Champagne for Lulu! The 60s singing sensation on being absolutely fabulous: ‘I look back and think, that’s some career’

“Champagne for …” I declare on arrival at ‘Shout’ singer Lulu’s London home. I’m brandishing a warm bottle of Taittinger, only to discover that neither our absolutely fabulous host, nor her (literally) Absolutely Fabulous friend, the one and only Jennifer Saunders, is drinking alcohol at the moment. Attitude lives for the poetic irony.

“I’m so sorry!” says Jennifer.

Lulu points out with a riotous laugh, “It’s still morning — you start early!” I am, of course, recreating the classic Ab Fab scene where the gaffe-prone PR Edina buys Lulu — playing herself — three courses and a pudding at a swanky restaurant. Snapping her fingers, Edina insists, “Champagne for Lulu!” before schmoozing, “Do you know what you need? A really good publicity machine. Who does your PR?” To this, Lulu replies, “You do.” It’s a sort of sharp subtlety that borders on the sublime.

“Once you realise someone’s a good sport, that’s all you need,” says Jennifer, reflecting on Lulu’s cameo. Today, Jennifer is the good sport, having kindly granted our request for an in-conversation piece to celebrate Lulu’s Honorary Gay win, supported by Jaguar, at the Virgin Atlantic Attitude Awards, powered by Jaguar.

Lulu’s acting chops were rewarded earlier this year, when she won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for Arthur’s Whisky, which co-starred Diane Keaton. We repeat: actual Oscar-winning acting icon Diane Keaton! “One of my favourite people!” says Lulu. “She’s completely eccentric and brilliant. Every second word is a swear word! We’ve decided we’ve got to find another thing to do together.”

More than 50 years before that, in 1967, she shot to international fame after starring in To Sir, with Love (“It broke all box office records in the history of Columbia Pictures, but it didn’t see the light of day here; it sort of came and went. It’s only in later years it became a thing”).

But acting has of course been secondary to Lulu’s glittering music career, which spans
60 years and includes the UK Top Ten 1964 hit ‘Shout’, which made her a teen icon, and
‘Relight My Fire’ in 1993 with Take That, which went to number one. There was a US number
one: the theme tune to To Sir, with Love. (“A whirlwind; I don’t think I was present for much
of it. But it was mind-blowing because of my American music influences”), plus there was
a Bond theme, ‘The Man With the Golden Gun’ (“Now I appreciate it more than I did even then. Being part of the 007 family? That’s something”).

There was a 1969 Eurovision Song Contest-winning bop for the UK called ‘Boom Bang-a-Bang’. There were duets with everyone from David Bowie to Sting. She even co-wrote a hit song for the late Tina Turner: ‘I Don’t Want to Fight’. (“How did it feel when it won a Grammy? To be honest, I don’t remember! I did get to meet her once, briefly.”) Of contemporary singers, her dream collabs include “Bruno Mars — hello?! — and Lewis Capaldi. I love that boy.” I suggest the similarly smoky-voiced Miley Cyrus.

“I’d love to sing with her,” she says.

“Oh my God, you’d sound great together!” enthuses Jen.

Essentially, Lulu’s life is a CBE and OBE-awarded tale of showbiz survival to rival Madonna’s. And it all started in the 60s with an anecdote for the ages: on TV music show Ready, Steady, Go!, the Beatles’ John Lennon and Paul McCartney were asked what their favourite new song was, and they said ‘Shout’. But Lulu missed the golden TV moment because she was at the chip shop. “Fish and chips on a Friday night — we weren’t Catholic, but that’s just what you did in Glasgow!” she remembers. “They were gorgeous. I was [a teenager]. Hormones were raging! I had pictures of them all over my bedroom wall!”

“When did you first meet them?” asks Jennifer.

“I went to their show at Hammersmith,” Lulu replies. “A very famous moment in their career. I was invited, standing side of stage; they’re like, ‘It’s Lulu!’ My one memory was being taken back into the terrible, dirty, Hammersmith dressing room. Paul, who I would go weak at the knees for, goes over to this sink. You know that great haircut he had? He put his head under the tap, shook his head, and his hair all fell into place. A vision.”

Unsurprisingly, Lulu is currently in talks to do a book looking back on her life. “And now it’s a documentary. And someone’s talking about making a film [of my life]. I go, ‘What, me?’ It’s all just people talking. Those things being talked about right now are the things where you go: ‘Oh. Yeah.’ I don’t really look at myself as something that special. I look at myself as a workhorse, I suppose. It’s a job and I get on with it. But then people suggest things. ‘Your story is so… it could be a movie.’ I shouldn’t be talking about this, because nothing’s [confirmed]. But then I look at all the things that have happened to me, all the moments. And I’m still here. And I think, ‘I’m not dead,’ and deciding to do it. I’m alive!” … I look back and say, ‘That’s some career you’ve had.’”

But first, there’s the second leg of her farewell tour — entitled Champagne for Lulu — coming up this autumn. “To be up on stage every night knowing this is the last one… I got emotional. The audience got emotional. I’m quite clearly not giving up. But the tour I did a year and a half ago was so hard, I thought, ‘I like hard work. But I’m not a martyr’. So, I’m doing 10 dates, and they’re not rammed together.”

This is an excerpt from an interview in the Attitude Awards issue 2024. To read the full interview, order your copy now or check out the Attitude app. Lulu heads out on the road for the Champagne for Lulu tour in Torquay on Sunday 3 November 2024.