Return to Rock-and-Roll Page.Lulu first came to the public's attention with a song on the British charts at age fifteen. She performed in a notable movie role and had a #1 hit in the USA while still in her teens, and went on to a lengthy career in the entertainment business.
When she was born near Glasgow, Scotland in 1948 her name was Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie. By the age of fifteen she was performing as a singer in clubs with a band called the Glen Eagles. The group changed its name to Lulu and the Luvvers, and in 1964 they made a cover of the Isley Brothers' Shout that went top ten in the United Kingdom. The group became quite popular and followed up with another top ten hit, Leave A Little Love, in 1965.
She decided to try making it as a solo act and retained the name Lulu. She became quite popular. From 1966 to 1969 she recorded four more hits that went top ten, including Boom Bang-A-Bang. In 1967 Lulu made her first appearance in a movie, playing Babs Pegg, one of the unruly students in To Sir With Love. She recorded the title track and it was a smash hit in the USA, going to #1 and staying there for five weeks in the Fall of 1967. It was merely a B-side in the UK, where the flip side Let's Pretend was the hit. Lulu had become one of the biggest-selling British female singers of the decade.
In 1969, she married Maurice Gibb of the BeeGees, a marriage that ended in divorce four years later. In the 70's she worked mostly in British television, and her only top ten record was The Man Who Sold The World, in 1974. That year she also sang the title song to the James Bond film The Man With The Golden Gun. She married celebrity hairdresser John Frieda in 1975. Together they had one son. The marriage ended in divorce in 1995.
Lulu managed to put a hit in the US top forty three more times, once in the 60's, once in the 70's, and once in the 80's. She continued with television work and continued recording songs. As late as 1993 she recorded Relight My Fire with British band Take That and it became a #1 hit in the UK. In the early 21st Century Lulu was still going strong, recording a number of duets with the likes of Elton John, Paul McCartney, Cliff Richard, and Sting that was released as an album titled Together. She also put out a greatest hits album and released her autobiography, which became a best-seller.
A popular celebrity in the UK for many years, Lulu is best remembered in the US for her appearance in the 1967 motion picture To Sir With Love and her chart-topping hit by the same title.
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