WHO WAS CLIFF’S MOVIE DATE?

Wednesday May 21,2008

SIR Cliff Richard brought a touch of Riviera glamour to the red carpet as he stepped out with German socialite and car-hire tycoon Regina Sixt for the Cannes premiere of Clint Eastwood’s latest film, Changeling.

The singer had clearly made an effort to match his friend’s dazzling style with a silk kipper tie and white embroidered shirt.

But as the evergreen crooner, 67, displayed his sartorial flair to the crowds at the French film festival, we can reveal he wasn’t always so seemingly mild mannered.

Apparently, during his school days, Sir Cliff was a demon rugby player. According to the Living Doll star’s old school chum Pete Bush, the normally placid young Cliff adopted a different persona on the rugger field.

“He was an absolute madman on the rugby pitch,” reveals Pete in a new book, Cliff Richard: The Bachelor Boy, by noted Cliff authority Steve Turner.

“He would go for you and his whole intention was to get you. He was terribly aggressive. He would go in hard. No one wanted to get tackled by Harry Webb, as we knew him in those days. He didn’t mind getting dirty.”

Brian Cooke, another ex-pupil of Cheshunt School, Hertfordshire, agrees: “He was pretty good at football and rugby.

Also, a lot of people don’t realise that he was undoubtedly the best scrapper in the school. You didn’t play around with him. You wouldn’t have gone around picking on him.”