Black Female Actress Biography
Cilla Black OBE (born Priscilla Maria Veronica White on 27 May 1943) is a British singer, actress and television performer who has been successful as an entertainer from 1963 through the present day. She is most famous worldwide for her successful singles "Anyone Who Had A Heart", "You're My World", and "Alfie". After a successful recording career and a brief time as a comedy actress, she became the best paid female presenter in British television history. In September 2009, Cilla's 45 years in showbusiness is celebrated by EMI (the record label which launched her career in 1963) with the release of a new CD/DVD set alongside a series of other digital download releases.
Early life and career
Cilla Black was born in Liverpool to a Protestant father and a Catholic mother. Determined to become an entertainer, she got a part-time job as a cloakroom attendant at Liverpool's Cavern Club, best known for its association with The Beatles. Impromptu performances impressed The Beatles and others. She became a guest singer with the Merseybeat bands Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes and, later, with The Big Three. She was also, meantime, a waitress at the Zodiac coffee lounge, where she was to meet her future husband Bobby Willis.
Epstein had a portfolio of local artists. At first he showed little interest in Cilla, billed as Cilla White or Swinging Cilla. She was introduced to Epstein by John Lennon, who persuaded him to audition her. Her first audition was a failure, partly because of nerves, and partly because The Beatles (who supported her) played the songs in their vocal key rather than re-pitching them for Cilla's voice. In her autobiography What's It All About? she writes:?
I'd chosen to do "Summertime", but at the very last moment I wished I hadn't. I adored this song, and had sung it when I came to Birkenhead with the Big Three, but I hadn't rehearsed it with The Beatles and it had just occurred to me that they would play it in the wrong key. It was too late for second thoughts, though. With one last wicked wink at me, John set the group off playing. I'd been right to worry. The music was not in my key and any adjustments that the boys were now trying to make were too late to save me. My voice sounded awful. Destroyed ? and wanting to die ? I struggled on to the end.?
But after seeing her at a later date, at the Blue Angel jazz club, Epstein contracted with Cilla as his only female client on 6 September 1963. The local music newspaper Mersey Beat misprinted her name as Cilla Black, but Epstein liked the sound of it.
Epstein introduced Cilla to George Martin who signed her to Parlophone Records and produced her debut single, "Love of the Loved" (written by Lennon and McCartney), which was released only three weeks after she contracted with Epstein. The single peaked at a modest number 35, a failure compared to debut releases of Epstein's other artists.
Her second single, released at the beginning of 1964, was the Burt Bacharach-Hal David composition "Anyone Who Had a Heart". The single scored #1 in Britain and became, for that time, the best selling single by a female artist in the history of popular music in England. Her second UK #1 success, "You're My World", was an English-language rendition of the Italian popular song Il Mio Mondo. She also enjoyed chart success with the song in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, South Africa and Canada. This was followed by another Lennon/McCartney composition, It's For You. Paul McCartney played piano at the recording session and the song proved to be another major international success for Black.
Cilla Black belonged to a generation of British female singers which included Dusty Springfield, Petula Clark, Sandie Shaw, and Lulu. These artists were not singer-songwriters but interpreters of 1960s contemporary popular music song writers/producers. Cilla Black recorded much material during this time, including songs written by Phil Spector, Randy Newman, Tim Hardin, and Burt Bacharach. All were produced by George Martin at Abbey Road Studios.
Black's version of "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" scored no. 2 in the UK charts and was stopped from going to no. 1 by the original version of the same song, performed by The Righteous Brothers. This was the first of only three occasions in the history of the British Top 40 where the same song, recorded by two different artists, held the top 2 positions in the chart in the same week.
Being so closely associated with The Beatles, Cilla became the first artist to cover many Lennon/McCartney compositions. Her recordings of "Yesterday", "For No One" and "Across The Universe" were acclaimed critically and became radio favourites. McCartney said Cilla's 1972 interpretation of "The Long And Winding Road" represented for him how he always intended the song to be sung.
Black's career in the United States, although begun enthusiastically by Epstein and his PR team - was limited to a few television appearances (the Ed Sullivan Show among them), a 1965 cabaret season at the Plaza Hotel in New York, and a success with You're My World which scored #26 on the Billboard charts. The song was to be her only Stateside chart success, and Elvis Presley had a copy on his personal jukebox at his Graceland home. Cilla herself recognised that to achieve popular status in the USA she would need to devote much time to touring there. But she was plagued by homesickness and a sense of loneliness and returned to the UK just as she was starting to become popular in the USA.
During 1966, Black recorded the Bacharach-David song "Alfie", inspired by the film, Alfie. While the song was not included on the UK film version, Cher sang "Alfie" on the closing credits of the US version. Alfie went on to become a success for Dionne Warwick in the States and it was a major success for Black in the UK, scoring #9 on the British charts. Cilla's version of "Alfie" was arranged and conducted by Bacharach himself at the recording session at Abbey Road. Bacharach insisted on several takes, and Black cited the Alfie recording session as one of the most demanding of her recording career. For Bacharach's part, he said "...there weren't too many white singers around, who could convey the emotion that I felt in many of the songs I wrote but that changed with people like Cilla Black..."
By the end of 1966, Cilla Black had guested on Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's Not Only... But Also, appeared in a Ray Galton-Alan Simpson revue in London's West End ? Way Out In Piccadilly ? alongside Frankie Howerd, made notable appearances on The Eamonn Andrews Show, and starred in her own television special (the first of its kind to be shown in colour), Cilla at the Savoy.
Brian Epstein's attempts to make Cilla Black a film actress were less successful. A brief appearance in the "beat" film Ferry Cross the Mersey and a leading role alongside David Warner in the 1968 psychedelic comedy Work Is a Four-Letter Word were largely ignored by film critics. In a 1997 interview with Record Collector magazine, Black revealed she was asked to appear in the 1969 film The Italian Job, playing the part of Michael Caine's girlfriend, but negotiations fell through between producers and her management over her fee.
Brian Epstein died of an accidental drug overdose during August 1967, after negotiating a contract with the BBC for his only female artist to appear in a series of her own. Relations between Epstein and Black had somewhat soured during the year prior to his death, due largely to the fact that Epstein was not paying her enough attention, and due partly to his public admission that he had taken LSD. In her autobiography, Cilla claims that Epstein had tried to pacify her by negotiating a deal that would see her representing the UK in the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest. However, Black refused on the basis that Sandie Shaw had won the previous year's contest, and that the chances of another British female artist winning were improbable.
After the death of Epstein, her boyfriend and songwriter Bobby Willis assumed management duties. Further recording successes followed: Conversations, Surround Yourself With Sorrow, If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind (all 1969), Something Tells Me (Somethings Gonna Happen Tonight) (1971) and Baby We Can't Go Wrong (1974).
The Beatles association continued. At a Cannes Film Festival during the 1970s, Cilla joined George Harrison, Ringo Starr and popular music star Marc Bolan to attend a screening of the John Lennon-Yoko Ono experimental film Erection. She also holidayed with them on a trip aboard a yacht chartered by Ringo. Photograph was written on this trip ? originally intended for Black to record ? but Starr decided to record it himself. George Harrison also wrote two songs for Cilla: The Light That Has Lighted The World and I'll Still Love You (When Every Song Is Sung). The latter she recorded during 1974 with her then producer David Mackay, but it was not heard publicly until 2003, when it re-surfaced on a retrospective collection entitled Cilla: The Best of 1963-78.
She shows an increasing reluctance to sing nowadays, though there have been two returns to the recording studio in recent times; during 1993 Black released Through the Years, an album of new material featuring a number of duets with Dusty Springfield, Cliff Richard, and Barry Manilow. Ten years later she released the album Beginnings... Greatest Hits and New Songs.
In his 1969 study of popular music history Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom, the rock music journalist Nik Cohn wrote prophetically:?
It?s true ? the British don?t like their girl singers to be too good, they think it smacks of emancipation, and Cilla at least seemed safe. Obviously, she was quite a nice girl. Also, she was respectable and reliable, very clean and quite unsexy, and she played daughter or maybe kid sister, steady date or fianc?e, but she played nobody?s mistress at all. She wasn?t like that. Everyone patronized her like hell, waiting for her to fall, but then she didn?t fall after all, she floated instead and she?s still up there now. She won?t ever come down either ? she doesn't sing much, she still comes on like a schoolgirl but she?s liked like that and she can?t go wrong. Genuinely, she?s warm and she makes people glow. In her time, she will grow into a pop Gracie Fields, much loved entertainer, and she?ll become institutionalized.?
"Cilla Black outsold all other female recording artists in Britain during the 1960s. She has released 15 studio albums and 37 singles (many of which have charted world-wide).
During 2006?2007, Cilla's 1971 single "Something Tells Me (Something's Gonna Happen Tonight)" was used as the soundtrack to a new British advertising campaign for Ferrero Rocher chocolates.
During the 2008/09 Christmas/New Year pantomime season, Cilla Black returned to live musical performance in the pantomime "Cinderella", appearing as the Fairy Godmother. Cilla was part of an all Scouse cast assembled in this 3-hour stage spectacular to mark the end of Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture. The show incorporated a number of Cilla's successes, which she performed live, including "You're My World", "Something Tells Me (Something's Gonna Happen Tonight)", "Step Inside Love" and "Sing A Rainbow". Cilla received rave reviews for her singing and overall performance (examples: , , and .) It is not clear if/when Cilla will sing live again but her performance in this stage show demonstrated that she still has a commanding voice and stage presence and a large audience to make it worth her while should she ever desire to return to the concert stage.
On the 7th September 2009, a total of 13 original studio albums (the first seven produced by Sir George Martin) recorded by Cilla between 1963 and 2003 will be released for download. These albums are all digitally re-mastered and feature an array of musical genres from pop, jazz, R&B, show tunes, sixties power-ballads, gospel and disco. Also released that same day by EMI is a 2CD/DVD set entitled ?The Definitive Collection (A Life In Music)? featuring a DVD of rare BBC video footage; a digital download album of specially commissioned re-mixes ?Cilla: All Mixed Up?; a remixed single on digital download of "Something Tells Me (Something?s Gonna Happen Tonight)".
Cilla Black OBE (born Priscilla Maria Veronica White on 27 May 1943) is a British singer, actress and television performer who has been successful as an entertainer from 1963 through the present day. She is most famous worldwide for her successful singles "Anyone Who Had A Heart", "You're My World", and "Alfie". After a successful recording career and a brief time as a comedy actress, she became the best paid female presenter in British television history. In September 2009, Cilla's 45 years in showbusiness is celebrated by EMI (the record label which launched her career in 1963) with the release of a new CD/DVD set alongside a series of other digital download releases.
Early life and career
Cilla Black was born in Liverpool to a Protestant father and a Catholic mother. Determined to become an entertainer, she got a part-time job as a cloakroom attendant at Liverpool's Cavern Club, best known for its association with The Beatles. Impromptu performances impressed The Beatles and others. She became a guest singer with the Merseybeat bands Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes and, later, with The Big Three. She was also, meantime, a waitress at the Zodiac coffee lounge, where she was to meet her future husband Bobby Willis.
Epstein had a portfolio of local artists. At first he showed little interest in Cilla, billed as Cilla White or Swinging Cilla. She was introduced to Epstein by John Lennon, who persuaded him to audition her. Her first audition was a failure, partly because of nerves, and partly because The Beatles (who supported her) played the songs in their vocal key rather than re-pitching them for Cilla's voice. In her autobiography What's It All About? she writes:?
I'd chosen to do "Summertime", but at the very last moment I wished I hadn't. I adored this song, and had sung it when I came to Birkenhead with the Big Three, but I hadn't rehearsed it with The Beatles and it had just occurred to me that they would play it in the wrong key. It was too late for second thoughts, though. With one last wicked wink at me, John set the group off playing. I'd been right to worry. The music was not in my key and any adjustments that the boys were now trying to make were too late to save me. My voice sounded awful. Destroyed ? and wanting to die ? I struggled on to the end.?
But after seeing her at a later date, at the Blue Angel jazz club, Epstein contracted with Cilla as his only female client on 6 September 1963. The local music newspaper Mersey Beat misprinted her name as Cilla Black, but Epstein liked the sound of it.
Epstein introduced Cilla to George Martin who signed her to Parlophone Records and produced her debut single, "Love of the Loved" (written by Lennon and McCartney), which was released only three weeks after she contracted with Epstein. The single peaked at a modest number 35, a failure compared to debut releases of Epstein's other artists.
Her second single, released at the beginning of 1964, was the Burt Bacharach-Hal David composition "Anyone Who Had a Heart". The single scored #1 in Britain and became, for that time, the best selling single by a female artist in the history of popular music in England. Her second UK #1 success, "You're My World", was an English-language rendition of the Italian popular song Il Mio Mondo. She also enjoyed chart success with the song in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, South Africa and Canada. This was followed by another Lennon/McCartney composition, It's For You. Paul McCartney played piano at the recording session and the song proved to be another major international success for Black.
Cilla Black belonged to a generation of British female singers which included Dusty Springfield, Petula Clark, Sandie Shaw, and Lulu. These artists were not singer-songwriters but interpreters of 1960s contemporary popular music song writers/producers. Cilla Black recorded much material during this time, including songs written by Phil Spector, Randy Newman, Tim Hardin, and Burt Bacharach. All were produced by George Martin at Abbey Road Studios.
Black's version of "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" scored no. 2 in the UK charts and was stopped from going to no. 1 by the original version of the same song, performed by The Righteous Brothers. This was the first of only three occasions in the history of the British Top 40 where the same song, recorded by two different artists, held the top 2 positions in the chart in the same week.
Being so closely associated with The Beatles, Cilla became the first artist to cover many Lennon/McCartney compositions. Her recordings of "Yesterday", "For No One" and "Across The Universe" were acclaimed critically and became radio favourites. McCartney said Cilla's 1972 interpretation of "The Long And Winding Road" represented for him how he always intended the song to be sung.
Black's career in the United States, although begun enthusiastically by Epstein and his PR team - was limited to a few television appearances (the Ed Sullivan Show among them), a 1965 cabaret season at the Plaza Hotel in New York, and a success with You're My World which scored #26 on the Billboard charts. The song was to be her only Stateside chart success, and Elvis Presley had a copy on his personal jukebox at his Graceland home. Cilla herself recognised that to achieve popular status in the USA she would need to devote much time to touring there. But she was plagued by homesickness and a sense of loneliness and returned to the UK just as she was starting to become popular in the USA.
During 1966, Black recorded the Bacharach-David song "Alfie", inspired by the film, Alfie. While the song was not included on the UK film version, Cher sang "Alfie" on the closing credits of the US version. Alfie went on to become a success for Dionne Warwick in the States and it was a major success for Black in the UK, scoring #9 on the British charts. Cilla's version of "Alfie" was arranged and conducted by Bacharach himself at the recording session at Abbey Road. Bacharach insisted on several takes, and Black cited the Alfie recording session as one of the most demanding of her recording career. For Bacharach's part, he said "...there weren't too many white singers around, who could convey the emotion that I felt in many of the songs I wrote but that changed with people like Cilla Black..."
By the end of 1966, Cilla Black had guested on Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's Not Only... But Also, appeared in a Ray Galton-Alan Simpson revue in London's West End ? Way Out In Piccadilly ? alongside Frankie Howerd, made notable appearances on The Eamonn Andrews Show, and starred in her own television special (the first of its kind to be shown in colour), Cilla at the Savoy.
Brian Epstein's attempts to make Cilla Black a film actress were less successful. A brief appearance in the "beat" film Ferry Cross the Mersey and a leading role alongside David Warner in the 1968 psychedelic comedy Work Is a Four-Letter Word were largely ignored by film critics. In a 1997 interview with Record Collector magazine, Black revealed she was asked to appear in the 1969 film The Italian Job, playing the part of Michael Caine's girlfriend, but negotiations fell through between producers and her management over her fee.
Brian Epstein died of an accidental drug overdose during August 1967, after negotiating a contract with the BBC for his only female artist to appear in a series of her own. Relations between Epstein and Black had somewhat soured during the year prior to his death, due largely to the fact that Epstein was not paying her enough attention, and due partly to his public admission that he had taken LSD. In her autobiography, Cilla claims that Epstein had tried to pacify her by negotiating a deal that would see her representing the UK in the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest. However, Black refused on the basis that Sandie Shaw had won the previous year's contest, and that the chances of another British female artist winning were improbable.
After the death of Epstein, her boyfriend and songwriter Bobby Willis assumed management duties. Further recording successes followed: Conversations, Surround Yourself With Sorrow, If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind (all 1969), Something Tells Me (Somethings Gonna Happen Tonight) (1971) and Baby We Can't Go Wrong (1974).
The Beatles association continued. At a Cannes Film Festival during the 1970s, Cilla joined George Harrison, Ringo Starr and popular music star Marc Bolan to attend a screening of the John Lennon-Yoko Ono experimental film Erection. She also holidayed with them on a trip aboard a yacht chartered by Ringo. Photograph was written on this trip ? originally intended for Black to record ? but Starr decided to record it himself. George Harrison also wrote two songs for Cilla: The Light That Has Lighted The World and I'll Still Love You (When Every Song Is Sung). The latter she recorded during 1974 with her then producer David Mackay, but it was not heard publicly until 2003, when it re-surfaced on a retrospective collection entitled Cilla: The Best of 1963-78.
She shows an increasing reluctance to sing nowadays, though there have been two returns to the recording studio in recent times; during 1993 Black released Through the Years, an album of new material featuring a number of duets with Dusty Springfield, Cliff Richard, and Barry Manilow. Ten years later she released the album Beginnings... Greatest Hits and New Songs.
In his 1969 study of popular music history Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom, the rock music journalist Nik Cohn wrote prophetically:?
It?s true ? the British don?t like their girl singers to be too good, they think it smacks of emancipation, and Cilla at least seemed safe. Obviously, she was quite a nice girl. Also, she was respectable and reliable, very clean and quite unsexy, and she played daughter or maybe kid sister, steady date or fianc?e, but she played nobody?s mistress at all. She wasn?t like that. Everyone patronized her like hell, waiting for her to fall, but then she didn?t fall after all, she floated instead and she?s still up there now. She won?t ever come down either ? she doesn't sing much, she still comes on like a schoolgirl but she?s liked like that and she can?t go wrong. Genuinely, she?s warm and she makes people glow. In her time, she will grow into a pop Gracie Fields, much loved entertainer, and she?ll become institutionalized.?
"Cilla Black outsold all other female recording artists in Britain during the 1960s. She has released 15 studio albums and 37 singles (many of which have charted world-wide).
During 2006?2007, Cilla's 1971 single "Something Tells Me (Something's Gonna Happen Tonight)" was used as the soundtrack to a new British advertising campaign for Ferrero Rocher chocolates.
During the 2008/09 Christmas/New Year pantomime season, Cilla Black returned to live musical performance in the pantomime "Cinderella", appearing as the Fairy Godmother. Cilla was part of an all Scouse cast assembled in this 3-hour stage spectacular to mark the end of Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture. The show incorporated a number of Cilla's successes, which she performed live, including "You're My World", "Something Tells Me (Something's Gonna Happen Tonight)", "Step Inside Love" and "Sing A Rainbow". Cilla received rave reviews for her singing and overall performance (examples: , , and .) It is not clear if/when Cilla will sing live again but her performance in this stage show demonstrated that she still has a commanding voice and stage presence and a large audience to make it worth her while should she ever desire to return to the concert stage.
On the 7th September 2009, a total of 13 original studio albums (the first seven produced by Sir George Martin) recorded by Cilla between 1963 and 2003 will be released for download. These albums are all digitally re-mastered and feature an array of musical genres from pop, jazz, R&B, show tunes, sixties power-ballads, gospel and disco. Also released that same day by EMI is a 2CD/DVD set entitled ?The Definitive Collection (A Life In Music)? featuring a DVD of rare BBC video footage; a digital download album of specially commissioned re-mixes ?Cilla: All Mixed Up?; a remixed single on digital download of "Something Tells Me (Something?s Gonna Happen Tonight)".
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