Cliff Richard 1995— Sir Cliff
 As with the other existing rock acts in Britain, Richard's career was affected by the sudden advent of The Beatles and the Mersey sound in 1963 and 1964. However, his popularity was established enough to allow him to weather the storm and continue to have hits in the charts throughout the 1960s, albeit not at the level that he had enjoyed before. Nor did doors open to him in the U.S. market; he was not part of the British Invasion, and the American public had little awareness of him.
Another important aspect of Richard's life was his conversion to Christianity in 1964. Standing up publicly as a Christian affected his career in several ways. He believed that he should quit rock 'n roll, feeling he could no longer be the rocker who had been called a crude exhibitionist and too sexy for TV and a threat to parents' daughters. However, his image had already become tamer due to his film roles and well-spoken manners on radio and TV. Richard intended at first to 'reform his ways' and become a teacher, but Christian friends advised him that he did not need to abandon his career just because he had become a Christian. Soon after, Cliff Richard re-emerged, performing with Christian groups and recording some Christian material. He still recorded secular songs with the Shadows, but he gave a lot of his time to Christian work, including his appearances with the Billy Graham crusades. As time progressed, Richard balanced his faith and work, which enabled him to remain one of the most popular singers in Britain as well as one of its best-known Christians. He was a leading figure in the Nationwide Festival of Light of 1971, protesting against the commercial exploitation of sex and violence in Britain, and advocating the teaching of Christ as the key to recovering moral stability in the nation.
Cliff Richard's first straight acting role took place in the 1968 film Two a Penny, in which he played a young man who gets involved in drug dealing while questioning his life after his girlfriend changes her attitude. Also in 1968 he sang the UK's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest: Congratulations by Bill Martin and Phil Coulter. It lost by just one point to Spain's La La La. According to John Kennedy O'Connor's The Eurovision Song Contest - The Official History, this was the closest yet result in the contest and Cliff locked himself in the toilet to avoid the nerves of the voting. . Nevertheless, Congratulations was a huge hit throughout Europe and yet another #1 in April. In 1973 he sang the British entry Power to All Our Friends. The song finished third, close behind Luxembourg's Tu Te Reconna?tras and Spain's Eres T?. This time, Cliff took valium in order to overcome his nerves and his manager was almost unable to wake him for the performance. Richard also hosted the BBC's qualifying heat for the Eurovision Song Contest, A Song for Europe, in 1970, 1971 and 1972 as part of his BBCTV variety series. He presented the Eurovision preview programme's for the BBC in 1971 and 1972.
After the Shadows split in 1968, Cliff Richard recorded without the band. He had already become accustomed to the Shadows' absence, and was able to record in a variety of settings. Although many of his earliest fans regretted that Cliff had tried out songs which were not strictly in the rock 'n roll genre, most had got used to his habit of recording rockier material with the Shadows, while producing more middle-of-the-road material at other times. This versatility extended Richard's career prospects.
During the 1970s, Richard took part in television shows, such as It's Cliff, many of which also starred Hank Marvin. These shows, for a time, branded Cliff Richard as a television personality more than a recording artist. In 1972, he made a short BBC television comedy film called The Case with appearances from comedians and his first-ever duets with a woman, Olivia Newton-John. In 1973 he starred in the film Take Me High.
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