Elaine Paige
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Elaine Paige OBE (born Elaine Bickerstaff on 5 March 1948 in Barnet, Hertfordshire) is a world-renowned English singer and actor, primarily in musicals.
Paige's first professional appearance was in the UK tour of the Anthony Newley/Leslie Bricusse musical The Roar of the Greasepaint—the Smell of the Crowd. She made her West End debut in Hair, and went on to featured roles in Jesus Christ Superstar, Nuts, Grease, and Billy (a musical adaptation of the film Billy Liar.)
In 1978, Hal Prince offered the still relatively unknown Paige the title role in Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita after Julie Covington, who played the role on the album turned down the part. This proved to be the defining moment in her evolution to the self proclaimed title "First Lady of British Musical Theatre". For her performance, she won the Society of West End Theatre Award for Best Actress and the Variety Club Award for Showbusiness Personality of the Year. Despite playing the title role, Paige was given second billing on the posters for the production, behind David Essex who was Che Guevara. Joss Ackland took on the role of Juan Peron and Siobhan McCarthy played his mistress.
Paige has portrayed some of Lloyd Webber's most notable female characters, such as Grizabella in Cats (a role she reprised for a video release). She took on the role at a late stage in the production when the actress Judi Dench had to pull out due to a torn Achilles tendon. Her performance of the song Memory from that show is her signature piece.
In 1994, Paige took over the role of Norma Desmond in Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard when Betty Buckley was ill, before stepping into the part full time the following year. She transferred to the American production to make her Broadway debut in a performance that Lloyd Webber described as "musically terrific" in 1996, staying with the show until it closed the following year.
By no means has Paige limited her theatre credits to Lloyd Webber projects.
In 1986, she appeared as Florence in Chess, (lyrics by Tim Rice, music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, formerly of ABBA), a role she had originated for the 1984 RCA double-disc concept album. The show notable at the time for its set, which featured a large, tilting stage built from television screens. For this role Paige was nominated for Laurence Olivier Award in a category Outstandng Performance by an Actress in a Musical.
She followed this success with a hit revival of Cole Porter's Anything Goes 1989 which she co-produced with Tim Rice, based on the contemporary US production starring Patti LuPone. In 1993, she embarked on a troubled run as famed French chanteuse Édith Piaf in Pam Gems' musical play Piaf (1993). Her most recent stage musical performance was in another acclaimed revival, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's The King and I (2000), in which the King was played by Jason Scott Lee.
In 2004, she sang the role of Mrs. Lovett in the New York City Opera production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.
Paige also has had success in the UK singles charts. I Know Him So Well (from Chess), her duet with Barbara Dickson, held the #1 position in the British charts for four weeks, and still remains the biggest selling record by a female duo in the Guinness Book of Records. She also had a top ten hit with Memory from Cats. Additionally, she has had eight consecutive gold and four multi-platinum albums.
Paige has hosted her own BBC television specials as well as starred in several films for the network, and has also performed in a number of televised Royal Variety Shows. Arts commentator Melvyn Bragg hosted a special edition of The South Bank Show about Paige's career in 1996, entitled The Faces of Elaine Paige. She made special recordings of some of her most famous songs exclusively for the programme. It is frequently shown on PBS in the USA.
In 1995, Paige was awarded the Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty the Queen for her contributions to musical theatre.
More recently, Paige has focused on television appearances, playing Dora Bunner in the 2004 ITV adaptation of Agatha Christie's A Murder is Announced, before performing a guest role as a post mistress in Where the Heart Is.
In September 2004, Paige began a weekly radio show, Elaine Paige on Sunday, on BBC Radio 2, featuring music from musical theatre and film scores. Occasional interviews are also featured, having included theatre impressario Cameron Mackintosh, actress Angela Lansbury, the Pet Shop Boys and Elton John.
Paige is a patron of a number of charities. She supports the Breast Cancer Campaign and The Lupus Trust having been treated for breast cancer in the mid-1990s and diagnosed as a Lupus sufferer in 1989. She also supports Everychild, for whom she made a publicised trip to Peru in 2004.
Paige's first solo album to be recorded for twelve years, "Essential Musicals" was released in October 2006, based on popular songs from musicals identified by a poll on her radio show.
Paige lived with the lyricist Tim Rice throughout the 1980s but has never married, nor had children.
[edit] Solo recordings
- Sitting Pretty (1978)
- Elaine Paige (1981)
- Stages (1983)
- Cinema (1984)
- Love Hurts (1985)
- Christmas (1986)
- The Queen Album (1988)
- Love Can Do That (1991)
- Romance and the Stage (1993)
- Piaf (1994)
- Performance (1996)
- Essential Musicals (2006)
[edit] Solo recordings (compilations)
- Memories: The Best Of Elaine Paige (1987)
- The Collection (1988)
- Together: The Best of Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson (1992)
- Encore (1995)
- From A Distance (1997)
- On Reflection: The Very Best Of Elaine Paige (1998)
- Elaine Paige: A Collection (2003)
- Love Songs (2004)
- Centre Stage: The Very Best Of Elaine Paige (2004)
