then suddenly over dinner it hit me, Boing! It was magic. Sexual chemistry is the key to a relationship. It’s wonderful when it happens,’ Shirley declared. It was obviously enough to make Shirley and Kenneth announce their engagement at Les Ambassadeurs.

Sullivan had made it his business to find out what he
could about Shirley’s fiancé. When he next saw Shirley alone he said to her, ‘You can’t marry Kenneth Hume.’

‘Oh yes, I can.’

‘Shirley, he’s a known homosexual. Listen to me, it never works.’

‘Oh yes it does. We love each other and he will change for me.’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Mikey,’ said Shirley. ‘You don’t know Kenneth Hume. I know much more about him than you do.’ Shirley enjoyed a level of ease and familiarity with homosexuals that Sullivan could never share. Bernard Hall, one of her earlier lovers, had been bisexual. He’d been a good lover and a good friend.

Yet when Bernard Hall heard about Shirley’s engagement to Kenneth Hume he, too, could hardly believe it. He was touring in Spain when one of his girls produced an English newspaper and showed him a picture of Shirley and Kenneth. ‘Do you know him?’ she asked. ‘Yes,’ said Bernard, ‘I know him well.’

It had been a friendship that had started when Bernard was a drama student at the Italia Conti stage school in the mid-1940s. He had been seventeen and Kenneth must have been about twenty-one. ‘I was buying an apple for my lunch and Kenneth was on the other side of the barrow. I thought that Kenneth was part of the market. “Wotcha cock,” he said to me with his gap-toothed grin and bright eyes. He was soon calling me Bernie, which I hated.’

Bernard noticed that people were always stopping Kenneth in the streets of Soho, asking him if he could get them this or that. ‘“Okay, but it’ll cost you.” I knew that
one day Kenneth would be rich, even though he was killing himself with sixty cigarettes a day and junk food. And he never relaxed for a moment, he was always on the go. He hardly drank wine or spirits, it was cups of tea all the time.

‘It sounds odd,’ continued Bernard, ‘but we weren’t at all jealous of each other. I was good-looking and ambitious but I also knew that I hadn’t Kenneth’s brains. I used to think he had a touch of genius. We were friends, Kenneth was kind to me when he didn’t have to be, when I was a kid without a bean.’

There was nothing sexual in their friendship. Bernard hadn’t homosexual tendencies in those days, and Kenneth’s inclinations tended towards blonds who had a touch of choirboy innocence about them. ‘Not that I even thought about things like that at the time,’ said Bernard. ‘I was young and broke and we just used to chat. I liked him. He had an East End accent in those days, and I used to think of him as “the little cockney sparrow”, but he knew everything that was going on in London, and he was crazy about the stage and the screen although he was not well-liked in the film world. I guess you could say he was a typical “wide boy” of the time.’

Even so, he found the idea that Kenneth and Shirley were in love hard to take. He could not accept that Kenneth had fallen in love with Shirley in the accepted sense. Kenneth was openly homosexual and even if he was having a bisexual fling with Shirley, he would probably revert quite quickly to the kind of encounters he preferred.

But Bernard eventually conceded that Shirley was very young, she was only twenty-two and she might believe she was in love with him. She certainly needed someone to look
after her, and if Kenneth liked people he was honest with them so he might well be good to her.

The happy couple went off to Cannes for the 1961 Film Festival. They stayed for a few days at the Carlton Hotel in great style and pictures were taken of them with Shirley looking glamorous in diaphanous beachwear and Kenneth lounging in white pants and a smart towelling shirt. Kenneth played roulette at Juan les Pins, the next casino resort down the coast. Back home in Soho he was known as a gambler, a man who could always be relied on to make up the number in a game of cards. In the South of France, John Mills (not to be confused with the actor) who ran Les Ambassadeurs marvelled at the way Kenneth played three roulette tables at the same time – and actually won.

The couple drank aperitifs on the smart Carlton Terrace, and dined at the most expensive restaurant on the Côte d’Azur at La Napoule. Kenneth was in his element. A beautiful, exotic looking wife-to-be made him an object of envy for the first time in his life.

Shirley returned from France for her six-week season at the Opera House, Blackpool. There was an unhappy feeling of a
ménage à trois
in the air backstage. Shirley, the star of the show was driven backwards and forwards to the stage door by Kenneth Hume in his hired Rolls Royce while Sullivan, who was still Shirley’s legal partner lurked unhappily in the wings.

Kenneth told Sullivan that he thought it might be a good idea, if, now that he was managing Shirley, Sullivan could make himself useful in other ways. For instance, he could stand in the wings for Shirley’s performance holding a box of tissues and a glass of water, so that she could dab
her face and take a sip of water now and then.

Sullivan knew perfectly well that Hume was trying to humiliate him, to insult and anger him so much that he would walk out of the theatre in a rage and perhaps lose his rights over the show completely. At last, he suggested that if Hume was so anxious to get rid of him he should meet his lawyer and buy him out.

Michael Sullivan received a cheque for ten thousand pounds and this time his relationship with Shirley Bassey was finally over. Kenneth Hume was now in charge.

THURSDAY, 8 JUNE
1961, The
South Wales Echo

S
HIRLEY
B
ASSEY WEDS

Shirley Bassey, the singer from Cardiff, wearing a pink costume with toque hat and veil to match arrived at the Paddington, London, Register Office just before 9.30 a.m. in Mr Hume’s light coffee coloured Bentley – registered number KH 14. About two minutes after the bride had entered the building Mr Hume arrived wearing a dark blue suit with a rose in his lapel. About fourteen minutes later bride and groom appeared arm in arm. A group of housewives with prams shopping in the busy street wished her ‘Good luck, Shirley.’

It was Shirley’s first marriage. She was twenty-four. Shirley had several times refused marriage proposals from film producer, Kenneth Hume. But now she had married him. Shirley herself offered one reason why she gave in at last. She said, ‘Kenneth was eleven years older than me. My
father left my mother when I was about two and for a long time I was looking for a father figure in all my men.’

The news of Shirley’s marriage was not well received by all. Someone said, ‘All he does is strut down Wardour Street and pretend to be a film producer. He’ll spend all her money on gambling.’ Even actress Diana Dors, who was well known for her good sense of humour as well as her bad taste in men, wasn’t too keen on Kenneth Hume. ‘I haven’t always picked the right men, but I certainly was lucky when I missed that one.’

But with Shirley, Kenneth seemed to show another side. He was a better manager for her than Michael Sullivan. Apart from being her legal husband there was always an element of protectiveness in Kenneth’s attitude to Shirley. From the beginning of their marriage they would have slanging matches with each other and the air would turn blue with expletives, but Shirley was used to such scenes; her noisy quarrels with Sullivan had been well known throughout show business. If you wanted a quiet life with Shirley you let her make the decisions, but the men in her life often enjoyed the drama of an argument.

Kenneth Hume had an office of his own in Wardour Street when he married Shirley. He had staff, and connections in the profession whom he could call on. Sullivan had started his management of Shirley on a shoestring, and apart from Sylvia and Berry, never delegated anyone else to look after her. But Kenneth Hume made sure there was always someone with her on tour who would take care of her. He did not tour with her himself, although he’d sometimes make a quick visit to wherever she was, but he never put himself in the position of being at her
beck and call. She could telephone him wherever she was in the world and complain and he’d listen, but he didn’t always act.

Hume was very lucky to have an exceptional office manager in Leslie Simmons, who would arrange timetables, hotels and planes to perfection. All Shirley’s tours were well planned and if the boss didn’t interfere nothing would go wrong. Kenneth Hume would negotiate her fee and make sure she was paid both well and on time. He took good advice on the best way to invest and increase Shirley’s money.

It seemed obvious why Shirley had left Sullivan for Hume. Apart from her husband’s superior business acumen, he had a more sensitive and gentle nature. Bernard Hall has said, ‘In spite of the fact that Kenneth could be a number one bastard, mean and cruel and secretive, with his eye always on the main chance, I thought that this toughness of his didn’t go all that deep. I sensed at the time that this was true and found out later that he was vulnerable in many ways. He looked after his interests and decided which company was most profitable for her.’

On Kenneth’s advice Shirley had left Phillips, and was now with EMI Records. In 1961 she made six recordings, produced by Norman Newell. They included, ‘You’ll Never Know’, ‘So in Love’, and ‘As Long as He Needs Me’ from Lionel Bart’s
Oliver!
This record proved to be one of Shirley’s biggest bestsellers. With Hume’s help, she was on her way to becoming a major recording star. Like Sullivan before him, he knew what enormous returns there were in the recording side of the business.

Hume negotiated contracts for Shirley in America. She
sang in Las Vegas and New York, then toured the East Coast of America and Canada. For Shirley it was solid work, just as it had been with Sullivan but her life had always been that way. There really was no let-up. Apart from the big international tours there were the European appearances; she went to the Tivoli Gardens in Stockholm, to nightclubs in Brussels and Antwerp and to the South of France where she played nightclubs, cabarets and casinos all along the Côte d’Azur. Most British entertainers enjoyed doing the South of France. For Shirley it sometimes meant a one-night stand at a gala at the Monte Carlo Sporting Club or at a summer casino, like Juan les Pins or Cannes. The fee always included two days or more in a first class hotel and the sunshine always helped.

A year after her marriage, Shirley went back to Cannes. Bernard Hall was driving along the Corniche when he saw a poster outside the Cannes Summer Casino, a large picture of a honey-coloured girl wearing an outrageous evening dress: a skimpy jewelled bra attached by two jewelled straps to a fragile skirt that ended just above the navel. There was rather more of her supple body on view than of the exotic dress. ‘Miss Shirley Bassey,’ said the poster, ‘will arrive for next week’s Gala.’

Bernard Hall was still based in France and worked the winter in Paris and the summer in Monte Carlo. He toured with four of his girls, dancing and singing in the casinos along the Côte d’Azur, as The Bernard Hall Quintet. Since they had first met in 1956, he had followed Shirley’s career and marriage through the newspapers. They had occasionally communicated, but he longed to meet her in the flesh again.

Riches, the man from the Eddie Marouani Paris Agency who looked after all the English performers, met Shirley’s plane at Nice airport as a matter of course. Bernard had telephoned him for the time of arrival and he was there too. Down the aircraft steps came Shirley, holding the hand of a little seven-year-old girl. She was Sharon, Shirley’s daughter, who had come with her for a short seaside holiday.

The affection between Shirley and Bernard was unchanged and they were delighted to see each other. Vic Lewis, from Kenneth Hume’s London office, had come with Shirley to look after her, but seeing the attentive Bernard he realised this was an opportunity to have a little holiday himself. Bernard drove them all to the Majestic Hotel where Shirley was staying. Up in Shirley’s room they all gossiped for a while then Riches left; soon after, Vic Lewis followed suit, leaving the old friends to catch up, and saying, ‘See you at band call tomorrow Shirley.’