Shirley Ballas is the head judge on Strictly Come Dancing, the BBC’s Saturday night entertainment show, which regularly attracts an audience of many millions. Known as the Queen of Latin dancing, she joined the show in 2017 after a long career as a competitive dancer and teacher. Shirley was born in Wallasey in 1960. She discovered dance as a seven-year-old when she started taking classes in her local church hall. With a combination of natural flair and hard graft she began winning competitions with her partners. In 1980, while she was still an amateur, she met Sammy Stopford who was ranked seventh in the world as a professional Latin dancer. Together they shot up the rankings and became known as the ‘non-stop Stopfords’. In 1984 she divorced Sammy and the following year she married Corky Ballas, an amateur dancer from Houston. Shirley set about training Corky to become a professional and in 1995 they won the British Open to the World Championships – a feat they repeated the following year. In 1996 Shirley retired from competitive dancing to concentrate on coaching dancers and judging competitions. In 2017 she joined Strictly Come Dancing, replacing her friend and former teacher Len Goodman as head judge. Shirley lives in south London with her mother Audrey and her boyfriend, the actor Danny Taylor. DISC ONE: Get Lucky - Daft Punk feat. Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers DISC TWO: Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash DISC THREE: Moon River - Frank Sinatra DISC FOUR: Sherry - The Four Seasons DISC FIVE: Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana DISC SIX: You To Me Are Everything - The Real Thing DISC SEVEN: Highs and Lows - Alexander Jean DISC EIGHT: We’ve Only Just Begun - The Carpenters BOOK CHOICE: Unleash the Power Within by Tony Robbins LUXURY ITEM: Cotton knickers CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Highs and Lows - Alexander Jean Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley
Before this BBC podcast kicks off, I'd like to tell you about some others you might enjoy.
My name's Will Wilkin and I commission music podcasts for the BBC.
It's a really cool job.
Every day we get to tell the incredible stories behind songs, moments and movements.
Stories of struggle and success, rises and falls, the funny, the ridiculous.
And the BBC's position at the heart of british music means we can tell those stories like no one else.
We were, are, and always will be right there at the center of the narrative.
So whether you want an insightful take on music right now, or a nostalgic deep dive into some of the most famous and infamous moments in music, check out the music podcasts on BBC sounds.
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Lauren La Verne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast.
Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island.
And for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast.
I hope you enjoy listening.
My castaway this week is Shirley Ballas, the head judge on the BBC's Saturday night entertainment show Strictly Come Dancing.
As a former champion dancer herself, she knows all about the hard graft it takes to make ballroom look effortless.
By 21, she'd won nearly every major title she competed in.
Three years later, she ranked world number one.
She remains the only woman in history to win the British Open to the world Professional Latin championships with two different partners, and her dancing career lasted over two decades.
She was born in Wallasey on the Wirral Peninsula and discovered ballroom when she chanced upon a class at her local church hall.
At just seven years old, it was a cha cha cha that opened what she calls a magic door.