SEND YOUR

ON "DANCING WITH DEMONS"

Here is a copy of a letter I (James Fabiano)faxed to VW:

Dear Vicki,

My name is James Fabiano, and I am a big fan of Dusty Springfield. I wanted to write to you about the articles that recently appeared in the Daily Mail. Now, I will not deny that I know these stories are most likely true, or at least close to the truth. I think I've accepted that Dusty, like all of us, was a human being, and had many of the flaws and
difficulties that comes with being human. Sometimes I'll be shocked and taken back for a while when I learn about her rough times, but in the long run I think being "human" is why I admire her as a person alongside being a great singer. Part of that is because I can relate to some of her traits and struggles. Like Dusty, I have faced self-doubt, a feeling of never doing well enough, being "difficult," and questioning myself or being questioned for what I am. You see, I have a condition called "Asperger's Syndrome," which is a form of autism. So I know what it feels like to be judged by myself and others, just as Dusty was for her sexuality by reporters and people she thought were her friends.

That brings me to my motivation for writing to you. You see, the other part of why I think having struggles makes Dusty someone I admire a lot is because in the end, she faced those struggles and survived. Not only that, but when she did so she came out a little wiser and more mature. You could tell from the depth of the songs she sang as well as from listening to her talk. One of my favorite quotations from Dusty came from the Full Circle video, when she brings up her time in America and says "It's been very, very good to me and very, very bad to me, and it needed to be both for me to be here now."
You could not imagine how much I wish I could follow that outlook, given the difficulties I had and currently have. But the point is that's why the Daily Mail articles - - which come from you directly - - upset me so much. As I said, I can accept that Dusty's life was no bed of roses. But why not make sure that the articles said more about how she came back from her difficulties? I know a lot of people want to know why you kept the tone of those articles so negative, as if you were purposely trying to shatter the Dusty we all know and love. As it is, the articles just made small references to Dusty’s comeback and then continued to unfairly portray her as being (pardon my choice of word) "bitchy." Again I won't pose the "did it happen or not?" question, but I feel there should have been more said about the good things she did amid those difficulties. I think Dusty would gain many new fans that way. Some of us think the person AND the performer are equally important, you know.

That's not the only thing that bothers me, however. I don't know if you're aware of it or not, but because of these articles many of Dusty's fans (myself included, and many whom I communicate with through the internet mailing list "Dustymail") are deeply hurt, as well as her friends Pat Rhodes and Simon Bell. It's not so much that the stories were bad, but because they know that Dusty valued her privacy a great deal, and they feel that letting these articles pass violated that, and was disloyal and unfair to Dusty. Some of them even think that - - and I am not saying this is true, but it sure comes off that way - - you are taking advantage of being the only one who could talk about Dusty's private life by revealing the negative stories. Now I do not know about your relationship with Dusty and the things you agreed and disagreed on, so I’m not trying to pass final judgment on you. But I think it’s important that I let you know that many Dusty fans have been unnerved by your articles for the reasons I brought up.

I understand that you will be interviewed soon, including a conversation with Simon Bell. I hope you will use that time to clarify the matters behind those articles; namely, how much of your respect for Dusty went into deciding to print it, and why you settled for the tone you did that was so one-sided against her. I also hope you will try to fix the imbalance created in the articles so more people will know the Dusty we love and admire instead of the negative image these articles unfairly portray her as. I am also looking forward to the new book, and I hope that will depict the WHOLE story. If not, I cannot see myself supporting it with my dollars.

Sincerely,

James Fabiano

Hello Simon, and all Dusty's people,

Well, the jackals didn't wait long before they moved in, did they? Dusty's not been dead for a year and a half yet, and we've already had 'Dusty, the Musical', 'Dusty, the other Musical', 'Dusty, the threatened biopic', and now 'Dusty, the Hatchet Job'.

Of course, we all know about Hatchet Jobs. Everyone who is the least bit famous is vulnerable to them. They're usually carried out some time after death (Elvis, Lennon, Crawford etc.), when there's no possibility of a law suit, but anybody dead is fair game. Also, they are always done by somebody mediocre about somebody great. The authors are probably motivated by envy, and maybe by the fact that genuine talent is very threatening to those who have very little, or none. So, they undermine or destroy the thing they don't have. Perhaps the process of destruction boosts their own shaky self-esteem.

The saddest thing about the Dusty Hatchet Job is that it has been done so awfully quickly by people whom she trusted as part of her inner circle. The irony of this forthcoming book is that the most destructive of "Dusty's Demons' are (some of) those whom she thought of as her most intimate
friends.

I was very suspicious of V. Wickham after recent broadcasts, in which she said that: "Dusty didn't have much of a voice", that she "hated singing", and was "in it for the money". It was clear from this that Vicki either was tone deaf (and therefore hardly best suited to be Dusty Springfield's biographer), or had some other agenda.

So now we know.

Ah well. All of us will go on being as grateful to Dusty for what she gave to us, regardless. Nothing that Vicki Wickham or anybody else writes can change that.

We must all learn from the moral of this shabby story, however. If any of you out there think your life merits being publicly told, then get on with it, and write it yourself.. Otherwise, God help us all from being left to the judgments of those whom we think love and respect us. They'll turn out to be a bunch of greedy, exploitative gits in the end.

Annimac

P.S. Shouldn't we all be boycotting this book?

DANCING WITH DEMONS

What we have here is one of the most appalling acts of betrayal of modern times.

The story of Dusty Springfield is one that is centred around an extraordinarily complex woman. A woman who was as mesmerising as she was enigmatic. Adored by the public, revered by her peers yet almost destroyed by herself. Then along comes Dancing with Demons to finish the destruction for her.

Vicki Wickham, whom Dusty had thought was her close friend, has, in one stroke, blithely smashed to smithereens the thirty-five years of devoted protection that Dusty Springfield had inspired in (almost) everybody around her.
The unfailing loyalty of her many close friends (even her former lovers) told us so much about Dusty herself. Dancing with Demons isn't so much about the tragic excesses of yet another rock star, but yet another modern-day tale of the greed and exploitation of those who hover around the talented and the famous.

There was always going to be a problem with this book because the grandiose subject of Dusty Springfield had fallen into the hands of a just-competent hack, Penny Valentine. Vicki Wickham, we are told, was there merely to open a few doors,but she's nothing if not a smart businesswoman and, lo and behold, there she is with the credit of co-author so it looks as if she'll be opening a few bank accounts as well.

As a serious writer Valentine is completely at sea. Her work is flat, prosaic and slight. No depth. No wisdom. No
insight. No real attempt to understand. No apparent compassion. Was it really necessary to delve quite so deeply into Dusty's private life? Was it really necessary to describe in graphic detail every occasion where Dusty damaged herself? Yet even on a more surface level, the balance in this sleazy little book is all wrong. Where is the essential sense of FUN that was Dusty? We always knew that much of Dusty's story was sad (that's one of the reasons why she was such a great singer), but there was a lot of EXUBERANCE there, too (and that's another reason why she was such a great singer). We are given absolutely no sense of just how COLOSSAL her early career was; no sense of the DYNAMITE of her live performances. In fact, there is virtually no attempt to examine her music at all. Where there is a straight choice between a negative or a positive image, Valentine and Wickham seem determined to go for the negative every time. So we get a full description of Dusty's very sad Talk of the Town performance in 1972, and nothing at all about her staggering and joyous comeback at the Albert Hall eight years later.Nothing, that is, apart from using it as the means of feeding the reader with even more negativity (i.e. the Princess Margaret hoo-ha).

Gib Hancock, Dusty's next-door neighbour and great friend, is one of those wonderfully solid, reassuring types who exudes such qualities as integrity and decency. He certainly has nothing to do with the music business. His tribute at Dusty's funeral was stunning. Beautifully written and very moving, it was perhaps the more potent because of his "outsider" status.
He finished by telling us that he was not, perhaps, the best person to assess the nature of "star quality" but he felt that it had to be something more than just having a great voice. "All I know," he said, "is that whatever star quality is, Dusty had it. And she had it right up to the end."

Penny Valentine and Vicki Wickham tell us Gib Hancock is rather "pedantic". They tell us that he is the sort of man
who "writes books in his spare time", which suggests, of course, that he's a dabbling amateur. Coming from the writers of Dancing with Demons, that's pretty bloody rich.

Tony Nuttall

 AN OPEN LETTER TO VICKI WICKHAM

Miss Wickham,
I have just read,probably like millions of other people,the serialised version of your forthcoming book.
It is, i think,exactly as i was expecting.The laying bare of a tortured soul,unable to speak for herself.The basis of the article was nothing new,we have seen it time and time again trashed through various newspapers and magazines.Pure sensationalism,written by someone trying for their 15 minutes of fame.
Did we really NEED to read it all again,especially written by people professing to have been closer to Dusty than anyone else.
We all try to make it through life the best we can,some get through,others fall by the wayside.We all have things in our life that for some reason we are ashamed of and try to hide from even those close to us,if you are not included in that then i would be very interested in seeing the video of you walking on water!
We loved Dusty,not because we believed her to be a saint,we loved(and STILL love her)inspite of all her faults,she was a unique talent,one we shall never see again in our lifetime,i for one, am proud and privelidged to have lived and experienced her wonderful gift,a gift you,if the article is anything to go by-is something you choose to ignore.
I can only find inspiration in Dustys life,and can only wonder at the tremendous fight she had to overcome,so many,in your words ''Demons''.
All i can do is ask myself, if i had to overcome everything she had to,could i do it?I really don't know if i could,she had an additional boulder around her neck-she had the world watching.

If we had known you were hard up Miss Wickham,I'm sure we as loyal fans of Dustys could have had ' a whip round ' to help you out. I dont know if God will forgive you,i dont think Dusty will.

Rosemary. 

I confess that I started to read the book from a negative premise because of the newspaper article but sadly wasn't moved to a positive stance. I found the style of writing very irritating and moreover factualy inaccurate in parts.Clearly there were parts of Dusty's life that were already known to
the public .The book did not attempt to rework those facts in a manner that would have made them more interesting on telling a second time around.Richard Ellmann manages to do that in his biography on Wilde a story thats been told many times before. But that is the hallmark of a good
biography.
Dancing with Demons often makes these broad assertions but then really does very little to back them up.Even when there are quotes from people who knew Dusty they are presented in such a brief simplistic way that the reader is
unable to build up a picture of Dusty's personality.This sadly is the failing of the book whether it is dealing with her private or professional life. Or indeed in its attempts to analyse some of Dusty's destructive traits.It is surprising how often it relies on quotes that have already been
printed or aired before whether they are from Dusty or friends. One is left with the feeling that the writers haven't been bothered to do the research properly or that people just haven't opened up to them. It goes with out saying there is no thorough attempt to analyse her career or music. I suspect that was not the purpose of the book.It reads to me like some rough draft of a movie or television plot.
I hope that one day we have a biographer who will do justice to Dusty's life because clearly there is a story worth telling but in my humble opinion she deserves better than this.
I think that is enough of the negativety.We have the box set to look forward to .We should all look to the future and ensure that the image of Dusty we loved is maintained.

Peter Lancaster