A Girl Called Dusty

Dusty Springfield is a pop music legend. Goddess of the sixties, reluctant recluse of the seventies, enigmatic icon of the eighties and nineties, she attracted a passionate following that has remained loyal to this day. She crossed the line into soul music, her first love, but never turned her back on pop music. A perfectionist in her work, she was a shy, awkward girl off stage. Misunderstood and misquoted, that was Miss Springfield. She had a lifestyle to envy, was the original IT girl and achieved, many believed, the height of decadence. But who really knew her? Who was the real lady behind the black mascara and backcombed hair? This is the story that she never had the chance to tell herself because, nearly two years after her first battle with breast cancer, the disease returned to take her life in 1999. When the end finally came, the music business descended into mourning, tributes flooded in from all over the world, The Daily Telegraph front page announced Dusty Springfield dies on day she was to get OBE and her Majesty The Queen was reported to be deeply saddened. Dusty Springfield was the very heart and soul of British music. Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant, who was responsible for her return to chart success in 1987, believed that she was the very essence of fabness .