Career
Kirby's voice became apparent early in life, and she took singing lessons with a view to becoming an opera singer. She became a professional singer after meeting bandleader Bert Ambrose at the Ilford Palais in 1956. She remained with Ambrose's band for three years and he remained her manager, mentor and lover until his death on stage in Leeds in 1971.
She adopted the look of a "blonde bombshell", and was compared to Marilyn Monroe. She had five Top 40 hits between 1963 and 1965, the best known of which is her cover version of "Secret Love". In 1963 she won Top British Female Singer in the New Musical Express poll.
Kirby became one of the biggest stars of the early to mid 1960s, appearing in the Royal Command Variety Performance and three television series for BBC TV. She represented the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1965, and came second with the song "I Belong". Author and historian John Kennedy O'Connor describes Kirby's "I Belong" as being far more representative of current musical tastes than other songs from the contest, but she was beaten by France Gall from Luxembourg, singing an even more contemporary song written by Serge Gainsbourg. She also sang the theme tune of the BBC television series Adam Adamant Lives!.
After the chart success of "I Belong", Kirby recorded more than a dozen more singles between 1965 and 1967, but they all failed to chart. She continued to make television appearances, and her 1974 appearance on The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club TV variety show is available to watch on YouTube.
During the 1970s Kirby's singing career was eclipsed by a turbulent personal life, but she made occasional television appearances and performed a few live concerts on the "nostalgia circuit". On 31 December 1976, she performed her hit song "Secret Love" on BBC1's A Jubilee Of Music, celebrating British pop music for Queen Elizabeth II's impending Silver Jubilee.
In December 1983 she gave one last concert in Blackpool, then retired from show business altogether.
Read more about this topic: Kathy Kirby
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