It's been a long time

�

Q.� How has Cliff Richard remained a major star for so long < xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

A.� It's a question of knowing the market, picking the right material, staying out of trouble, and staying alive�- all items Cliff Richard has managed to achieve, and all contribute at least in part, to his continuous success as a singer and entertainer.

�

Q.� He's been going for a while now hasn't he

A.� An incredible44 years, which is an amazingly long time to still be selling records and selling out concerts.

�

Cliff's career began in 1958, when he teamed up with the Dick Teague Skiffle Group, catching on to the boom in youth entertainment caused by the craze of 'skiffle', music made by acoustic guitars, washboard rhythms and tea-chest basses, it was music any youngsters could perform cheaply and easily, and it was to form the basis of the pop boom of the 1960's. Cliff then joined The Drifters, not to be confused with the American band of the same name, and they in turn became Cliff Richard And The Drifters. Norrie Paramour head the band's first demo, and Cliff was invited to appear on Jack Good's groundbreaking TV show Oh Boy!� and his�career was off and running.

�

Q.� So has Cliff always gone for the 'clean-living mums' favourite' image

A/� Absolutely not! In 1958, during one of his earliest live gigs at the Lyceum in London, Cliff was pelted with eggs and tomatoes by irate men convinced that he was appealing to their girlfriends to an unacceptable degree.

�

The same year, Cliff appeared in his first film role, pre-dating the modern tendency for pop stars to act by some years. The film Serious Charge featured Cliff as Curly Thompson, a (gasp!) juvenille delinquent! From then on, Cliff's film roles were far more in keeping with his emerging image of a clean-cut and clean-living young pop star. With two million-selling singles to his credit, Living Doll and Travellin' Light, Cliff's second film Expresso Bongo saw him playing true to type, a young pop star, although this time he was exploited by his seedy manager, played by Lawrence Harvey.

�

Q.� Cliff's style was in place from then onwards

A.� It was�- and it has stood the test of all the trends fads and fashions that have followed since. Cliff has enjoyed careful and shrewd management. In 1961 he bought himself out of his existing film contract, and made his next film, The Young Ones, which became the second biggest box office success of that year, and ensured that Cliff's profile reached an even bigger audience. The seeds of a career that spanned generational gaps were sown at this time.

�

Q.� If you look at early film and pictures of Cliff, he looked a bit, well, chubby.

A.� He was, and when he received a mention on top soap opera of the day Coronation Street, as "that chubby Cliff Richard" he resolved to lose his excess weight immediately, and he has stayed slim from then to now, eating only one main meal a day and exercising regularly, usually with tennis, which he loves with a passion.�

�

Q.� What about the issue of Cliff's celibacy

A.� This is an aspect of Cliff's career that has fascinated the press since his earliest days. Rumours of Cliff's sexuality have also surfaced from time to time, steadfastly ignored by the star, and all around him, reckoned, not unreasonably, to be no-one else's business. Cliff was romantically linked to Jackie Irving, who married fellow sixties heart-throb Adam Faith, and friendships with singer Olivia Newton John and tennis star turned sports presenter Sue Barker caused the rumour machine to move into overdrive, but if Cliff has any romantic attachments since his announcement in 1977 to the Sunday Times that he had been celibate for the last twenty years, he isn't saying.

�

Q.� Fair enough�- back to the career, pretty successful

A.� Cliff Richard's record sales are awesome by any measure�- his first fifty-three(!) singles in a row made the Top Twenty, and for a time he looked like monopolising the Christmas Number One position. Cliff has had Number One hits in five consecutive decades, and hopes to be able to manage another in the new millennium, although with the changes in chart calculations, and the shift in popular taste, he looks to have something of an uphill task on his hands.

�

Q.� Is there likely to be another Cliff Richard in the future

A.� No because Cliff emerged from a culture when stars were appreciated for living simple lives, and making unthreatening music, a code that Cliff has embraced and retained. No-one starting out today, with the massive changes wrought in both pop music, and youth culture would be able to begin from such a solid standpoint.�Cliff is of his time, and his legendary status is assured until he decides to retire from music. People may scoff at his deeply held religious convictions, his MOR music, and his relentlessly 'nice' persona, but the fact remains that no has, or is likely to match his record sales statistics, his breadth of popularity, or his ability to steer his career through the choppy waters of pop, when many more careers have sunk without trace.

�

If you have a question about music, click here

Andy Hughes