Tonight at 10pm, the life and times of Cilla Black will be explored in the Channel 5 documentary Cilla Black: The Queen of Saturday Night. But long before the Scouser became a TV star, she was best known for being a performer. She came up in Liverpool at the same time as The Beatles, and was even managed by their boss, Brian Epstein. But one relationship went a little further than she had hoped.
Cilla became extremely good friends with the band’s drummer, Ringo Starr, in the 1960s while performing nightly at Liverpool’s legendary Cavern Club.
In the 2020 documentary, Cilla: The Lost Tapes, further information about the star’s private life was revealed. During this ITV doc, Cilla’s private getaways with the Fab Four member were detailed, including their skiing trips in Europe.
However, they seemed to be just friends at the time, and they denied all romance rumours that cropped up.
That is until Ringo proposed to the singer. It seems the legendary drummer had fallen for Cilla after spending so much time with her and couldn’t help himself any longer. Out of the blue, he asked the young singer for her hand in marriage – but she didn’t believe him.
Cilla confessed she “wasn’t worried” though. She said she “just knew” his offer was not as sincere as it seemed.
Whether Ringo was either joking or simply lost his courage, he never sent Cilla the rings.
A few years later Ringo married his first wife, Maureen Tigrett, in 1965.
Cilla herself got married in 1969 to her manager Bobby Willis. She wasn’t thrilled by the man at first, however.
As revealed in the documentary, Cilla said: “It certainly wasn’t love at first sight. I actually fancied the opposite. He was funny, incredibly funny and he was incredibly good-looking.”
Cilla and Bobby had three sons together – Ben, Robert and Jack Willis.
Bobby tragically died in 1999 after suffering from lung and liver cancer, aged just 57-years-old.
Cilla died in 2015, aged 72-years-old, after suffering a stroke caused by a fall.
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