Dame Shirley Bassey: 'My voice failed me after my daughter's death'

Dame Shirley Bassey said her voice failed her after the death of her daughter more than 30 years ago.

Samantha Novak was found face down in the River Avon, near the Clifton suspension bridge in Bristol, in 1985 aged just 21.

In the months following her daughter's death, Dame Shirley said she damaged her voice by singing through grief.

The Welsh performer - who has always maintained Samantha's death was not an accident or suicide - believes she was rushed into performing to deal with her feelings.

Speaking to comedian David Walliams in a BBC show celebrating her career, the 79-year-old said: "It was just devastating. I went home and after a week of being alone I woke up one day and said, 'I have to go back on stage, this is killing me'.

"I don't know what I would have done with myself.

"And then came the show, and I walked on the stage and I opened my mouth to sing Goldfinger - nothing came out.

"What had happened was, instead of staying home and grieving and getting it out my system, that I was singing it (grief) through the songs and I probably wasn't breathing in the right places and panicking."

Dame Shirley said that she couldn't sing "at all" for six months until she began work with a vocal coach.

The training, which lasted several months, did her spirit "the world of good and my soul, and I went back on stage".