Biography\r by Sharon Mawer\r Kathy Kirby was born Kathleen O'Rourke in Ilford, Essex on the East London borders on October 20, 1940. She was dubbed "The Golden Girl of Pop" in the mid-'60s, although her fall from fame into obscurity was almost instantaneous, as the international singing star who had appeared at the Royal Variety Performance and was Britain's entrant to the Eurovision Song Contest, earning millions, was declared bankrupt and found her life in ruins, sleeping in a shop doorway. She was a child prodigy, winning her first talent contest at the age of just three. She had an operatic singing voice and was a member of the school choir, looking forward to a potential career in opera and she was recruited as the featured singer for Bert Ambrose & His Orchestra, one of Britain's leading wartime big bands. The link with Ambrose remained long after she had departed to sing with other bandleaders, and then as a solo singer, signin...