| Name |
Shirley Bassey |
| Height |
|
| Naionality |
Welsh |
| Date of Birth |
8-January-1937 |
| Place of Birth |
Tiger Bay, Cardiff, Wales |
| Famous for |
singing |
Dame Shirley Veronica Bassey, DBE is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the mid-1950s and has been called "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century". In the US, in particular, she is best known for recording the theme songs to the James Bond films Goldfinger (1964), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), and Moonraker (1979).
"Born above a brothel in a docklands slum", in rooms above one of the many after-hours drinking and dancing establishments of Butetown, Shirley Veronica Bassey was the sixth and last child of Eliza Jane Start and Henry Bassey in Tiger Bay, Cardiff, Wales (now called Cardiff Bay), of paternal Nigerian and maternal English descent. Bassey's mother also had four children from previous relationships, two of whom lived in the Bassey household. Eliza had been married previously, to Alfred Metcalfe, and upon her marriage to Bassey, Eliza Jane Metcalfe listed Alfred Metcalfe as her father on the marriage registry. It has thus been theorized that she never divorced Alfred, and that her marriage to Bassey was bigamous. Eliza and Henry's second child died in infancy, so Shirley was born into a household of three sisters, two half-sisters, and one brother. A year later her father was arrested and charged with having sex with a minor, was tried, imprisoned for five years, then deported. After Henry's arrest, Eliza and the children moved to the nearby steelworking district of Splott.
As a preteen attending Moorland Road School, Bassey's strong voice was noticed by teachers and students alike, though without encouragement: "...everyone told me to shut up. Even in the school choir the teacher kept telling me to back off till I was singing in the corridor! recalled her singing 'Can't help lovin' that man of mine' from Showboat with such feeling that she made teacher uncomfortable." After leaving Splott Secondary Modern School at the age of 14, Bassey first found employment packing at a local factory while singing in local public houses and clubs in the evenings and weekends.
