A biography for David Essexhasn’t been written yet.
“My kids are the best thing ever. They've got different mums, which is just the way things happen sometimes, but they all get on, they're great.”
“I knew that these girls who 'loved David Essex' didn't even know me, with all my foibles: they loved an impossible, glossy, unrealistic ideal of me, assembled from the music, the cinema screen and the pages of Jackie magazine.”
“My drive was not to get fame.”
“It's always a plus when there's something going on in a woman's mind as well as looking good.”
“My blue-grey Irish eyes are from my grandfather, who was a travelling tinker.”
“It was never my plan to be a teen idol.”
“You have a responsibility towards the people besotted with you, they don't know the real you, so to take advantage of that wouldn't be right.”
“I recommend walking in Whitstable as it is a compact town. People also take fishing trips from the harbour, but boats and I don't get on that well!”
“I always tip because I think waiters and waitresses are paid peanuts. But I only give 10pc.”
“You don't have to spend a fortune to have a good holiday.”
“I'm sad to say that I've never really kept in touch with my Scottish roots. We never went up there when I was a child, but I have visited a lot and had the best New Year's Eve of my life in Edinburgh. It was spectacular.”
“The fans are very loyal. I look into the audience and you can see what is obviously three generations of the same family.”
“My mum loved dancing and played the piano and was gregarious. There were Gypsies on her side of the family. Her dad was from Cork and sometimes in summer I'd go there with my mum to meet up with that side of the family and pick fruit and hops.”
“I never planned anything. I never had an image. I was just being me. If it hadn't worked out I would have done anything with freedom. I would have driven a truck across Europe.”
“I remember recording the Artilleryman's song 'Brave New World' while I was on a big U.K. tour. My voice was a bit whacked. I needed a lot of warming up to hit those falsetto parts.”
“I'd class myself as lucky. Because I've flitted from one medium to another, the gypsy in me, no one's had the chance to get fed up with me. By the time they're thinking about it, I'm gone.”
“I never liked the idea of a fan club, and although I occasionally wrote a letter for mine to send out, I generally kept such activities at arm's length.”
“Whatever was clean I would wear, and I never pandered to that pop idol thing. But they stuck me in various teenage magazines and it developed from there.”
“There were 13 children on my dad's side and five on my mum's so I come from a big family, but I am an only child - because of my dad's illness, really, but it was fine for me.”
“I like 'EastEnders,' yes. If I didn't respect the show, I wouldn't have gone into it.”