Singing legend Dusty Springfield is fighting a new cancer battle. Brave Dusty hoped she had won her battle three years ago after a lump was removed from her breast. But the disease has returned. Another lump was discovered in the same breast.

Now the 58-year-old star, who has become an icon for the youth of the '90s, faces an agonising five-week wait to discover whether the latest round of chemotherapy treatment has been successful. A close friend said last night: "We are all keeping our fingers crossed."

Dusty was given the all-clear in 1994 after the op and months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Her manager Vicki Wickham said: "Dusty was doing extremely well until last year. But then she started getting disturbing signs that it was coming back. She went for medical checks and they dicovered the breast cancer had recurred. Now she can only wait to find whether the new treatment has worked."

London-born Dusty - real name Mary O'Brien - was Britain's top female artist in the '60s with her soulful voice and trademark beehive hairdo and thick mascara. Her string of hits included "I Only Want To Be With You," "Son Of A Preacher Man" and the 1966 million-selling No. 1 "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me."

The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Gene Pitney were among her fan club. But convent-educated Dusty once admitted she lived like a nun for much of the swinging decade. She recalled: "Mick Jagger asked me out and I was paralysed with terror to go."

After that, she said, she decided to try anything once. She later admitted she liked to sleep with both men and women and "lost nearly all the '70s in a haze of booze and pills".

When her career nose-dived she went to live in America. But the '70s and '80s were plagued by problems as she fended off questions about her weight, drinking and sexuality.

Dusty lived as a recluse until her 1987 chart comeback with the Pet Shop Boys', "What Have I Done To Deserve This?" And in 1994 she recorded the album [A Very Fine Love in Nashville] - 25 years after her album Dusty in Memphis.

Months later she was battling cancer for the first time. She said then: "I just get up and try every day and it's always a battle. I've no idea how I've survived. I'd like to start over again but I can't. It's been a long time since being a star was the most important thing to me, but it's even less now."

And it was the last thing on her mind yesterday at her luxury home in Hurley, Berks, as she waited to hear whether the new treatment has wiped out the malignant cells.

Manager Vicki said: "Obviously she gets more tired. But she is up and around and in good spirits. I am amazed at her courage, but she loves life and she's not giving up yet."

Amanda Perthen
The People,
January 11, 1998