成人快手

by Bob Stanley

Kathy Kirby with Peter Lee Stirling and Phil Peters, the writers of 'I Belong', Britain's Eurovision entry in 1965.

She may not have had as many hits as , or even , but the most glamorous British girl singer of the early sixties had to be Kathy Kirby. Her image was all platinum blonde hair and lip gloss - she also had a belting voice, which gave her a colossal hit in 1963 with a remake of 's 1954 number one, Secret Love.

Kathy was born in Ilford, Essex, and got her first break in the mid fifties while she was working as a telephonist at the Ilford Recorder. Her stepfather worked at a hotel Mayfair, and mentioned Kathy's burgeoning talent to one of the regular clientele, bandleader Bert Ambrose. The next time Ambrose appeared at the Ilford Palais, in 1956, 16-year old Kathy introduced herself between sets and asked, cheekily, if she could do a guest spot. Performing the Doris Day hit Love Me Or Leave Me, she went down so well that Ambrose asked her to sing with the band on the rest of the tour. His regular singers were by now in their thirties, and Kathy's instant glamour was a boon in the band's twilight years.

Kathy's progress was slow but steady. In January 1960, a picture of her appeared on the front page of Melody Maker with the caption "37-20-37 on 45!" In spite of this plug, no records emerged just yet. Ambrose, his orchestra by now disbanded, had become Kathy's manager and wouldn't be rushed. Eventually, a couple of flop singles were released by , but Kathy wasn't too bothered as calls for TV appearances began to come in. Along with , she was tagged the British Monroe, and it was the combination of dazzling blondeness and Ilford roots that led to her appearing regularly on a new Associated-Rediffusion show, set in a pub, called Stars And Garters - songs like Show Me The Way To Go 成人快手 meant she was a big hit with mums and dads rather than the beat-happy teenagers. No matter, by the end of 1963, now signed to Decca at Ambrose's insistence, she had scored Top 20 hits with Dance On and Secret Love. Kathy also appeared on Brian Matthew's Saturday Club in 1963, performing the otherwise unreleased Got A Lot Of Living To Do and Stay Right Here. A 成人快手 TV series The Kathy Kirby Show followed in '64 and she represented the UK in Eurovision in 1965. Aside from singing the theme to Adam Adamant Lives, her look and sound weren't built for the Twiggy era, though, and Kathy's star had dimmed by the end of the decade.

Kathy's Secret Love turned out to be her mentor, Bert Ambrose. Though he was more than four decades older, and they kept it hidden from the press, they were lovers until his death in 1971. "I was always very protected by Bert" she told her biographer Mark Willerton. "I found my first responsibility without him would be to arrange his funeral." Adrift and reclusive in the seventies and eighties, apart from occasional unwanted intrusions from the tabloids, Kathy was reunited in the internet era with the family she had more or less left for Ambrose. One of her nieces, Claudia, had married Lord Rothermere and she helped Kathy to make sense of her financial affairs. By the time of her death in 2011, aged 72, Kathy Kirby was aware of an extremely loyal fan base and was a lot happier than she had been in years.