On today’s Loose Women (Tuesday 29 August), music legend Sir Cliff Richard joined the panel in the studio to celebrate 65 years of making music, as well as opening up on his attitude to ageing.
Sir Cliff spoke to Kaye Adams, Frankie Bridge, Gloria Hunniford and Brenda Edwards about his dazzling career and told them: “I was born in the corner of Studio Two, Abbey Road… That’s when I feel life started so I always tell people ‘I’m not 80-something. I’m 65 years old’.”
During the show, he explained: “To me, age doesn’t seem to matter… I don’t see any point in being nasty or thinking bad things about ageing, it’s going to happen to all of us. I will one day die but I haven’t decided when!”
He continued: “We’ve learnt to love birth, people send pictures of their babies, and that’s right, but we somehow haven’t learnt to deal with death. Because death is something that comes and it splits families and it splits parents, husband and wives, and therefore it’s not something we welcome but we should at least get used to it and say ‘to heck with it, if it happens, it happens’. You can still have a life whilst you’re ageing.”
Discussing the success he’s had in his career, Sir Cliff said: “Luck does come your way but I think people in our industry, luck comes to us all at some point but you need to grab it by the throat. We’ve all done that and so I say, luck has come my way but you have to actually work at it still.”
Speaking about one of his earliest inspirations, Rock ‘n’ Roll legend Elvis Presely - who he pays tribute to in new memoir ‘A Head Full of Music’ - Sir Cliff explained: “The first time I ever heard him… we were still at school and we were walking around in Waltham Cross in Hertfordshire and this guy pulled up in a green Citroën, it had this sweeping thing like it was a spacecraft and the windows were open, the engine was running and the radio was on.
“We’re looking at the car going, we’re going to have one of these one day, when suddenly we heard [Elvis’ playing] and then the guy came, shut the window and drove off. So we had no idea who it was, we didn’t have phones in those days and we certainly couldn’t afford cars.”
He added: “It was Norman… who came round and said ‘I know who it is!’. He had been listening to the American Forces network from Germany and he said ‘the song is called 'Heartbreak Hotel' and the singer is Elvis Presley!’ and we went ‘Elvis?! Who’s got a name like Elvis?’. Anyway that was the first time and I think I write in the book, it’s like I can remember it now and that’s the time I thought ‘I have to do this!’ so we chased it.”
Proving he’s still got the moves himself, Sir Cliff even showed off his Elvis impersonation to the studio audience and viewers at home!
He also revealed what made him the successful artist he is today: “Jack Good - who did a TV show called ‘Oh, Boy!’ - he took me on the show because I had ‘Move It’ released and within two rehearsals he said to me ‘get rid of your sideburns’ and I went ‘sideburns?! It took me years to grow these!’ and then he said ‘get rid of the guitar’.
“He said ‘I don’t want an impersonation of Elvis, I booked Cliff Richard’ and he is the one that helped me stop wriggling around too much and using the body and the eyes… Well you know, people started screaming and I loved it!”
Sir Cliff discussed his upcoming album ‘Cliff with Strings’ - including a very special tribute to Olivia Newton-John and explained how the duet originally came about: “Olivia called me and said ‘look I’m doing this movie and unfortunately my co-star doesn’t sing…’ I’m going ‘yes!’ and of course, she said ‘would you come over and sing it with me?’.
“I would normally say ‘please send me the track’... you can’t record songs you don’t like… but I didn’t bother. I went across and recorded it in the engineers garage so every now and then we’d have to stop as a truck went by! But all in all, Olivia and I sing well together and it was the best duet I think because it suited the male voice and it suited the female voice… Part of it is just luck that it did blend.”
Having been friends for 50 years, Gloria explained how her’s and Cliff’s friendship has stood the test of time: “I’ll tell you what, Cliff makes a really, really good friend. He’s solid, very loyal because I always say there’s almost like two Cliff Richards because when I see you at the [Royal] Albert Hall, there you are the performer and you look like 45 or something."
Before joking: “...and then I see you in the kitchen with all the wrinkles! You would think Cliff would never wash up dishes or make the coffee but you do. You sort of muck in with everything and you become ordinary but extraordinary!”
Revealing how they met, Gloria added:
“When the troubles were in Northern Ireland... no entertainer would come. Cliff was the first one that came and there was a huge buzz about it and it was a gospel concert. I had joined the BBC, given the job, and I went in naively and said ‘oh Cliff Richard’s in town, he’d be good for the programme’ and they went ‘we’ve tried every which way to get him and he’s not doing anything."
“But I knew the vicar of that church [Sir Cliff was playing at] see, I rarely take no for an answer so I rang him up and said ‘if you finish quite early at the church, would you give me call’ and I got the call and [Sir Cliff] agreed to do it so I went down!”
Loose Women airs weekdays from 12:30pm on ITV1 & ITVX
To see the full interview visit www.itv.com/watch/loose-women