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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Dance > Ballroom dancing
Leave it all on the floor... Queen of Latin Ballroom, Shirley
Ballas has a spectacular dance career spanning over 40 years - she
has Cha-Cha'd her way across the world's dance floors to become a
multi-award-winning ballroom champion and one of the most renowned
dancers in the world. In 1996, Shirley retired from competitive
dancing to become a highly-acclaimed coach and now holds the
enviable position of Head Judge on BBC One's prime time show
Strictly Come Dancing. In Behind the Sequins, she leads us through
her dramatic and determined life, from growing up in a rough estate
on the Wirral and leaving home at 14 years old, to conquering the
high-octane world of ballroom and coping with betrayal, bullying,
two broken marriages and a personal tragedy that left Shirley and
her family devastated. Speaking from the heart, Shirley leaves her
dancing shoes at the door to tell you the story of a fiery,
strong-willed grafter who could make the brat pack blush.
Better Late Than Never is the extraordinary true story of how a man
born into poverty in London's East End went on to find stardom late
in life when he was chosen to be head judge on BBC1's Strictly Come
Dancing. Len Goodman tells all about his new-found fame, his
experiences on Strictly Come Dancing, and also on the no.1 US show
Dancing with the Stars and his encounters with the likes of Heather
Mills-McCartney and John Sergeant. But the real story is in his
East End roots. And Len's early life couldn't be more East End. The
son of a Bethnal Green costermonger he spent his formative years
running the fruit and veg barrow and being bathed at night in the
same water Nan used to cook the beetroot. There are echoes of Billy
Elliot too. Though Len was a welder in the London Docks, he dreamt
of being a professional footballer, and came close to making the
grade had he not broken his foot on Hackney Marshes. The doctor
recommended ballroom dancing as a light aid to his recovery. And
Len, it turned out, was a natural. At first his family and work
mates mocked, but soon he had made the final of a national
competition and the welders descended en masse to the Albert Hall
to cheer him on. With his dance partner, and then wife Cheryl, Len
won the British Championships in his late twenties and ballroom
dancing became his life. Funny and heart-warming, Len Goodman's
autobiography has all the honest East End charm of Tommy Steele,
Mike Read or Roberta Taylor.
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