Awful audition that Cilla feared had ruined her career

Cilla Black’s given us a lorra, lorra enjoyment over the years.

More than 50 years, in fact, as she celebrated her half-century in showbiz last year.

Now 71, hers has been a career of two parts the bestselling British female recording artist of the 60s and the undisputed queen of TV in the 80s and 90s.

It seems incredible now that those two stints as one of the country’s biggest celebrities sandwiched a lean spell when she vanished from our screens and returned to the cabaret circuit.

Working as a typist for British Insulated Callander Cables Co. Ltd., but determined to become an entertainer, Cilla played her first gig in Liverpool’s Casanova Club, where she was billed as “Swinging Cilla” you wouldn’t get away with that these days!

She then took a part-time job as a cloakroom attendant at the city’s now-legendary Cavern Club where her impromptu performances impressed resident band The Beatles.

In fact, many credit Cilla’s links with the Fab Four for launching her career but those loveable mop-tops almost sank her before she even got started.

Richard Starkey AKA Ringo was a family friend and he and John Lennon helped her cross paths with the band’s manager Brian Epstein.

Cilla even had The Beatles as her backing band when she auditioned for Epstein but that turned into an utter disaster.

The boys played the songs in their key rather than pitch them for Cilla, and she admits: “My voice sounded awful. I was destroyed and wanting to die.”

But after seeing her perform at the Blue Angel jazz club everywhere had such great names in those days Epstein made Cilla his only female client and introduced her to producer George Martin, who went on to record a decade of hits with her at the famous Abbey Road Studios.

Her first single wasn’t a hit, however, even though 1963’s Love Of The Loved had been written by none other than Lennon and McCartney.

But the two follow-ups, Anyone Who Had A Heart and You’re My World, both hit No 1 the following year and went on to sell more than a million worldwide.

That meant Cilla could give up waitressing at The Zodiac coffee lounge where she’d met the love of her life, Bobby Willis.

He was a handsome young baker with Woolworth’s, who had the gift of the gab and, although he struggled with her determination to become a star, Bobby did everything he could to help and would drive her from club to club in his works van.

Just like John Lennon keeping quiet about his marriage, it would have hurt Cilla’s career if word got out she was in a relationship so to explain Bobby’s presence, Epstein employed him as her road manager.

He took over as her manager when Epstein died of an accidental overdose in 1967, and Cilla was devastated when he died of lung cancer in 1999, aged just 57.

Their son, Robert, took over as manager and she and Bobby had two other sons, Ben and Jack, as well as a daughter, Ellen, who tragically died just two hours after she was born prematurely in 1975.

I think everyone knows Cilla was actually born Priscilla White and she adopted the opposite monochrome moniker when the first edition of local music paper The Mersey Beat mistakenly referred to her as Cilla Black and Epstein thought it sounded more dramatic.

Intriguingly, Epstein had foreseen her second taste of stardom.

He tried to persuade a reluctant Cilla that her future lay on telly and when he died, on the bed next to him was an unsigned contract from the BBC who wanted Cilla to present a new entertainment show.

That was Cilla, which ran on the BBC for a decade but when it ended, she disappeared from the telly until a barnstorming appearance on Wogan in 1983 saw her catapulted back to popularity.

All of a sudden, she was in demand again and signed a contract with London Weekend that led to two of the most popular and long-running shows the UK’s ever seen.

Both Blind Date and Surprise Surprise were massive ratings winners and led to Cilla becoming the highest-paid performer on British television.

She had the perfect personality for telly and we loved her unscripted catchphrases such as “Lorra lorra laughs” and “Who did your hurr?”, as well as her referring to contestants familiarly “Well, what did Our Graham think of her?”.

So it’s a shame she’s now only an occasional face on the gogglebox, where she’s most likely to be found popping up on Loose Women.

Cilla was due back on our screens this year in a new BBC sitcom Led Astray but it was shelved due to neither she nor co-star Paul O’Grady being able to cope with long hours of filming.

Just as well we’ve got this new drama about Cilla’s life to remind us just how good she is.