Mike Read - The Cliff Richard Story

In the New Year Cliff revealed his hopes and plans for 1965. I trust that my next film is well liked. It wont be a musical really, you see, as there are only about four songs in it. I dont think I want to undertake any tours this year. The panto season doesnt finish until May the 10 th and we start filming soon after that. The private companies of Cliff and Frank Ifield are taken over by Constellation Investments, bringing them 474,000, The Daily Express commented: Most of the money concerned is likely to go to Cliff Richard, which will almost certainly establish him as a millionaire. By May the company was doing so well on the Stock Exchange that Cliff and Franks shares were worth 730,000. In an interview on the subject of earnings Cliff comments: I leave it to the businessmen. All Ive asked is that they tell me six months before I go broke so that I can get out. The press also suggested that he was about to retire to live in Portugal. The truth is that sooner or later I do hope to retire from the business. Lets face it thats the ultimate ambition of most entertainers. We cant go on forever and the time must come when we have to quit. I would rather leave while I am at the top than wait for the public to turn its back on me.

With I Could Easily Fall and The Twelfth of Never still in various charts around the world, Cliffs twenty-ninth single, The Minute Youre Gone was released in the early spring. Seven weeks later, the song, recorded in Nashville, knocked Unit 4+2s Concrete & Clay off the Number 1 spot. This was followed by another single recorded in the US, On My Word, a short tour of Scandinavia, and a tour of Spain, France and Switzerland.

August brought news of the next film, due to go into production in November. Manager Peter Gormley insisted that it was altogether more sophisticated than his last pictures. The Time In Between saw Cliff reunited with The Shadows, after two US singles. Shadow Hank Marvin commented, We were thinking of cutting The Time In Between, but when Cliff heard it he was so enthusiastic about it we passed it over to him. In October Cliff & The Shadows flew across the Iron Curtain to play dates in Warsaw, before performing in Beirut and the French Film Industrys Gala Concert in Paris in the presence of Princess Grace of Monaco. These shows were followed by a series of one-nighters in France, and the BBC presented the biographical radio documentary The Cliff Richard Story . In the autumn of 1965, there were mediocre reviews for Cliffs thirty-second single, another song recorded in Nashville, Wind Me Up, but despite the critics it provided Cliff with another hit.

Towards the end of the year there was still some confusion over the next film, which Cliff attempted to clarify. The last news to be announced was that we would make this film together and start work on the screen adaptation of Aladdin sometime in 1966. Now all that has changed and Aladdin is definitely going to be the next film. From late November Cliff & the Shadows undertook a UK tour of one-night stands, after which came the NME poll and Cliff yet again winning Best British Male Singer and coming second to Elvis in the World category. I regard myself as a very fortunate person, for this is the eighth time you have bestowed poll honours on meI want you to know that I value it deeply.