Cilla Black is about to go on a date when we meet. A ‘guy called Peter’ who she bumped into at Sir Cliff Richard’s house in Barbados is taking her out for dinner.
he says he’ll probably pick her up in his Aston Martin, although she’s not too sure because she’s not really a ‘car person’.
Whatever the make, she knows it’s pretty posh. She also knows the guy-called-Peter will be driving her straight home in his rather grand car afterwards.
Dating scene: There have been several chums since Cilla Black's beloved husband of 30 years, Bobby Willis, died of cancer 11 years ago, but no lovers"
No pit stops. No hanky-panky. Peter, you see, is ‘a chum’. There have been several chums since her beloved husband of 30 years, Bobby Willis, died of cancer 11 years ago, including the filthy-rich Reading FC boss Sir John Madejski, but no lovers. ‘I’ve been bowled over but never head-over-heels in love,’ she says. ‘I’ve never really fancied anybody else in that way, so I’ve not been able to take it that step further.’
Step further? ‘The next level physically,’ she spells out. ‘From what I can remember of it, I do miss it.’ By ‘it’ she means… well, you can work it out. ‘I miss the closeness of it. God, yeah. It’s true what they say, “You don’t appreciate what you’ve got until it’s gone.” I miss love. I miss being looked after.
‘What I had with Bobby I took for granted. I wish I hadn’t.’ Cilla, who’s just turned 68, rarely speaks as candidly as this. She is, of course, an old showbiz pro, having knocked up almost half a century in the entertainment industry. She knows how to charm without giving anything away. Knows how to play to an audience. Put on a show.
But sometimes… ‘I’ve had days when I go in my bedroom for 24 hours at a time,’ she says. ‘I call them my Cilla Black days and they’re literally black days. It’s like the old Boomtown Rats song I Don’t Like Mondays. You just want to shut the whole day down.
‘I don’t have those days so much now, but there are moments when I think, “God, Bobby would have loved that.”
Soulmates: Cilla pictured with her husband Bobby at home in 1992
‘This weekend my grandchildren were over. [Cilla has three grown-up sons, Robert, Ben and Jack, and two grandchildren, Max, six, and Larna, four.] They wanted to play croquet on the lawn. I was really tired out, whereas Bobby and I would have shared the load. I miss that sharing, caring thing.’
Bobby isn’t the only loss she’s coping with. Shortly before Christmas Cilla’s brother George died from a heart condition. It’s why she’s here to promote the British Heart Foundation. George had been poorly for almost a decade before his death. ‘I was doing pantomime rehearsals in Aylesbury when my housekeeper phoned to say one of my nieces had called and sounded very agitated. I just knew it was George.
‘He’d been battling for a long time and we’d had several scares. He eventually died in his sleep, which was a good thing. The work got me through, a bit like it did with Bobby. That happened right in the middle of a series of Blind Date. They said, “Take as much time off as you want.” I said, “No, I need to get back. I’ll be all right as long as nobody mentions anything. Just let me carry on as normal.”
Getting fit and healthy was my way of saying, “I’m not going anywhere yet.” I wanted to be there for my family
‘If anyone had said how sorry they were, I wouldn’t have been able to finish the show. I was in floods afterwards, but my work has always got me through.’ Cilla has been around for as long as most of us can remember, since knocking out her first number one hit Anyone Who Had A Heart in 1964. Although she continues to do ‘bits and pieces of work’ including being a guest panellist on ITV1’s Loose Women, she says she now lives her life through her grandchildren.
She wants to watch them grow up, go to college, do well. Her biggest fear is ill health, having watched her own mother suffer terribly with osteoporosis. ‘I’d prefer not to live beyond 75 than go through that, because that’s the age when my mother went downhill. Her head was on her shoulders and she had to be fed intravenously.
‘I was at the end of my tether with her. She had the brightest blue eyes and I could read her thoughts. I could read her pleading with me, “I don’t want to be here.” I knew she was trying to die. It was awful.
‘I actually saw a doctor. The minute I said, “Can you help?” she knew what I was on about, but said, “Well, her heart is so strong.” I’d have been horrified if she’d said, “I can give her a needle now.” It would have been like me pulling the trigger. But it was, in a way, what I wanted the doctors to do.
‘Instead, I had to live with her deterioration and she had to live with it until she was 84. That’s a long time to suffer.’ Thankfully, medical tests have revealed Cilla has the bone density of a 35-year-old, which isn’t bad when you’re pushing 70. For a time after Bobby’s death, she says she was manic about her health.
Famous friends: After three years of being a good girl Cilla poured herself into skin-tight leather trousers and hit the town with her 'Scouse mafia' Dale Winton, Paul O'Grady (pictured) and Christopher Biggins"
‘When I first heard of Bobby’s illness, within two weeks I’d lost two stone. It was the shock. He was only given two weeks to live. Can you imagine? It was devastating. I kept thinking, “What kind of God would do this to me and my family?” Jack, my youngest, was only 18.
‘But there was nothing I could do. Everything goes through your brain – “Maybe I’m next. I’ve got to get fit.” I thought, “I’m head of the family now.” Getting fit and healthy was my way of saying, “I’m not going anywhere yet.” I wanted to be there for my family. Can you imagine how they felt? If
it could happen to their father, it could happen to me.
‘I felt I had to keep healthy. I became manic about it. It was controlling me rather than me controlling it. I’ve eased off now, I still exercise but I don’t take any medication – not even a vitamin pill.
But in those first few years I did everything I could to prolong my life. Don’t abuse the body. Don’t have a glass of champagne. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Be a good girl. But then I was a very bad girl three years later. Suddenly I thought, “Hey, I’m ready to date again.” Before that it was unthinkable.’ So Cilla poured herself into skin-tight leather trousers and hit the town with her ‘Scouse mafia’ – Dale Winton, Paul O’Grady and Christopher Biggins.
‘I don’t know if that was to compensate or whether it was to try to stop the hurting,’ she says. Cilla continued to desperately miss Bobby. She says every time the phone rang in her London home she expected it to be him.
It’s when you lose your loved one that you have to experience the highs and terrible lows on your own
‘The hardest thing is when you realise they’re never, ever going to come back. I’m a Roman Catholic. Or was. I was brought up that way and used to say my prayers every night, but I don’t pray to God any more. I might use the usual phrases I picked up from my parents, “Oh, if God spares me next year…” or “Please God…” but they’re only phrases.
I got into all kinds of weird things for a long time just to get in touch with Bobby. I went to faith healers, psychics. At the time it was comforting. I never revealed any personal information, but one particular woman told me things about how Bobby died – the circumstances, where I was at the time – that nobody could possibly have known but me and my sons.
‘Now I’m a bit more cynical. I don’t know whether there’s an afterlife.’ Bobby wasn’t just her soul mate, but her manager and her dear friend. She says she’s ‘got used’ to losing him, but will never ‘get over it’. ‘What I miss dearly is, when I used to do a show, we’d go out to dinner with our friends as couples – Jimmy Tarbuck and Pauline, the late, great Henry Cooper and his wife Albina, Michael Parkinson and Mary. Bobby was the raconteur. I could switch off.
I’ve had to learn, since being single again, to do the show – and then put on another show afterwards, can you get that? I never had to do that before.
‘You’re not married to somebody without sadnesses. Bobby was there for me when we lost our little girl. [Their daughter Ellen was born 13 weeks premature in 1975 and died two hours after her birth.] You have incredible ups and downs, but you have each other to help you get through it all. It’s when you lose your loved one that you have to experience the highs and terrible lows on your own.
‘But, on the other side of the coin, people go through life without meeting the love of their life. I was very lucky to be very young when I met Bobby. I’ve had a blessed life. I’ve pulled back from trying to control my destiny and gone back to accepting whatever fate has in store for me. I live for today because I don’t know what’ll happen tomorrow.’ Which, for now, is her date with the guy-called- Peter. Could he ever be more than a ‘chum’?
‘I’m a never-say-never girl, but I’m still so madly in love with Bobby. I could never ever think of marrying again. I’ve said I’m a great believer in fate and I am. I think it’s all written down for you and mapped out, which has been the biggest shock for me. I was convinced I’d go before Bobby. I’ve had such a charmed life and that’s my only regret. I took it for granted.’
Cilla Black is supporting the British Heart Foundation’s BIG entertainment stock appeal. Donate your unwanted books, CDs and DVDs to your local BHF shop today. Visit www.bhf.org.uk/entertainment
No comments:
Post a Comment