Shirley Bassey (far left), aged 18, playing jump rope with neighbors in Splott, Cardiff, 1955. Her mother, Eliza Jane (far right), can be seen looking on at the fun.
Earlier this year, it was announced that Welsh film director, Marc Evans, would be making a new biopic, “Miss Shirley Bassey” about Dame Shirley‘s childhood in Cardiff and her early career. Well, the project has garnered a lot of international interest, so much so that it was just selected as one of 25 feature narrative projects for the Independent Filmmaker Project’s (IFP) 2012 Project Forum Transatlantic Partner’s Projects section. The project was also selected for the 15th edition of Strategic Partners, an international summit where potential films are matched with film producers. The summit will take place during the Atlantic Film Festival, which will be held from Sept 13 – 15, 2012 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. This is very good news indeed!
Marc Evans has not yet identified an actress to play the young Dame Shirley. She will likely be an unknown. The biopic will focus solely on Dame Shirley‘s childhood in Tiger Bay and Splott, and her early career prior to her becoming a big star in the UK. We at DiamondBassey.org hope that it will be great film. This, of course, will not be the first film about Dame Shirley‘s early life and career. In 2011, the BBC released “Shirley“, a 70 minute biopic about Dame Shirley ’s early life and career starring Irish-Ethiopian actress, Ruth Negga, in the title role.
DiamondBassey.org is pleased to announce that we have reached a significant milestone for our blog. This is our 100th post! Thank you to all our readers for helping make this possible. You help to keep us going! And a very special “thank you” to Dame Shirley Bassey for inspiring us to create this blog. You are a unique and gifted artist, a trailblazer, a survivor, larger than life, a legend!
Sources:
Screen Daily: “Miss Shirley Bassey” at Strategic Partners
IndieWire: Shadow and Act – Updates on Marc Evans’ “Miss Shirley Bassey”
TAL – This is great news! I hope that it will be a first rate production movie which is shown around the world. Under my alter ego, Scot9023055, I have uploaded the movie in 4 parts. (Shirley Bassey – Shirley (The Movie – The Early Years). I had to upload an alternative Part 4 clip as EMI wouldn’t allow it to be shown in all countries because there is a scene with Ruth Negga singing, ‘I Who Have Nothing’, of course with Shirley’s recording. So what I did was delete the actual music and now people can view the part 4. Regards, Scot
Hi Scot. Thank you so much for posting “Shirley” on YouTube. Had it not been for you, I would have never been able to see this movie last year. I have since managed to get a copy but can only play it on my computer as DVDs from the UK are formatted differently for those in the US. I do hope that the new movie will be great and accessible to Dame Shirley’s worldwide legion of fans. I just wish there would be a movie that focused on not only her early years but also the 60s, 70s and 80s too. That I would pay to see in a heart beat
I’m curious to read your ABOUT category feature. Will that be available before September?
Probably not but definitely before the end of the year…
Terrific, Tal. Thanks!