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In Liverpool in 1960 17-year old typist Cilla White frequents the Cavern club, where she occasionally sings. Her friend Ringo Starr, drummer with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes suggests she accompany the band to Hamburg for concerts but her parents forbid it, By chance she meets Bobby Willis, who claims to be in the music industry but actually works in a bakery. Cilla is not impressed when she learns the truth about him but allows him to be her manager. At their first gig she is erroneously billed as Cilla Black but likes the name. Ringo is now playing with the Beatles, who arrange for Cilla to audition with their manager Brian Epstein.
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Cilla is despondent after failing her audition for Brian Epstein but the loyal Bobby persuades her to keep singing, driving her from club to club. At the Iron Door club she impresses Brian Epstein who is now keen to manage her and take her to London to make a record. Bobby feels betrayed but Cilla insists he accompany her as her roadie. They stay in a hotel whilst Brian goes to an underground gay club and picks up a bit of rough who beats him up though he lies to Cilla about his bruises. George Martin records her debut disc 'Love of the Loved', with a song by Bobby as the B-side. It fails to enter the top twenty but her follow up, a cover of the American song 'Anyone who had a Heart' goes to number one in the charts.
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In 1964 Cilla has her second number one hit and gets to perform at the London Palladium. Feeling self-important she refuses to let Brian sign Bobby as a singer in his own right, claiming that she needs him to look after her. Cilla records the film theme 'Alfie', though she is derogatory about the title, as a means to break in to the American market but a trip to New York to appear on Ed Sullivan's TV show with Brian - who still seeks young men to rough him up - and Bobby does not yield immediate success and an impatient Cilla demands that they return home. Throughout the 1960s Cilla will continue to have hit records before turning to television and the loyal Bobby will always be with her. They are together when they hear of Brian's suicide in 1967, marrying two years later with Bobby being Cilla's manager until his death in 1999.
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