Thereza has known Van Day since they were teenagers. The pair met when they worked together as members of Seventies group Guys ‘n’ Dolls and, aged just 17, started dating. She recalls: ‘Even then he was very vain and had more beauty products in his bathroom than me. ‘I wasn’t at all surprised when he had a full facelift earlier this year. He was always very much more concerned with plucking his eyebrows, putting on fake tan and retouching his highlights than our relationship. ‘But even so, he was my first love and we were very much in love, I totally adored him. I was very much the unworldly devoted young girlfriend and he could be very romantic, sexy and passionate . . . if he wasn’t too busy looking in the mirror.’ Determined to find success as a duo they decided to break away from Guys ’n’ Dolls in 1977 and form their own act, Dollar. After a slow start, they began to notch up hit singles, such as Hand Held In Black And White, Videotheque and Mirror Mirror. Thereza, petite and blonde, added the feminine glamour to the so very Eighties band. ‘They were great years, so much travelling, touring and fun, but through it all we had to constantly pamper David’s ego. He made sure of it,’ she recalls. ‘One time we were picked up by a car to take us to perform on Top Of The Pops but because the BBC didn’t send a limo he refused to get in. It was a perfectly nice black saloon but he just wouldn’t hear of it until they sent a stretch limo. He could be such a diva; I used to wince with embarrassment. ‘For him, it was only about the fame game and all the trappings of celebrity.’ She particularly remembers one occasion when the band was approaching the height of its fame. ‘It was 1979, we were performing Love’s Gotta Hold On Me on Top Of The Pops. I’d written 95 per cent of the song but David expected to do the vocals. ‘But when we got to the studio, he found he couldn’t sing in the right key and couldn’t remember the words. 'I had to take the lead. It was a new thing for him, just standing there. He hadn’t done that before. Afterwards, he went into meltdown, he was so angry.’ And with David’s growing love of a high-octane celebrity lifestyle came the all too familiar tale of endless partying, cocaine addiction and reckless spending in clubs, restaurants and luxury hotels. ‘We were going in totally different directions,’ explains Thereza. ‘He loved all the fame and materialistic trappings. 'I liked to enjoy myself too but
really wanted us to make Dollar a long-term success. I knew that we had to develop and improve to stay on top. ‘I suspect there were groupies at the time too. Endless girls would put their phone numbers in his pocket. 'I never confronted him about it I didn’t want to know the truth at the time I suppose.’ Their love affair could not survive the intense demands of success and fame. By the time they recorded O L’amour in 1983 they were no longer a couple. Thereza says: ‘We had grown apart romantically but I wasn’t upset about it, we were more like brother and sister by then. In fact I felt more like a mother to him most of the time. ‘I was just really keen to try to crack the US market together but David often didn’t perform as well as he could and I had to help him so much. It was such a strain.’ During a trip to Hong Kong in 1984, David suddenly declared he wanted to ‘go it alone’. For years afterwards, they hardly spoke."