Dusty Springfield, pop's quintessential British Invasion chanteuse, died Tuesday at her home outside London after a five-year battle with breast cancer. She was 59.

In her '60s heyday, Springfield became as famous for her trademark peroxide-blond beehive hairdo and black-smudged, raccoonlike eye makeup as for her music. Considered the finest British female vocalist of her time, she had hits with plaintive, heart-rending songs such as "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me" and "Wishin' and Hopin'" as well as the upbeat "I Only Want To Be With You" (the theme for HBO's Arli$$) and the saucy "Son of a Preacher Man," which reached new audiences after being featured in 1994's Pulp Fiction.

Her last substantial U.S. success came from her guest vocal on the Pet Shop Boys' 1987 No. 2 hit, "What Have I Done To Deserve This?"

Born Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, she once said she never shook off the feeling of being an "awful, fat, ugly middle-class kid."

Longtime friend and manager Vicki Wickham, who visited her last week, said Springfield knew she was dying and had come to accept it. "Her physical deterioration was drastic, but her mind was sharp, funny and precise even through the drugs. It's all so sad."

On an Internet site, grieving fans shared poignant memories of their musical icon. "I haven't felt so upset about a pop star dying since John Lennon . . . Unlike many contemporary soul singers, she didn't have to resort to vocal pyrotechnics to convey emotion. Anybody with ambitions to be a singer should look no further than her body of work for an example of how it SHOULD be done," wrote a fan identified only as Jeff of Manchester, England.

And from Steve McNulty of Yorktown, Va.: "You never knew I only wanted to be with you. Your heart was worn on your sleeve and you shed it in your music."

Elton John, who broke the news to visibly distraught fans while performing in Peoria, Ill., Tuesday night, played a moving rendition of "I Only Want To Be With You." "Hers was the first fan club I belonged to," he said.

John was to have inducted Springfield into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at a ceremony in New York on March 15. "She was so hoping she could hold on long enough to get the award," Wickham says.

She lived long enough for Queen Elizabeth to give her an Order of the British Empire honor in December, though Springfield was too ill to collect the prize for her musical contridutions in person. The queen said Tuesday she was "saddened" by the singer's death.

Springfield, who never wed, lived in the English countryside with her cat, Nicholas. Wickham says the singer was concerned about who would care for him after she died. "Some friends of ours who have looked after him are going to take him in. After all, he was the love of her life."

Arlene Vigoda,
USA Today,
March 4, 1999