Page 8

The Young Ones was released on Friday and was No. 1 on Monday staying in position for
six weeks before being knocked off by Elvis with Rock A Hula Baby/Can't help falling in
Love. It had advance sales of more than a million copies and stayed in the charts for 21
weeks .

Cliff was awarded the title Showbusiness Personality of the Year.

Another tour of the USA was arranged, but the concerts had poor attendances as America
and Russia were disagreeing over Soviet misiles being set up in Cuba. There was a fear of
a nuclear war and the general public were not venturing out. While in Memphis they
visited Gracelands to try and meet Elvis again but he wasn't there so they had a tour of
Gracelands with Elvis' Dad.

Cliff attended a Jehovas Witness meeting in Miami. When Cliff returned home he found
his Mom was expressing an interest in the Jehovas Witness faith, so they started studying
together.

There were a lot of comments about Cliff being chubby, the famous one being from
Minnie Caldwell of Coronation Street. The comment she made was " Isn't Cliff Richard a
lovely chubby lad" After hearing this comment, Cliff went on a crash diet. He weighed 12
stone 7 lbs (175 lbs/79 kgs) and went down to 11 stone (154 lbs/70 kgs) . To achieve
this he had to give up his favourite drink of Tizer and ice cream and Indian sweets
Jelabis. He also had his pointed tooth capped.

During the Yugoslavian section of the film, guns were used. When the Assistant Director
took them into the country, he was nearly arrested.

Cliff's co-star Lauri Peters was appearing in the Sound of Music and was married to Jon
Voight of Midnight Cowboy fame. Una Stubbs was one of the dancers and became one of
Cliff's close friends. She later appeared in the Cliff Richard shows with Hank and Cliff and
became Alf Garnett's daughter in Sickness and in Health. She also appeared in Give us a
Clue and as Aunt Sally in Worzel Gummidge.

Summer Holiday was Cliff's 20th single and went to number 1 twice. The Summer Holiday
soundtrack LP stayed at the charts for 14 weeks and Cliff became the first artist to get four
songs from one film into the chart. Summer Holiday 9, Bachelor Boy 16, The Next Time 18

Dancing Shoes 25.

One of the
famous scenes
was Cliff having a
shower

It was decided they needed another song for the film, so
Cliff and road manager Mike Conlin got together and wrote
it in a few minutes. It was called Big News and ended the
film.

Most of the filming was done around Greece in temperatures of 100+ degrees. The bus was
supposed to be travelling through Switzerland and although there were mountains around,
there wasn't any snow on them. With a film-makers licence, snow was later added to the
mountains.

Cliff had to learn to drive a double-
decker bus for the film and was coached
by London Transport at Chiswick Depot.
Cliff was terrified when he had to drive
the bus himself around Constitution
Square in Athens, Greece.

After the success of the Young Ones, it was decided to make another film with Cliff as the
star. It was becoming popular for young people to holiday abroad, but how would they get
there as flying was costly. They decided on the great idea of taking a bus, with a gang of
teenagers aboard. Three double decker London buses were purchased, one arrived by
road, the other by sea, because it didn't fit under some of the bridges, but only one was
used in the film.

The Next Time/Bachelor Boy made it to No 1 in the New Year and sold 250,000 copies in one
week. Bachelor Boy was co-written by Cliff. To be knocked down by The Shadows again with
Dance On.

Bachelor Boy was added after the filming had finished. Melvin Hayes had gone back to his original
hair colour and style so he had to wear a wig for the filming of the Bachelor Boy section.

Summer Holiday was premiered in January and while the audience watched it, it was snowing
outside and Cliff couldn't get to the premier because of the crowds. It was the biggest box office
hit for a British Film.

Cliff was the No. 1 pop idol and there was no knocking him off the top until a group called The
Beatles began to appear on the scene. They had started playing around the same time as Cliff
and had played the clubs in Hamburg. When they returned to the U.K. they met Cliff many
times and joked about Cliff holding off the release of his new single so they stood a chance of
getting into the charts. The Beatles released a single From Me to You which went to No 1 on the
charts. Cliff's Lucky Lips only reached No 4 but later reached No. 1 in South Africa, No. 3 in
Israel and No. 9 in Hong Kong. It was also his best selling single in Germany where it spent 10
weeks at number 1 and sold more than 500,000 copies. The Papers featured the Headlines - "Is
Cliff Slipping" "Cliff at the Crossroads" "We're Not Has beens", says Cliff, "These are dangerous
Days for Cliff".

After 5 years of glory as Britain's top solo pop idol with no real strong competition Cliff now had
some very strong competition whenThe Liverpool sound arrived.

To be continued ......

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The bus with Cliff driving in Constitution Square,
Athens