Pop singer and entertainer Cilla Black rehearses a song with Sir Paul McCartney. He remembered Ms. Black as ‘a lovely girl who infected everyone with her great spirit.’Express Newspapers/Getty Images
Big-voiced British singer Cilla Black, a product of Beatles-era Liverpool who became a national treasure over a 50-year music and television career, has died at the age of 72.
Spanish police said she died at her villa on Saturday in Estepona in the Costa del Sol region. She fell, hitting her head, and was knocked her unconscious. She subsequently died of a stroke, according to information released by her three sons on Tuesday, the BBC reported.
Priscilla Maria Veronica White was born on May 27, 1943, in the northern English city of Liverpool. As a teenager, she sang part-time and worked in the cloakroom in the city's Cavern Club, where her talents were spotted by rising local stars, the Beatles.
Beatles members John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote her first single (Love of the Loved), which launched a music career that included two No. 1 singles in 1964 and spanned several decades. Signed by the Fab Four's manager, Brian Epstein, she had a string of hits starting in 1964 with Anyone Who Had a Heart, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and You're My World. Both went to No. 1 in Britain, and the latter also charted in the United States. In all, 19 of her songs made the Top 40 in Britain.
Ms. Black (whose stage name reportedly came about as a result of a misprint in a music paper) also had success with the Bacharach-David theme tune for the 1966 film Alfie, and recorded several Beatles songs, including The Long and Winding Road.
Sir Paul McCartney on Tuesday remembered Ms. Black as "a lovely girl who infected everyone with her great spirit."
By the late sixties she was famous enough to be known by her first name alone, and hosted a BBC variety show, Cilla. With her reliable good cheer and tireless work ethic, Ms. Black was a TV natural. Her catchphrase – delivered in a strong Liverpool accent that replaced the letter "t" with "r" – was "a lorra, lorra laughs."
She became a British television fixture as the cheeky, cheery host of matchmaking game show Blind Date (1985-2003) and heartwarming-reunion program Surprise Surprise (1984-2001).
Ms. Black's husband of 30 years, Bobby Willis, died in 1999. She leave their three sons, Robert, Ben and Jack Willis.