Shirley BASSEY (1937-)

Shirley Bassey This Is Your Life

programme details...

  • Edition No: 851
  • Subject No: second timer
  • Broadcast date: Wed 6 Jan 1993
  • Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
  • Recorded: Thu 10 Dec 1992
  • Venue: Teddington Studios
  • Series: 33
  • Edition: 15
  • Code name: Feather

on the guest list...

  • Beauroid Mills
  • Sharon - daughter
  • Steve - son-in-law
  • Mark - adopted son
  • Ella - sister
  • Iris - sister
  • Marina - sister
  • Eileen - sister
  • Henry - brother
  • Grace - sister
  • Luke - grandson
  • Ernie Wise
  • Millicent Martin
  • Susan George
  • Michael Alexander
  • Danny La Rue
  • Norman Newell
  • letter from Elizabeth Taylor
  • Des O'Connor
  • Filmed tributes:
  • Sebastian - grandson
  • Nathan - grandson
  • Tatjana - granddaughter
  • Anthony Newley

production team...

  • Researcher: Sue Green
  • Writer: Roy Bottomley
  • Directors: Brian Klein, Malcolm Morris
  • Associate Producer: John Graham
  • Producer: Malcolm Morris
  • names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life
related pages...

Shirley Bassey

first tribute


Life Second Time Around

surprised again!


A Song For Life

it's the singer not the song


Danny La Rue


Des O'Connor


Ernie Wise

Shirley Bassey This Is Your Life Shirley Bassey This Is Your Life Shirley Bassey This Is Your Life Shirley Bassey This Is Your Life Shirley Bassey This Is Your Life Shirley Bassey This Is Your Life Shirley Bassey This Is Your Life Shirley Bassey This Is Your Life Shirley Bassey This Is Your Life Shirley Bassey This Is Your Life Shirley Bassey This Is Your Life Shirley Bassey This Is Your Life

Screenshots of Shirley Bassey This Is Your Life

Roy Bottomley This Is Your Life book

Scriptwriter Roy Bottomley recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, This Is Your Life: The Story of Television's Famous Big Red Book...


'Once she packed saucepans at a Cardiff factory; tonight she's packed the Royal Albert Hall,' said a nervous Michael Aspel, backstage at that venerable venue.


Packed was right - five and a half thousand fans were there on the night of 10 December 1992 to hear Shirley Bassey in concert.


The finale was not what she expected. She got the deafening standing ovation she deserved. But as Michael stepped onstage behind her, the international singing star was puzzled by the sudden increase even in that decibel count.


The she saw Michael. Her first instinct was to back off. The audience willed her back to Michael. With all the drama we expect of her, she succumbed. The vast audience was in raptures.



Shirley Bassey This Is Your Life

And so was Shirley when, safely back at the Teddington Studios, in front of a somewhat smaller, though no less vociferous, audience, she got her first surprise. We had flown in her sister, Grace, who went to live in America forty-five years ago, for a tear-stained reunion. And that was only the start.


She told us how Shirley's first audiences were the neighbours back in Tiger Bay. If Shirley was mopping the doorstep or beating the carpets, they would yell, 'Come on Shirley, give us a song.' She never needed asking twice.


Hard to believe, looking at the glamorous woman in the guest-of-honour seat, she was celebrating forty years at the top.


As Elizabeth Taylor wrote, asking Michael to read her letter, Shirley is 'undeniably one of the greatest singers of our time'.


Not bad for the youngest of seven children of a Nigerian seaman and a Yorkshire mother who divorced when Shirley was only two. Her life had not been without tragedy, especially the deaths of her first husband and her daughter. Little wonder the roller-coaster drama of her life comes through in her passionate delivery of her songs.

Series 33 subjects

Barbara Windsor | Dickie Bird | Frazer Hines | Pat Kerr | Juliet Mills | William Tarmey | Ellen Pollock | Tessa Sanderson
Peter Saunders | Anthony Newley | Bert Weedon | Glen Murphy | Les Dawson | John Surtees | Shirley Bassey
Albert and Michel Roux | Anthony Jones | Lynda Bellingham | Frank Bruno | Johnnie Hamp | Honor Blackman | Sister Aquinas
Roddy McDowall | Jimmy White | Peggy Spencer | Jackie Collins | Derek Fowlds | Nat Lofthouse | Ann Miller | George Melly