David Van Day may now be best known as a chubby burger van proprietor, but in the late 1970s and mid-1980s he was roughly 50% of an unimaginably sophisticated, saccharine duo. The other half was Thereza Bazar. Together, they made up Dollar and sold a staggering ten million records in a decade-long career.

Shooting Star

David Paul Van Day was born on 28 November, 1957, in Brighton, England. The young David harboured plans to become an actor, and he combined an acting career (involving television commercials for Clark's shoes and an appearance in a film version of Oliver!) with his studies as a pupil at the Italia Conti Stage School. However, his big break came when he took on the hugely-prestigious part of Cousin Yellowstone in a Mancunian stage production of The Wombles. An insightful agent saw through to the stellar talent that lay beneath the furry costume and, on the basis of Van Day's masterful interpretation of the existential turmoil of the litter-conscious Wimbledon Common dweller, offered him a place in cabaret group Guys and Dolls. During his tenure as 'blond bloke' in this wholesome combo, David met Thereza Louise Bazar (born 23 May, 1957, in Toronto). Bazar's career, following attendance at the Tiffin Grammar School in Kingston-upon-Thames and then the Arts Educational dance and drama college in London, had involved spells in pantomimes and summer shows, until she met Trevor Horn. The two of them joined the New Seekers, just as the band were about to split. From there, Thereza joined Guys and Dolls, where she met David.

Love's Gotta Hold on Me

After 18 months on the cabaret circuit, David and Thereza, still in their teens, felt that what they were doing was a little old-fashioned. By now an item, the duo tried their luck with record companies, and in 1978 they signed a contract with Acrobat/Carrere records. In November of that year they had a hit with 'Shooting Star', which reached number 14 in the charts.

More hit singles followed in 1979: the accusatory 'Who Were You With In The Moonlight?' in May, and 'Love's Got A Hold On Me' in August. All three singles featured on their first album, Shooting Stars and the year was rounded off with an unimaginative flourish when their cover of the Beatles' 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand' reached the UK Top Five in November.

A new decade saw Dollar move to a new record company. Now signed to WEA, Dollar released their second album, The Paris Collection, but only one of the three singles released from it, 'Takin' A Chance on You' made the UK Top 75. Although anonymity seemed to be beckoning, in October the couple celebrated their engagement in style at London's Savoy Hotel, planning to marry in spring the following year.

Oh L'Amour

Romantic euphoria was short-lived, however. As Britain rioted and prepared for the imminent royal wedding in equal measures, David and Thereza, feeling the pressures of fame, decided to end their relationship in the summer of 1981. Still, Dollar continued, and in August released 'Hand Held in Black and White', the first single from their third, imaginatively-titled collection of songs, The Dollar Album. This was their first collaboration with by now legendary music producer Trevor Horn (who Thereza knew from their time together in the New Seekers). The album spawned a huge hit, 'Mirror Mirror', and, the following year, 'Give Me Back My Heart' and 'Videoteque'. Their last release of '82, the Van Day- and Bazar-penned 'Give Me Some Kinda Magic' was less successful, failing to dent the top 30, and was to be their last single until 1986. Van Day has claimed that Bazar's refusal to continue with Dollar, should he pursue a solo career, led to the band's demise.

The pair, though both professionally and emotionally separate, weren't completely silent during the intervening years. David released a single, 'Young Americans Talking' in 1983 but it failed to make the top 40. Thereza released an album called The Big Kiss, produced by Arif Mardin, but neither of the two singles released from it hit the charts. In late 1985 she got in touch with David again and the two set about re-launching Dollar. However, aside from a cover of Erasure's 'Oh L'Amour', which hit the top ten in January 1988, none of the subsequent releases found acceptance outside of dance clubs, and Dollar split up. Van Day tried finding replacement female vocalists and released the solo single 'She Said She Said' (not a cover of the Beatles' classic) before joining another group, Bucks Fizz. Bazar stopped singing in order to raise a family, and settled in Sydney, Australia.

Piece of the Action

By the mid-80s both girls from the line-up of 1981 Eurovision victors Bucks Fizz had left the band. In 1995 the 'boys' - Mike Nolan and Bobby G - went their separate ways too; and it was at this point that Bobby G (real name Robert Gubby) stepped in to help his old chum, who claimed to have blown a million pounds on cocaine. He approached Van Day and asked if he wanted to join the band, and they worked together for 15 months before the ex-Dollar man's departure. The split was not amicable, and Van Day then got together with Mike Nolan and two new girls to perform together under the slick alias of Bucks Fizz Dollar, which was later abbreviated to the altogether catchier 'Bucks Fizz'.

Give Me Back My Cart

Bucks Fizz was just one of the many strings to Van Day's bow. In November 2000, David, alongside fellow showbiz luminary Geoffrey from iconic children's TV show Rainbow, starred in a television campaign for Virgin One, which focused on his financial downfall. Asked if he could have benefited from financial advice, his answer was clear - 'You betcha!' came the voice from the Brighton burger van.

Unashamed of his career change, Van Day seemed to see the ad, the van (which he likened, without embarrassment, to Rolling Stone Bill Wyman's Sticky Fingers restaurant), his various musical sidelines, and indeed his ten-minute Wednesday morning slot on Southern Counties radio, as part of his portfolio - part of a wider business career. He did a life insurance sales course and invested in endowments and property.

No Man's Land

Meanwhile, Gubby, his ex-Bucks Fizz pal, was launching a legal action against him. Although he had been part of a line-up that involved original member Mike Nolan (who eventually settled with Gubby out of court), Van Day had a cavalier attitude towards the chirpy quartet. In May 2000, after a performance at the Birmingham Gay Pride celebrations, Van Day explained how a reformed Dollar would only play at similar prestigious events:

We're not going to go and do holiday camps that's for sure, even though I do them with Bucks Fizz and Mike - that's more our market, but not for Dollar, we wouldn't do that.

This didn't mean, however, that he wasn't willing to pursue a bitter legal battle to use the name. In a memorable episode of Trouble at the Top¹ Bobby G raged against the injustice of it all:

I was at Eurovision. I have had all the success with Bucks Fizz. I don't know why David Van Day doesn't go away and call himself the Beatles and give them the bother.

An unrepentant and clearly Pontins-phobic Van Day continued to twist the knife:

We are doing different things, in any case. He's doing... well, let's say a well-known holiday camp, which is fine, I suppose. But I've been picking up some really good festival dates, country house dates. We're trading on the nostalgia trip, that's our thing. I don't think we're a contemporary act in any way. But I think maybe he does about his band.

In July 2002, the case made it to the High Court, where Mr Justice Jacob refused to grant an injunction to prevent David Van Day's present pop group from using the name Bucks Fizz on the grounds that Bobby G had decided to take legal action too long after van Day started recording and touring as Bucks Fizz, and that it would cause van Day more harm through ticket sales and loss of reputation than would be caused to Gubby if the two bands kept using the name.

A victorious Van Day, though garnering fewer bookings than Bobby G's combo, continued with the act and his burger van in Brighton. Refreshingly unpretentious about his music, first and foremost a businessman, Van Day explained:

I didn't win two Oscars, we just had a few hits and I don't see the big deal about it... I just do things that come along, we're not in the premier division of pop music anymore.

Haven't We Said Goodbye Before?

David van Day has successfully gone on to have his cake and eat it, taking a reformed Dollar (oddly enough with 100% original components) back on the road. Following the success of the Here and Now Christmas Party in 2002 - a national tour that saw them perform alongside the likes of the Human League (Sheffield's answer to Kraftwerk), singing gardener Kim Wilde, Essex spendthrifts Five Star, jangly popsters Altered Images, all-female combo the Belle Stars and Tellytubby fan Steve Strange's Visage - a reunited Dollar were last seen performing on reality TV series Reborn in the USA in 2003.