We’ve told the story of how Cilla Black got herself blacklisted at ITV many times (in short: she was an arsehole to a young runner over a salmon sandwich; that runner rose up the ranks to become one of the top bods at the station; they then stymied any attempt she ever made to get back on screen).
You might have wondered why Cilla never jumped ship to the BBC. Well, it was for much the same reason.
There’s a BBC commissioning ed who likes to reminisce about the time he once held out his hand to shake Cilla’s, only for her to dump her mink coat into it instead. He would laugh when telling it, before going on to point that she consequently had “more chance duetting with John Lennon than finding a show with the BBC.” |