Gary
Osborne
is
the
son
of
the
top
musical
conductor,
arranger
and
composer
Tony
Osborne
who
worked
with
many
of
the
top
names
of
the
50s
and
60s
including
Judy
Garland,
Shirley
Bassey,
Eartha
Kitt,
Buddy
Greco
and
Johnnie
Mathis,
as
well
as
with
Dorothy
Squires.
Gary
himself
has
carved
a
highly
successful
career
as
a
singer
and
songwriter,
working
with
Elton
John
on
several
best-selling
albums,
and
co-writing
such
Elton
hits
as
Part-Time
Love,
Little
Jeannie
and
Blue
Eyes.
He
also
penned
the
lyric
for
Kiki
Dee’s
international
hit
Amoreuse,
and
co-wrote
and
did
backing
vocals
for
Jeff
Wayne’s
War
Of
The
Worlds
double-album
which
has
sold
more
than
thirteen
million
copies
around
the
world,
and
re-entered
the
charts
in
2006.
Justin
Hayward’s
Top
10
hit
Forever
Autumn
was
also
co-written
by
Gary,
who
here
talks
of
his
memories
of
Dorothy
Squires:
I
first
met
Dorothy
as
a
very
young
boy.
My
parents,
Joan
and
Tony,
lived
in
Bickenhall
Mansions
in
London’s
Baker
Street
and
it
wasn’t
unusual
to
have
famous
people
dropping
by
our
home
at
all
times
of
the
day.
I’ve
never
been
overawed
by
people’s
stardom,
simply
because
I
grew
up
surrounded
by
it.
I
didn’t
know
anything
else.
Dad
worked
with
many
of
the
top
singers
and
musicians
of
the
day,
he
was
an
easy
person
to
get
on
with,
but
enjoyed
a
particular
rapport
with
the
female
artists
with
whom
he
worked.
I
guess
I
was
about
six
or
seven
years
old
when
I
first
met
Dorothy
and
her
then-husband
Roger
Moore.
She
swore
like
a
trooper
and
it
is
from
her
that
I
heard
the
F
word
for
the
first
time,
and
also
the
second,
third,
fourth
and
fifth
times!
You’ve
got
to
remember
that
it
was
an
era
when
there
was
no
swearing
on
television,
and
people
just
didn’t
swear
in
front
of
the
kids.
Dorothy
had
had
a
tough
upbringing,
so
I
guess
that
the
swearing
just
came
second
nature
to
her,
and
she
was
a
larger-than-life
character
so
it
was
easy
to
forgive
her.
She’d
say
to
me,
when
she’d
come
out
with
a
few
expletives,
“Oh
you
don’t
mind,
Gary,
do
you?”
(imitating
her
Welsh
accent).
And
I
didn’t
mind
really,
you
couldn’t
be
upset
with
her.
Uncle
Roger
and
Auntie
Dorothy,
as
I
used
to
call
them,
would
often
stay
over
at
the
apartment
if
they
had
been
in
town
and
enjoyed
a
few
drinks,
rather
than
driving
all
the
way
back
home
to
Bexley.
Similarly
if
Dorothy
or
Roger
had
early
morning
in-town
meetings,
they’d
often
stay
with
us.
Other
artists
used
to
stay
too
including
Marion
Ryan,
who
would
tuck
me
into
bed
–
and
probably
gave
me
my
first
stiffie!
In
those
days
Roger
was
starring
as
Ivanhoe
on
television
and
I’d
rush
home
to
watch
him
sitting
on
his
horse,
looking
very
handsome,
wearing
his
chain-mail
armour,
holding
a
lance
and
always
saving
the
damsel
at
the
end
of
the
day.
One
minute
he
was
sat
there
in
our
home,
and
the
next
I
was
watching
him
playing
the
hero
on
black
and
white
television!
Roger
was
a
lovely
man,
and
very
caring
about
children,
always
happy
to
spend
time
with
them.
Of
course,
after
the
break-up
between
him
and
Dorothy,
he
became
the
anti-Christ.
Talk
about
a
woman
scorned
…
afterwards
it
was
impossible
to
be
a
friend
of
both,
so
far
as
Dorothy
was
concerned.
I
don’t
think
that
she
ever
really
recovered
from
the
breakdown
of
the
marriage,
which
was
a
great
pity.
Many,
many
years
later,
in
the
80s,
I
was
at
a
Liza
Minnelli
concert
at
the
Universal
Amphitheatre
in
Los
Angeles,
and
I
saw
Roger
sitting
a
few
rows
away.
My
female
companion
persuaded
me
to
go
over
to
him,
and
I
think
that
he
initially
thought
that
I
was
going
to
ask
for
an
autograph.
I
said,
‘Excuse
me
Mr.
Moore,
I
haven’t
come
to
ask
for
your
autograph,
but
I
wondered
if
you
remember
Tony
and
Joan
Osborne?’
He
looked
at
me
curiously,
and
then
said:
‘You’re
not
Gary
are
you?’
I
was
thrilled
that
after
35
years
he
still
remembered
my
parents
and
me,
and
he
was
even
aware
of
my
work
with
Elton
John.
Dad
arranged
and
conducted
many
recording
sessions
for
Dorothy,
including
Say
It
With
Flowers
in
1961,
which
was
a
considerable
hit
for
her.
I
remember
that
there
was
a
launch
party
around
the
swimming
pool
at
Dorothy’s
Bexley
mansion,
and
people
like
a
very
young
Cliff
Richard
were
there.
There
was
also
considerable
publicity
mileage
with
a
press
photograph,
which
showed
Dorothy
holding
the
conductor’s
baton,
my
father
playing
the
piano,
and
Russ
at
the
microphone
–
a
reversal
of
all
their
roles
on
the
recording
session!
There
were
many
parties
at
Bexley
that
I
can
recall
going
to
as
a
young
kid,
in
fact
I
still
went
to
some
of
them
almost
up
to
the
time
of
the
dreadful
fire
at
the
house
in
which
Dorothy
almost
lost
her
life
in
the
mid-70s.
The
actor
John
Le
Mesurier
was
often
there
–
he
enjoyed
his
drink
and
I
still
recall
the
stories
that
he
used
to
regale
everybody
with.
There
were
other
parties
too,
including
at
my
parent’s
second
home
in
Rustington
on
the
south
coast,
where
everybody
would
sunbathe
on
the
roof
–
it
wasn’t
unusual
to
see
people
like
Dorothy,
Eve
Boswell,
Marion
Ryan
and
many
other
artists
there,
all
socialising
together
I
think
that
the
so-called
BBC
payola
scandal,
which
broke
in
1971,
quite
harmed
Dorothy’s
career.
She’d
only
recently
made
the
big
comeback
at
the
London
Palladium,
but
what
she
did
was
no
worse
than
what
a
lot
of
other
people
in
the
business
were
doing
at
the
time.
Dorothy
was
accused
of
bribing
a
BBC
radio
producer
to
play
her
records
on
the
very
popular
programme
Two
Way
Family
Favourites,
by
paying
for
his
holiday
in
Malta,
but
her
records
like
Till
and
My
Way
would
have
been
played
on
the
programme
anyway,
because
they
fitted
into
its
musical
format.
Back
then
everybody
knew
everybody
in
the
music
business
and
it
wasn’t
unusual
to
offer
a
little
hospitality
as
a
friendly
gesture.
It
certainly
wasn’t
meant
to
be
construed
as
bribery
and
corruption.
I
guess
it
was
a
more
innocent
age
though.
Dorothy
was
very
much
a
part
of
my
growing
up
and
she
was
a
great
lady.
This
website
brings
back
many
happy
memories.
I’m
glad
to
report
that
my
Dad,
Tony
Osborne,
is
still
around
and
very
well,
although
he
has
lived
in
Sydney,
Australia,
for
many
years
now.
He
was
85
years
old
last
birthday
and
I
can
tell
you
that
he’s
still
going
strong!
Edwin
Shaw,
production
co-ordinator
at
Really
Useful
Theatres,
owned
by
Lord
Lloyd-Webber,
was
the
box
office
manager
at
the
London
Palladium
for
many
years,
and
remembers
Dorothy
Squires’
comeback
show
in
December
1970.
Edwin
recalls:
That was a remarkable occasion. I remember when the press announced that Dorothy Squires had hired the London Palladium to stage her own show, and within a couple of hours all 2,200 tickets had sold out. There were people queuing around the block. Even the press had to buy their own tickets, there were just none to spare.
When Dorothy came to see Ted Gollop of Moss Empires, and said that she wanted to hire the theatre, he thought that she wanted to put another act on! Dorothy said, No, it’s for me’. After the contract was signed, Dorothy came to see me about ticketing, and asked what prices she should charge. I think she was a bit nervous at this point: she knew that if she didn’t get it right, she could end up singing on the vast Palladium stage with just a few fans in the auditorium. She could have charged rock-bottom prices but in fact they went at the going rate of the time.
She got it just right. Even the well-known ticket tout Stan Flashman had difficulty getting extra tickets, although he had people planted in the queue from very early on to buy up tickets so that he could re-sell them afterwards. He probably made more money out of it than Dot!
A lot of people thought that Dorothy was being foolish, and some even went so far as to tell her to ‘get a grip’ on herself, but she stood by her convictions. On the night itself, Dorothy was absolutely electrifying, from the moment she walked onstage. She certainly knew how to milk an audience and within a couple of minutes they were like putty in her hands.
She returned to the London Palladium on many more occasions, and was even booked by Moss Empires to do two weeks at the theatre in July 1974, with Russ Conway as her support act. There were other triumphs too, including the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and a memorable appearance at the Victoria Palace when Mrs Shufflewick was on the bill. For anybody who was there though, that 1970 London Palladium comeback concert was totally unforgettable.
I first met Dorothy at the Met, Edgeware Road in 1953 I believe, when I was introduced to her and her new fiancée Roger Moore. A couple of weeks previously all the cast of the show I was in went to see the film "The first time I saw Paris" in which Roger appeared. As an avid cinemagoer I was very impressed by Roger and enthused about what a good looking guy he was.
This gave me a hard time for the next couple of weeks as the cast jokingly teased me about" fancying the film actor".
As a consequence when Dorothy and Roger came to visit the Manager of our show he insisted that I meet Roger in
person. To my embarrassment Eddie Lee introduced me to Roger and told me to tell him what I had been saying about him. I said I thought he was going to be a great Hollywood Star. They both had a good laugh. Dorothy said I think you're right and Roger very humbly thanked me in his inimitable charming way. Twenty years later he reminded me of that meeting.
After that we worked with Dorothy in Variety. The first date we did with her was at The New Theatre, Cardiff. We arrived at the Theatre at 8am in the morning and put our Band Parts down in the "foots" as was the practice.
The band call was 11am and when we went to take our rehearsal, Dorothy's pianist was about to hand out her parts to the Orchestra. I insisted that we were down first and would take the first call. This caused a lot of argument and
threats were made about what Dorothy would do? Now this would seem to be the type of situation where she would blow her top (if you are to believe all the stories you hear about her temper). Instead Dorothy never mentioned it. In fact the day after we opened we got a bad write up in the local paper and Dorothy got on the phone to the Editor and gave him hell , as
only she could.
My partner and I watched "Dot" every performance when we worked with her and we learned many of the tricks of our trade from her. She was always ready to give us pointers on our performance. For our play off tabs we took "It's a Pity to Say Goodnight", which was one of Dot's numbers.
The last time we saw her was just after we arrived back from the States. She was in the audience with Billy Smart Jnr, and when we finished our act to thunderous applause she jumped up and said" **** off back to the States, you're too good for this place". We went to join her for a drink and I said "I'm glad to see you are still your sophisticated self. She laughed and replied "Well what I said is true" and continued to encourage us to return to the U.S.A.
There was a particular occasion in which my attitude was likened to Dorothy's', and that was by Billy Marsh, of The Grade Organisation. Our Manager had refused to sign a contract on our behalf, and I had given my word that we would do the dates. As a consequence I went and
signed the contract myself. Billy Marsh told me that the only other person who acted in this manner was Dot Squires and she always kept her word. I took this a as a great compliment. He went on to tell me that she was a very unusual person. Apparently he had asked her one time to do a tour for him, and when she told him what she wanted, he told her that his budget did not go to that amount. Dot said she did not work for less than she expected but she would do him a favour by doing the tour for nothing with the proviso that he owed her a favour.
Most people who knew Dorothy would describe her as a diamond and that would be a perfect description. Think about it? A diamond takes many years to come to perfection. It is tempered by it's environment and eventually you have a rough stone, hard and durable. It then goes through the process of cutting, polishing and refining until it emerges as a thing of beauty, full of fire,multi facetted,colourful and brilliant That was Dorothy Squires, a lady tempered by her experiences.
She arrived as a rough talent and she became the polished artist that her public adored, full of fire, with many sides to her, certainly colourful and absolutely brilliant. She was truthful to a fault, did not suffer fools gladly and when she was upset she didn't take prisoners. I still listen to Dot's records and wonder at the amazing quality in her voice. In my opinion there was none better than she, and the world is a much sadder place without her in it.
Kathy
Kirby would like to graciously accept the invitation to Dorothy’s
party….
When
Frank Sinatra recorded My Way and took the disc to number 5
in the charts in 1969 - every top star of the time was eager to record the
song too. There have been many female vocal versions, but no one seems to
have quite matched Dorothy’s interpretation (as proved by her chart
success with the disc) except maybe, Shirley Bassey and Kathy Kirby.
When
Kathy was appearing at the ‘Theatre Royal’, Brighton in 1970, Dorothy
went along to see the show with showbiz friend, Lita Roza. Who wouldn’t
like to have been in earshot to Dorothy’s comment at that particular
performance - when Kathy launched into the opening bars of My Way
… ?! (Enough said!)
Today,
Kathy, like Dorothy, has a loyal and devoted fan following.
Kathy
recalls ‘Dorothy had a reputation as a wonderful hostess within the
showbiz circle. I was never a party person - I much preferred to go out
for a quiet dinner with Bert (Ambrose) or with close friends to an
after-show supper club. When party invitations arrived I often had to
decline anyway, as I always seemed to be working. But on one occasion, I
did manage to accept an invite to one of Dorothy’s parties at her
spectacular home. For the party, I distinctly remember I wore tight white
jeans and purple shoes – the height of fashion in the 1970s! During the
party, for some reason Dorothy became upset. Her sister was there too and
caressed and calmed her down – I thought it was very sweet, she seemed
so close to her sister - and was very sweet to me too’.
Visit
Kathy’s authorised tribute site –
The American songwriter and performer Rod McKuen writes about Dorothy on his own website (www.mckuen.com). Responding to an e-mail sent by someone with the initials TWC, Rod writes:
Dorothy was indeed fabulous, in every sense of the word. On stage she was a showstopper who gave every song she sang a new perspective. And what a voice! There must be something in the Welsh water to have produced Dorothy, Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones, to name but a few of the great vocalists that hail from South Wales.
Events in her personal life often made the front pages of the world press; Billy Reid wrote love songs like The Gypsy and A Tree In The Meadow for her, and her stormy marriage to, and even stormier divorce from, actor Roger Moore kept news reporters happy.
She was more than marvelous, up for anything and up to nearly everything. Even an early dinner with Dottie usually wasn’t over until dawn. No one ever complained because she was such delightful company and a great lady in the bargain. I remember once after a lengthy and boozy dinner, and a bit of pub crawling, we were walking along the Thames and as the sun began to rise she looked at me and said, ‘Where shall we have breakfast?’
I loved her version of
Solitude’s My Home, no one has ever performed it better.
I wish her CD Live At The Dominion was available here in the
States. Unfortunately it has
been some time since any of her recordings have been released in my
country. I have Mother’s
Day, With All My Heart and the 1970 and 1971 Palladium CDs, but that’s
about it. Producer Wade
Alexander and I always wanted to record Dorothy for Stanyan but we never
got around to it.
I guess I’ve been aware
of Dorothy Squires ever since she had a hit back in 1969 with her
recording of For Once In My Life. My
tastes in music were always quite eclectic and this mystified a lot of my
pals at school!
We had a ‘Music Club’ at lunchtimes, where we were encouraged to bring in selections from our record collections to share with our schoolmates. Whilst most of my friends brought in albums by The Rolling Stones, the Mothers of Invention and Captain Beefheart, I offered up Lena Horne, Dusty Springfield, Barbra Streisand, Dorothy Squires etc … needless to say, in the face of such competition, my albums nearly always ended up at the bottom of the pile!
But there was something rather magical to me about performers like Dot Squires … artists who never gave less than one hundred percent, no matter what traumas were happening in their lives.
I first met Dot in 1969 when she was promoting For Once In My Life. In Leyton, East London, where I grew up, the DJ Alan Freeman had a record shop and Dot appeared at the opening of the store. I’ll always remember how she breezed into that shop, big fur hat, dark glasses, looking every inch a star … I was totally in awe! She signed my copy of the single and made a big fuss of the fact that I, a 15-year-old teenager, was buying her version in favour of Stevie Wonder’s!
Two years later I saw Dot perform at the London Palladium in her second sell-out concert there (I couldn’t get tickets for the 1970 show as it sold out within 24 hours!). She was magnificent … singing her heart out in that powerhouse fashion of hers for two hours and the audience just went crazy at the end … it was like a football crowd!
From that moment, I was hooked. I went out and bought every Dorothy Squires recording I could find and, oh boy, there were a lot of them … she’d been recording since the 40s. From these albums, I learned all the Billy Reid songs which I wove into my weekend appearances as a pub pianist in a couple of venues in Essex (working for £1 an hour – three hours on a Saturday, and two and a half hours on a Sunday!).
In 1972 I got my big TV break on Opportunity Knocks! and subsequently found myself recording for Philips Records with Dot’s friend and record producer, Norman Newell. I got to meet Dot a few times through Norman and found her to be lively company… I’d never before heard such language from a woman but my goodness, what a hoot!
I also appeared on a TV chat show with her called Take Two, where they had a different subject every week … the theme of our particular show was Showbusiness. They had all these different examples on the programme … Windsor Davies who had taken 30 years to become a household name, myself who had taken a relatively short time in comparison, the actress Adrienne Corri who didn’t really like show business, and Dot who loved it … it was a really interesting mix.
Adrienne Corri and Dot ended up having a flaming row on the show and, because it was live television, everything went out unedited! Here were two opinionated and fiery women having a right go at each other … it certainly made for riveting reality television viewing!
I met Dorothy on quite a few occasions after that … always going to her London shows and being welcomed like a long-lost son. She really was quite an extraordinary performer…. she had great charisma and there was always a sense of danger about her shows. Would she make that last note? Would she get through the song without losing the lyric? Would she keep her cool and not have a go at the musicians? This all went to make for a unique theatrical experience.
I’ll always remember
Dot for being a consummate performer, and a formidable and highly
entertaining woman. Quite simply, there will never be another Dorothy Squires.
- Bobby Crush has recently completed a West End season playing the lead role in Liberace’s Suit, for which he received some brilliant notices. He’s currently completing his autobiography, Not The Boy Next Door, due to be published in 2005.
Pete
Murray
Sheer
guts, tremendous charisma, and showmanship.
There has never been anybody before or since to touch Dorothy
Squires.
From
her London home, Lita shares her memories of Dorothy. As two of this
country’s leading female vocalists they met frequently at showbiz events
and ‘offstage’ also became good friends. The two stars also share a
strong and loyal gay following.
‘What
can I say – most of it’s wicked!’ Lita laughs, when we asked
her to comment for the Official Dorothy Squires Website. ‘You’ll have
to censor it!’ she adds!
I
first became aware of Dorothy around 1940. I was about 14 at the time and
working in a florist shop opposite the Pavilion Theatre in Liverpool. The
owner, Mr Jennings, asked me one day what I’d like to do when I grew up.
I replied I that I wanted to be a singer. He said I’d be OK if I could
be even half as good as that girl at the theatre over the road.
I looked up and saw that Dorothy Squires was appearing there with
Billy Reid and his accordion band.
I
can’t really recall when I first met Dorothy. We often used to bump into
each other in publishers offices in Denmark Street and exchange
pleasantries. Then I remember accompanying Dot to court for one of her
first big lawsuits in the late 50s. It was to gain royalties and PRS for
the songs Billy Reid had written for her back in the 40s.He had been
claiming all the royalties after he’d returned to his wife when Dot
married Roger. We were both with the Pye-Nixa label at the time and she
had just re-recorded those Reid compositions for the album Dorothy
Squires sings Billy Reid. 
Her
house parties in Bexley became regular get-togethers for the show business
crowd. Everyone would be there from Shirley Bassey, Russ Conway and Marion
Ryan to record producers and music publishers. She was an excellent
hostess. Dorothy had a white piano in the living room and a spotlight
fixed to the spot where her guests would have to perform! The main
attraction though was Dorothy of course …the rest of us were simply her
supporting acts!!
Dorothy
did frighten people, because she had such a strong personality - but we
always got along just fine. She was a larger than life character – a one
off – but thoroughly professional.
I loved her company - she was beautifully outrageous! There’ll
never be another Dot Squires!
Lita Roza November 20th 2004
visit
Lita Roza's Official Website»
Lee
Stevens, LBC/Southern Counties Radio Broadcaster
I first met Dorothy back
in the early 50s when we were both appearing in variety – Dot was
headlining at Leeds Empire and I was doing my act at the City Varieties.
It was the beginning of a long friendship that endured until the
end of her life.
Dorothy was a huge star
back then but she always made the time to talk to people and make them
feel comfortable. I was
always a great fan of her singing style and, after that first meeting in
Leeds, we became firm friends. I
often used to go to her house in Bexley, even staying at Christmas, and
Dorothy was always the most wonderful and generous hostess to anyone who
was staying at her home. She
was a genuinely caring woman.
As a stage performer,
Dorothy was second to none in my opinion … she was one of the last of
the great variety artists, and had risen through its ranks to become a big
star. When traditional
variety died, she turned to the concert stage and continued to have great
success. Not many people
realise that she was the first British artist to headline at the Talk of
the Town theatre restaurant in London’s West End, back in 1961, and she
was the first popular entertainment performer to take the stage at the
Barbican Concert Hall. She
was also one of the first light entertainment artists to appear at the
Royal Albert Hall, which previously had always been a venue for classical
music concerts.
Apart from knowing
Dorothy as a friend, I was the promoter for several of her concerts back
in the 70s. I remember that I
booked her to do a show at Croydon’s Fairfield Hall during a week of
variety that included other shows by Morecambe & Wise, Bob Monkhouse
and Diana Dors. Dorothy did
the best business of the week – it was a complete sell-out.
I also booked several TV shows for her including TV-AM when she
performed I Am What I Am. She had an opportunity to sing the song on the Sunday night
show Live From Her Majesty’s but she refused because someone else had
top billing. “No one goes
on after Squires,” she said.
But that was Dot for you.
She was a very feisty woman, and could be very stubborn, but she
was also very loveable and extremely loyal to her friends and fans.
I have so many memories of her … I remember breaking the news to
her that she had sold out the London Palladium in just a matter of hours,
and she could hardly believe it! I tried to get a ticket myself but couldn’t.
Fortunately, Dorothy had held some back for her friends so I did
get to see that legendary show.
Then there was the time
she came round to my flat with the initial white label album pressings of
the show. I’d just got a new dog, a West Highlander, but hadn’t yet
named her. Dorothy loved
animals and was all over her. She
asked her name and I said I hadn’t thought of one yet.
Dorothy put her fingers in the champagne that she was drinking, and
sprinkled some of it over the dog, saying ‘I name you Dot’!
And so Dot she became!
Dorothy is still one of
the most requested artists on the various radio programmes that I do, and
I will always ensure that listeners hear her music.
She was a magnificent performer, whether appearing in variety, on
the concert stage or in cabaret. There’s
rarely a day goes by in fact when I don’t think of her and I still miss
her music, personality and friendship.”
I knew Dorothy for well
over forty years, and I often did an impersonation of her in my stage
shows, which she absolutely loved. I
remember ‘doing’ her one year in front of the Queen Mother at the
Royal Variety Performance and it brought the house down!
I was with Shirley Bassey
earlier this year, at a party to celebrate her 50th anniversary
in the business, and we were talking about Dot.
Shirley said: ‘Dot showed the way for belting singers’, and
it’s quite true. Before Dorothy, female vocalists tended to be rather
restrained in their vocal delivery. Dorothy
just blasted them out. I
particularly loved her music during the Billy Reid period – that was
probably when she was at her most mellow.
I saw many of Dot’s
concert performances over the years, and they were always great occasions.
She always had the audience in the palm of her hand. In my opinion she was one of our greatest singers – she
showed other performers the way to do it.
She was also a talented songwriter, something that is overlooked.
One of her biggest hits was Say It With Flowers, which she wrote,
and when I was recording an album called To Mother With Love I decided to
include the song. It was
typical of Dorothy that she insisted on writing a special new lyric for me
to sing – she was like that, always a very generous person, and very
warm hearted.
Sandra Caron
(actress
sister of Alma Cogan)
Although their singing
styles were really very different, I know that Alma was a great admirer of
Dorothy as a singer, and I think that Dorothy felt the same about Alma.
They shared the same record label - EMI’s Columbia - for several
years, and even had the same recording manager, Norman Newell, so were
always bumping into each other, either in the Abbey Road recording studio,
at social gatherings, or attending parties.
When Alma opened in
cabaret at The Talk Of The Town theatre restaurant in 1964 Dorothy was out
there in the audience with Norman, and they were both shouting out song
requests to her! Similarly,
Alma and Alan Freeman were there for one of Dorothy’s opening nights in
the West End, and led the standing ovation at the end of the show.
Alma was renowned for her
sometimes rather wicked impersonations of her fellow professionals – she
would send up performers like Shirley Bassey, Eartha Kitt and Vera Lynn,
but always in a very affectionate way.
On one of her ITV Startime programmes Russ Conway was the support
guest and he had recently had a Top 30 hit single with Dorothy on Say It
With Flowers. Alma did a wonderful impersonation of Dorothy singing the
song, as a way of introducing Russ. Apparently,
Dorothy loved it!
Dorothy and Alma often attended the same charity functions, and always had great fun when they were together. They both appeared on the same tribute show to the late Michael Holliday, which was held at the Prince of Wales Theatre in April 1964. Once Alma went to one of Dorothy’s famous parties at her home in Bexley, and had a mishap – the high heel fell off one of her shoes! Dorothy immediately went to find a pair of her own shoes that Alma could wear but unfortunately they were a couple of sizes too small. After teetering around rather uncertainly, Alma decided better of it and went bare footed for the rest of the evening!
Anita
HarrisDorothy was an
extraordinary performer. Her
audiences adored her. She was
the first British artist to play The Talk Of The Town in London and many
years later, when I trod the same ‘Talk’ boards for five seasons, the
stage staff still spoke about Dorothy with awe, affection – and fear!
Dorothy was a singer’s
singer. She had a great understanding and original interpretation of
lyrics. Like Ethel Merman she
could bring the roof down with her glorious vocal attack and magnificent
notes. At the same time she
could ring the changes and attract rapt attention from capacity audiences
with her versions of Billy Reid songs like It’s A Pity To Say Goodnight,
This Is My Mother’s Day and Tree In A Meadow, and powerful ballads like
Till and My Way.
Radio broadcaster and
football agent Eric Hall worked with Dorothy in the 70s, promoting her
records both for EMI Records and President Records.
He also interviewed her twice on his radio programme.
Welsh singer and
entertainer Johnny Tudor appeared on many of Dorothy Squires’ concert
bills back in the 70s including the legendary 1970 London Palladium show,
soon after he had won the prestigious Knokke Song Festival in Belgium.
I knew Dot all of my life
and appeared with her on many concert bills, including at the London
Palladium and the Royal Albert Hall. She
looked on me as part of the family because, when she first went to London at
the age of 16, my father befriended her.
She had nowhere to stay so he took her home to his mother and she
slept head to toe in the same bed as my Grandmother and Grandfather.
I have so many memories of
Dot, but perhaps one of the most vivid was when I appeared at the Palladium
with her, and the tour we did following that.
Most people know what a great success that was.
She was a very volatile
character but she also had a soft side.
When I was going through my divorce I went to stay with her.
She knew I was in a bad way and insisted that I shouldn’t be left
alone, so she took me to EMI’s Abbey Road recording studios where she was
recording an album with Norman Newell.
Just listening to Dot wring every bit of emotion out of her songs was
a very moving experience and on the way back to her house I got very
depressed.
I was driving her Buick up
the M4 to Bray and it started to snow.
When she asked me what was wrong I told her it was the divorce, and
we both burst into tears as she remembered her divorce from Roger.
She ordered me to stop the car but I told her we couldn’t as we
were on the M4! She screamed
for me to stop so I pulled over onto the hard shoulder and she jumped out,
grabbed a handful of snow, rammed a purple heart into my mouth, took one
herself and swallowed it down with the snow.
We continued up the M4 as high as kites!
© 2004 - 2005 www.dorothysquires.co.uk
