Born Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie in Lennoxtown, Glasgow, Scotland on November 3^rd 1948.  Marie is best known nowadays just as, Lulu. Her early years were spent at Whitehill Secondary School but by the age of fifteen she abandoned her education in favour of a singing career when, in 1964, she instantly shot to fame with the rock n’ roll song ‘Shout’, originally written and performed by ‘The Isley Brothers’ in 1959. 

1967 brought Lulu’s film debut in ‘To Sir with Love’ when she starred along side Sidney Poitier and later had a major hit with the theme song of the same name, reaching the number one position in the USA. 

By 1969 she was representing the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest with her entry, ‘Boom-bang-a-bang’ where she was a joint winner with the competitors from Spain. It became her biggest UK hit reaching number two in the British charts. 

It was in the same year that she drew in the song contest that she also married Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees. With their demanding careers the two decided to call it quits on their marriage in 1973 and parted good friends, although childless. The year after her divorce Lulu was contracted to record the theme song to the James Bond movie, ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’ which starred Roger Moore, Britt Ekland, one of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy models Maud Adams and Christopher Lee.

1974 went on to become a major recording year for Lulu when, with the assistance of David Bowie on saxophone, she recorded cover versions of David’s songs, ‘The Man Who Sold the World’ and ‘Watch that Man’. 

By 1975 Lulu had met her next husband, hairdresser to the stars, John Freida with whom she had a son, Jordan and later divorced in 1995. It was during this time that Lulu’s singing career was put on the back burner while she pursued her acting and modeling career. She appeared as the mother of Adrian in ‘The Diary of Adrian Mole’ after Julie Walters left the role. She modeled for a British based mail order catalogue and was voted ‘Rear of the Year’ in 1963. 

1993 was the year that Lulu’s singing career would be resrrected when she sang on the hit single ‘Relight My Fire’ with the boy band, Take That, the group that brought Robbie Williams into the musical spotlight. 

One of the highlights of Lulu’s career came in 2000 when, along with Michael Parkinson, she received an OBE from the British Government in recognition of her musical career. Two years later she released an album called ‘Together’ which was a collection of duets performed by two other British honour holders, Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Elton John. Later in 2003 she penned her autobiography entitled ‘I Don’t Want to Fight’ which was the title of a hit that Lulu and her brother had written for Tina Turner. 

Taking her years of experience across the Atlantic in 2006, Lulu was invited to be a mentor to the female contestants on Simon Cowell’s ‘American Idol. 

ABB