She won Eurovision with Puppet On A String. But now she admits that her love life could have wrecked her career.
By Glenys Roberts | Dec 2010
With her glossy bobbed hair and her habit of singing barefoot, she was the image of the Swinging Sixties. The original Essex girl made good (having once worked in the Ford factory in Dagenham), Sandie Shaw rocketed to fame aged only 17.
She wore a fur coat even at the height of summer, drove a white Mercedes and had a birthday cake topped with her famous bare feet cast in ice cream.
Sandie’s fame was built on the success of winning the coveted Eurovision Song Contest for the first time ever for Britain with her song — which she hated — Puppet On A String.
But Sandie, now 63, [2010] has revealed for the first time that this remarkable triumph almost never happened. For an extra-marital dalliance with a television boss almost caused the BBC to withdraw her from the contest at the last moment, fearing a backlash of disapproval at her behaviour.
‘The BBC wanted to fire me because I had a divorce scandal at the time which had come out just before the contest,’ said Sandie, who has since been married three times. ‘I was involved in someone else’s divorce and they didn’t think it was the right image. It was incredibly unpleasant.’
These days, such lurid details of a pop star’s private life often act only to enhance someone’s celebrity. But back in the Sixties, although people thought they had become liberated by the social revolution that was under way, there was still a moral code of sorts. A whiff of scandal could ruin an up-and-coming star’s career.
Sandie Shaw started singing at the age of six for an aunt whom she would entertain with a spirited rendition of American Fifties’ singer Guy Mitchell’s She Wears Red Feathers. As she tells it now, she was a late developer who always felt gawky and ugly — until one day she stepped on stage.
Initially prompted by her aunt to enter an Ilford Palais talent contest (dressed in kick-pleat short skirt which flattered her long legs), by the time Sandie was 16 she had moved up the ladder to perform on the same bill in London as rock group The Hollies and pop star Adam Faith. By the time she was 17 she had three No 1 hits, including There’s Always Something There To Remind Me and Long Live Love.
Sandie fully enjoyed her fame. With her angular cheekbones and classic Vidal Sassoon haircut, she became known as the ‘barefoot pop princess’ — the girl everyone wanted to look like.
Then, came the scandal.