Shirley (31 page)

Bernard was appearing at the Fenice Theatre in Venice when he noticed a poster announcing Shirley’s forthcoming appearance at the Venice Lido. It was the obvious thing to take a water taxi out to the Lido and see her.

At the hotel they told Bernard that Shirley was out
having lunch and explained how to find the restaurant. Shirley out of bed and having lunch? The girl who didn’t wake up until midday and then only wanted eggs, was sitting at a table covered with a red and white checkered cloth, a glass of red wine in one hand and the other held by a good-looking man. She looked the happiest woman in the world. Bernard joined them, and as lunch progressed he could hardly believe his eyes. Shirley had changed completely. She ate spaghetti, she drank wine and above all she was enjoying herself over a meal as he had never seen her do before. The biggest surprise of all was her radiance, the sure sign of a woman in love.

Sitting with her was the new man in her life, Sergio Novak. He was one of the most handsome men Bernard had ever seen, not a bit the usual smooth Italian type. He was tall, fair, muscular and very male. There was a Slav look about him, but what Bernard liked most of all was his easy, friendly manner and the way he looked at Shirley. He was head over heels in love with her.

Venice was a very romantic place to be that year. Shirley had come to the Hotel Excelsior to star in their cabaret. Sergio Novak, assistant manager of the Excelsior, was the same charming and helpful person who had looked after Kenneth and Shirley so well on her previous visit. Now that Shirley was alone he could not do enough for her. He had real warmth, there was nothing phoney about him. When they discovered that they were in love he seemed surprised how events had overtaken them. He was a modest man, and being the lover of a beautiful woman who was also an international singing star obviously took some getting used to.

Bernard wasn’t the only one in Venice who realised that Shirley and Sergio were very much in love. Newsmen came sniffing around. Shirley told them she was willing to answer any questions, but, please, couldn’t they see she was having a lovely time – Venice was so romantic, Italy was so wonderful . . . What about Signor Novak? they insisted. ‘He is very kind and helpful,’ said Shirley.

She was telling the truth. For the first time for so long here was a man who just wanted to spend time with her, who wanted to look after her. He treated her as if she was an ordinary girl. She was thirty-one and Sergio was thirty-four. They were both young, but not too young, and had the prime of their lives ahead of them.

Back in Cardiff, Shirley’s mother was being telephoned by the press. ‘Is Shirley going to marry Roberto Vincento?’

‘I don’t think so. Are you sure you’ve got the name right?’

‘Well, he’s an Italian anyway.’

The
Western Mail
still got it wrong: ‘Cardiff born Shirley Bassey will marry an Italian. The man she will marry is Roberto Vincento who she met at the San Remo contest this year.

‘Last night Shirley’s mother told me, “I’ve known for three weeks that Shirley planned to marry this month.

‘“I don’t know her future husband but I am delighted at the news. She needs someone to look after her and the children.

‘“I shall probably be invited to meet Mr Vincento when Shirley returns to Britain,” added Shirley’s mother. “It doesn’t matter to me what he is like as long as Shirley is happy.”’

Although they’d got the name wrong, the facts were right. On 13 August 1968, while Shirley was appearing at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas, she and Sergio were married. The ceremony took place at The Little Church of the West in Las Vegas at two-thirty a.m.

Shirley wore a dress of blue and mauve chiffon, specially designed for her wedding by her English dressmaker Douglas Darnell. Sharon and Samantha, aged thirteen and six respectively, were flower girls. The wedding ceremony lasted five minutes but the champagne party afterwards at the Sahara Hotel lasted until four-thirty in the morning.

Shirley said afterwards, ‘My daughters adore Sergio. He will be a wonderful father.’

‘Mrs Eliza Mendi’ reported the
Western Mail
, ‘said that she has never met her son-in-law, but Shirley had promised to bring him over to meet her and send wedding photographs.’

When Shirley’s mother did meet Sergio they got on very well. Sergio loved and respected ‘Mama’ as much as Shirley did. He was a naturally good father and much loved in return. Shirley and Sergio were so much in love that their differences could be overlooked.

This new chapter in Shirley’s life was a happy one. The couple lived in Lugano, a lakeside town in Switzerland. On the other side of the lake was Italy and so there was a real Italian feel to the place; a lot of Italians lived in Lugano and spoke their own language there. Sergio himself was from Trieste, on the border of the former Yugoslavia and Italy. There is a great contrast between these two countries, and Sergio looked more like those Italians born on the Austrian
border, north of Trieste. His height made him tower over most shorter Italians. He spoke Italian, French, German and English so was perfectly at home in Switzerland.

The Novak apartment was in the Via Sorengo, an ordinary street in Lugano. On the front door of the apartment was a little plate inscribed with the name ‘Novak’. Thelma, the nanny from London, had come too, and still looked after Samantha, also acting as housekeeper when Shirley was on tour. Sharon was away at a Swiss boarding school.

Shirley was having a two-year exile from the land of her birth, while financial arrangements were made for her to be officially domiciled in Switzerland. It always helped if you were an international star as far as the Swiss authorities were concerned. The Swiss were renowned for turning down millionaire applicants, and as for buying a house in Switzerland, forget it. But Shirley, with her Italian husband, was welcomed. Earlier, she had inadvertently transferred forty thousand pounds from Britain against Treasury regulations, but eventually the transfer was successfully ironed out. Shirley said, ‘I innocently took money that was mine so that I could start a new life.’

Bernard met Shirley and Sergio in Italy after their marriage when the three of them had lunch together. Bernard thought that Shirley looked happy and well. She had even put on a bit of weight. When she stood up to leave, her husband gave her an affectionate little pat on her rear. ‘You’re putting on weight, baby.’

Shirley was capable of looking after herself. She gave Sergio a very frosty look, then she turned to Bernard, ‘Balls,’ she said, ‘this man! I could kill him sometimes.’ As
she told Bernard later ‘When Sergio suggests that I cook a little pasta for supper, I tell him, listen baby, if I sing for my supper, I bloody well don’t have to cook it as well.’

Shirley made it clear to Sergio that if he thought the place for women was in the kitchen he was way out of line. She knew that Italian males were very jealous, but she was earning a lot of money attracting huge audiences and half of the audiences were male.

Sergio did his best to understand. He said in an interview, ‘My wife has thousands of male admirers who send her flowers and love letters. I accept this attention from her fans. But if someone flirts with her in front of me my coolness disappears.’

Shirley wanted to stretch herself professionally. The loss of
Josephine
had been a terrible blow, and she knew that Sergio could never be another Kenneth Hume as far as the professional side of things was concerned. However, as time went by, he gradually began to take over the position of Shirley’s manager. After Shirley left London, a well-known English agent and manager, Robert Patterson, had looked after her, and his wife Sybil became a close friend. But Sergio, though a real beginner in international show business, was anxious to learn the ropes. He knew little yet of the many less appealing aspects of business, the jealousies, the nastiness, the protectiveness, and the unbelievable egos. It was not an easy arena to climb into, and Sergio would not escape completely unscathed.

He said, in all innocence, ‘At first I was naïve. For a year people took advantage of me, but after that baby, I made them pay.’

Bargaining was more of a way of life around the
Mediterranean and this was one side of the business that Sergio understood well. He could deal with promoters and agents and his views about Shirley’s future as a concert artist fitted in with her own: concerts by well-known entertainers were already big business in America, and in the Seventies and Eighties Britain was catching up, building large auditoriums that would hold thousands of fans.

If Shirley could get an engagement at Carnegie Hall in New York and fill it, then year after year she could fill concert halls in all the world’s major cities. Not only would it be more financially rewarding than the nightclub circuit but her lifestyle would improve, no more smokey venues and late-night performances that could exhaust her until the early hours of the morning.

Some months after their marriage Shirley and Sergio started off on her usual January Australian-American tour. They were both very happy. Shirley was pregnant, and Sergio was seeing Australia for the first time. In Sydney the booking was as usual for Chequers, the nightclub owned by the Wong brothers, where Shirley always enjoyed an enthusiastic welcome and a great opening night, but then came the first piece of bad luck – Shirley developed a virus infection of the throat. After a week she seemed to be getting over the bad effects when, suddenly and disastrously, in the middle of a performance she felt unwell. She was rushed to the Waverly Memorial Hospital in Sydney where she suffered a miscarriage.

They were both broken-hearted. Shirley was longing to have a baby with Sergio and their disappointment was great. They cancelled the rest of Shirley’s bookings in
Australia, but as soon as she had recuperated they flew to the United States for her American tour.

Campione was a beautiful little principality on Lake Como over the Italian border. Almost opposite, on the other side of Lake Lugano was the town of Lugano, where Shirley lived.

Bernard Hall was appearing in a solo act at the high-class Campione Casino. He found Campione a little paradise; a perfect place to work. His audiences were mostly the casino guests. The matinees brought elderly ladies who loved having handsome young men to entertain them; the evening performances attracted a younger, more sophisticated crowd.

At one matinee he noticed that the table right in the front had three unusual occupants, a pretty plump young lady, a little girl who looked about six and a tiny little dark boy of about three or four. The children were wildly excited, and when Bernard finished his opening song and dance, they applauded with gusto. They were Thelma, Shirley’s nanny, little Samantha, aged six or seven and Mark Allen. Shirley and Sergio were away on tour and Thelma was in charge. She had seen the Campione poster in Lugano and had brought the two children round the lake in a taxi as a treat.

Bernard beckoned to little Samantha to come on to the stage. She looked very pretty in a ruffled gingham dress and he knew that she was a natural performer. She came running round to the side of the stage and to his surprise the tiny little dark boy, who he didn’t know, followed, clambering on to the stage after her. Bernard took their
hands and led them to the front of the stage. ‘Who’s the little boy?’ he whispered to Samantha. ‘He’s my bruvver, Mark,’ she whispered back.

He told the audience that these were the children of Shirley Bassey the international singer, and would the ladies like to listen to a song from Samantha? They’d love to. Tiny Mark who clutched a toy ukulele was delighted. In a little yellow tee shirt and shorts he waved to them and blew kisses. The orchestra, on the nod, struck up, and Bernard knew all would be well. The children were good at copying and loved the feeling that they were the centre of attraction. The three of them did a little dance, then Samantha sang, ‘I’ll Be Your Sweetheart, If You Will Be Mine’ to rounds of applause. Tiny Mark insisted on being lifted up, and showered kisses on Bernard’s face. He was adorable.

Afterwards Thelma told Bernard the story of Mark. He was the son of one of Shirley’s nieces, Barbara Allen, and his father, serving in the American army in Germany, had deserted them. Little Mark had a disability, a rare complaint called malabsorption which needed treatment with an expensive diet which his mother could not afford. Shirley had stepped in and offered to take Mark to Switzerland to help with his recovery. At the age of three he had gone to live in Lugano and Shirley became his legal guardian while he was there. Mark’s mother was delighted that her child was to be given a chance and she was full of optimism for his future.

Sharon was away at school in England and little Mark was company for Samantha. Thelma would look after both children. It seemed an ideal solution to the problem.
Shirley had lost her baby in Australia, but now she had Mark.

She eventually decided that she would become Mark’s legal guardian with a view to adopting the little boy and Barbara Allen was happy with the arrangements. She was aware that she might not see her son again but she knew she had done the right thing for him. She thought Shirley was a wonderful mother.

Both Samantha and Mark took their new stepfather’s name, Novak. Every time Shirley came home from a tour, she led a happy and normal life with her children. When Thelma saw Bernard at Campione she asked him to come round to the flat and have dinner. Shirley and Sergio were going off on tour again and Thelma and the children would love to see him.

It was raining and dismal when Bernard parked his car outside the apartment house in Via Sorengo one evening, and rang the Novak doorbell. There was a rush of small feet to the door which swung open and then he was being kissed and hugged by Samantha and Mark.

The entrance hall to Shirley and Sergio’s home looked like most European entrance halls except for the large framed photograph standing on a table. It was the famous autographed picture of President Nixon with Shirley sitting cross-legged next to him. The rest of the apartment had the kind of comfortable ambience where two small children and their nanny would feel safe and relaxed, and was a far cry from the elegance of the house in Chester Square. There was Swiss neatness and cleanliness that was only spoilt by the usual confusion made by small children.