If you are a certain age, or listen to “oldies” radio stations, you will probably know the songs we share below:
Dionne Warwick had another hit with this one:
In addition to the two songs by Dionne Warwick, there are other songs from the 60s made popular in the US by the likes of Helen Reddy, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, and Engelbert Humperdinck. What they all had in common is that it was Cilla Black who made them monster hits in the UK.
Photo of Cilla Black by Joost Evers is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Netherlands license.
Most Americans didn’t really know the Brit singer, Cilla Black.
In addition to having a great voice, especially for the music of her time, the singer had the good fortune of having as friends, fellow Liverpudlians, The Beatles. She and the Fab Four had crossed paths as teenagers, and she would come to have a “little sister” relationship with them, but it wasn’t until John Lennon pulled her onto the stage at the legendary Cavern Club where Cilla worked as a chat-check girl that most people heard her sing. That scene was recreated by the fabulous Sheridan Smith in the movie, “Cilla” which you can see here.
Impressed with her talent, the band (known then as The Quarrymen) arranged for Cilla to meet with their manager, Brian Epstein, and the rest is history. Cilla became one of Great Britain’s most successful entertainers of all time having had nineteen UK ‘Top 40’ singles, including two #1 hits. Her song, “Anyone Who Had a Heart” (written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach) was the UK’s biggest-selling single by a female artist in the entire 1960s. She would come to release 15 studio albums, have sold-out performances at some of the world’s most prestigious concert venues, and before her untimely death in 2015, host more than 500 television shows of her own. With over 400 guest appearances on other British shows, Cilla was one of the most watched female stars in the history of British television.
In 2014, a three part series about Cilla’s early career (called, fittingly, “Cilla”) was broadcast in the UK (you saw a scene from it above). It depicts her humble origins, her family life, her boyfriend, and her early rise to fame. We are big fans of the series which you can find on YouTube. Part One is here.
Cilla ended up marrying her sweetheart, Bobby, and together they had three sons. Our interest in Cilla isn’t just in the wonderful music she sang, but also in the young family’s dogs. A simple image search brought up several photos, none of which we have permission to share, but see if you can identify the breed of her dogs from this photo or this one. We also found a video of Cilla with her children and those dogs shot in 1973 – check it out.
You’re right if you identified the dogs, “Sofie,” “Ada,” and “Walter,” as Briards, though we were initially thrown by the tan coloring on the legs of one of them. It was explained to us that “bi-color” is a known coloration in Briards, but today it is somewhat unusual as it’s not commonly found. From the AKC standard:
Color: All uniform colors are permitted except white. The colors are black, various shades of gray and various shades of tawny. The deeper shades of each color are preferred. Combinations of two of these colors are permitted, provided there are no marked spots and the transition from one color to another takes place gradually and symmetrically. The only permissible white: white hairs scattered throughout the coat and/or a white spot on the chest not to exceed one inch in diameter at the root of the hair. Disqualification – white coat, spotted coat, white spot on chest exceeding one inch in diameter.
The FCI standard reads:
A coat of warm fawn colour may show a lighter colour on the points and on the inclined parts of the body (fawn marked with sandy colour). Black, grey and blue coats can likewise display zones of a lighter shade. All colours may show different degrees of greying.
En route to adulthood, Briards can go through color changes, such as a black puppy turning gray, or a puppy’s tawny colored coat to lighten, darken, and maybe even go back again over time.
We conclude by circling back to Cilla Black who died in 2015 at the age of 72 after she fell, hit her head, and subsequently suffered a stroke.
Of her dogs, Cilla is said to have regarded them not as “just dogs,” but as friends she walked with every day in Regent’s Park, London. The British Briard Club reports that two puppies from the first litter born in the country, “Elana” and Vogue” became part of Cilla’s life, but we don’t know where these dogs fit in, chronologically speaking, with the three dogs in the video, or if two of the dogs in the video were Elana and Vogue, and later renamed. The same article adds that Cilla’s Briards were often seen with her on TV, including the popular Blue Peter show in 1973.
Cilla maintains a strong fan base as evidenced by an active Facebook page with 53K followers.
Image: Colored lithograph of a head study of pair of Briards by Leon Danchin (French, 1887-1938) appears with consent for public use with acknowledgement to www.hamsheregallery.com