Dusty - In Her Own Words
“It's marvellous to be popular, but foolish to think it will last”
“I am a wreck after a performance, I am quite nervous, Basically I am quite a shy person so to take on the mantle of a performer is not an easy act. Whenever they say 'Dusty Springfield' I think 'This is somebody else'. ”
“Give a butch roar or a girlish shriek, I don’t mind who does what, sort it out for yourselves!”
“Please if you looked at me nicely, take me home. You like me! You fancy me! Wow! You know, can I kiss your boots? I was so innocent, and so insecure and so over-awed. Coming from having no confidence in myself on any level. That somebody could fancy me...They could be the rottenest people in the world, and some of them were. I made some dreadful mistakes, and I've never been allowed to forget them. Some of them were genuinely rotten people; there was nothing good about them, nothing nurturing. I didn't know how to sustain a relationship - didn't know what a relationship was. I don't know, I just ran over people.”
“A few days ago I was on a TV quiz show in Hollywood ["The Dating Game"] in which my prize was to go off on a date to winter sports in Kitzbuhel. Another girl on the show won a trip to Peru, which I'd have loved, but a European resort was no great thrill for me. Then my date turned out to be a young Greek-American who looked like Ken Dodd. He was a nice guy but we didn't seem to have much in common, even though he wanted to get into show business and asked my manager to manage him! In the end, I managed to get out of going and came back to London instead.”
“Dionne is angry with me to this day for covering a couple of her songs. But that’s what English acts did, including the Beatles. We all swiped things. The embarrassment is when you come face to face with the person who did the original and usually did it much better. If I’d of done the original of something, I’d have been very angry too. Most of them were very charming, but a couple of them had it in for me.”
"One of my biggest fears is growing old. Youth seems to be so important in this game and I want to stay on top all the time. If things look like they are sliding, then I'll throw the lot up. I don't want to be an old show business hag with memories and clippings".
“When a man stands his ground they say, ‘Yeh! He stood his ground!’ When a woman stands her ground she’s a B-I-T-C-H. (as recalled by Madeline Bell.)
“I don't need to be adored, to hear that applause. If I never heard it again, I would still be fine”
"And I don't think I have the physical appearance of a girl singer. I'm not sure how they should look, it's just that I don't think I fit the bill. I think my face is old looking".
“I had no trouble with my singing or career, it was Mary O’Brien I had trouble with. To this day when they announce me as Dusty Springfield I stand backstage and think myself into her personality."
"Whatever your personal political feelings are, if you become involved in them publicly you're bound to come out the loser."
“I don't like the idea of getting old, because I have great empathy for old people. I understand their sadness and their loneliness and it really hurts. I don't think I'd like to feel I was a nuisance. Loneliness in old age and any time is very sad.”
“Somewhere – you never know when – I crossed the line from heavy drinking into problem drinking. I was addicted to all sorts of things. So many of us were. I’m an addictive personality. A lot of us who went through the Sixties went through a training period of being ravers. It was encouraged. The more you fell downstairs and indulged in lunatic behaviour, the more people said ’Oh, she’s a right card, isn’t she!’ and actually it worked for a while.”
"I was a nothing kid. Not particularly good. Not particularly bad."
“Once I broke a telephone. I was very cross. I've never done anything quite as bad before or since. Oh, I once smashed some plates, but I did not like them much, anyway.”
“I think that [cats] are amazingly beautiful and sensuous. They get up in the morning and they look great. They’re comic and affectionate, and they can spot a phoney straight away.
“I think the Diva only came with various overwritten dramas that come along that people make up all sorts of stuff. I mean you do one thing and it gets blown up into this legend of pop Callas proportions and it was - most of it was - rubbish, but I also ran with it for a while. I almost started to believe it for a while. But I’m not a Diva at all... In the pop world I was probably given to more waving of arms and general noise making, sort of directing traffic.”
“I think Divas have this rather... neurotic is the wrong word... but there’s this sort of tension, and it's very real. I am tense, not now, but I certainly am when I am worrying about things on stage, and I think that edge makes it an uneven performance, but in the high parts, it creates an atmosphere of 'God, is she going to explode, or is she even going to get through this song, is she going to finish this act, what's going to happen next?’ and I think that living-on-the-edge quality makes audiences quite enjoy themselves.
“They might come out sweating, certainly I do, and exhausted, but they think that they have had a very good time! I'm there to give them a good time no matter what the cost to me, I am a wreck after a performance!”
“I burp like everyone else and I’m promiscuous. My affections are easily swayed and I can be very unfaithful.”
“I think my life and career would have been easier without the constant gay rumours. My sexuality has never been a problem to me but I think it has for other people. They seem to want me to be either gay or straight – they can’t handle it if someone’s both. How many other women entertainers can you think of who’ve admitted they’re bisexual? Believe me, some are”
“Look, let's say I've experimented with most things in life."
