Lulu Kennedy-Cairns (born Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie; 3 November 1948) is a Scottish singer, songwriter, actress and television personality.

In 1967, she rose to international prominence after appearing in the film To Sir, with Love, singing the theme song, which topped the US Billboard Hot 100 for five consecutive weeks.

In 2002, she achieved her most recent top-ten entry in the UK chart when her collaboration with Irish singer Ronan Keating, "We've Got Tonite", peaked at number four.

While only fifteen, her version of the Isley Brothers' "Shout", credited to "Lulu & the Luvvers", and delivered in a raucous but mature voice, peaked at No.

[12] In the same year, she recorded two German-language tracks, "Wenn du da bist" and "So fing es an", for the Decca Germany label.

It sold well in excess of one million copies and was awarded a gold disc,[15] being ranked by Billboard magazine as the number 1 song of the year.

The series often featured resident guests, including Adrienne Posta, Roger Kitter, Paul Greenwood and Pan's People, along with dance troupes choreographed by Nigel Lythgoe and Dougie Squires.

The song was chosen from a selection of six by viewers of her BBC1 variety series Happening for Lulu, and on a special show hosted by Michael Aspel in which she performed all six one after another.

"Boom Bang-a-Bang" won, though three other songs, from Spain, ("Vivo cantando" by Salomé), the Netherlands, ("De troubadour" by Lenny Kuhr) and France, ("Un jour, un enfant" by Frida Boccara) tied with her on 18 votes each.

The rules were subsequently altered to prevent such ties in future years, but the result caused Austria, Portugal, Norway, Sweden and Finland not to enter the 1970 contest.

In 1981, she joined other Eurovision winners at a charity gala held in Norway, and she was a panellist at the 1989 UK heat, offering views on two of the competing eight entries.

Lulu began 1970 by appearing on the BBC's review of the 1960s music scene Pop Go the Sixties, performing "Boom Bang-A-Bang" live on BBC1 on 31 December 1969.

She recorded another Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd and Arif Mardin album in the US, Melody Fair, and scored a US Top 30 hit, "Oh Me Oh My (I'm a Fool for You Baby)", (later covered by Aretha Franklin, Tina Arena, Buster Poindexter, and John Holt) and collaborated with the Dixie Flyers on "Hum a Song (From Your Heart)".

[citation needed] Lulu was one of the main artists invited to appear on the BBC's anniversary show Fifty Years Of Music in 1972.

The same year she starred in the Christmas pantomime Peter Pan at the Opera House, Manchester, and repeated her performance at the London Palladium in 1975.

Notable London stage appearances came in the early 1980s and included Andrew Lloyd Webber's Song and Dance and the Royal National Theatre's Guys and Dolls.

Lulu damaged her vocal cords while performing in the Lloyd Webber show, requiring surgery that threatened her singing voice.

A follow-up single to "Shout", an updated version of Millie's 1960s hit "My Boy Lollipop", failed to chart and Lulu stopped recording until 1992, focusing instead on TV, acting and live performances.

Lulu has had releases on the Decca, Columbia, Atco, Polydor, Chelsea, Alfa, Jive, Dome, RCA, Mercury and Universal labels.

Also in 1993, the song "I Don't Wanna Fight", co-written by Lulu, her brother Billy Lawrie, and Steve DuBerry, became an international hit for Tina Turner.

At that time, she also appeared as an unhappy public relations client of Edina Monsoon in two episodes of the BBC television programme Absolutely Fabulous, and teamed with French and Saunders many times, including their send up of the Spice Girls (the Sugar Lumps) for Comic Relief in 1997, when she took the role of "Baby Spice", mimicking Emma Bunton.

An album, provisionally titled Where the Poor Boys Dance, was completed in late 1997 and due for release in early 1998, but was postponed by the record label, Mercury.

She also co-wrote and recorded a duet with UK pop singer Kavana entitled "Heart Like the Sun", but it was not released commercially until Kavana's 2007 "greatest hits" collection, Special Kind of Something: The Best of.... Now known as Lulu Kennedy-Cairns[37] (her late mother's birth name before she was adopted by the McDonald family[38]), in 2000 she was awarded an OBE by Queen Elizabeth II.

Lulu continued to act occasionally and starred alongside Tom Courtenay and Stephen Fry in the British film Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?

She also appeared in the BBC's reality TV show Just the Two of Us in 2006 as a judge, alongside Trevor Nelson, CeCe Sammy and Stewart Copeland.

Around this time she pitched her range of "Lulu's" anti-ageing products and other cosmetics through the home shopping channel QVC (UK), using her youthful appearance as a promotional tool.

After appearing at an ABBA tribute concert in Hyde Park, London during September 2009, Lulu announced that she would be touring the UK in a Here Come the Girls alongside Chaka Khan and Anastacia.

In November 2010 she hosted the BBC TV series Rewind the 60s, with each episode focusing on a year during the 1960s, highlighting the social and political issues of the decade, as well as music and interviews with personalities.

[citation needed] Lulu appeared in a one-off episode of Heartbeat in November 2002, "Harmony" as singer Deborah Vine, mother of a rising star who becomes pregnant.

[citation needed] In 2017 Lulu was Guest of Honour at the City Lit Awards,[63] celebrating the outstanding work and achievements of various students and staff from across the college, as well as the transformation adult learning can bring.