Amanda Lear

Infobox musical artist
Name = Amanda Lear


Img_size =
Img_capt =
Background = solo_singer
Birth_name =
Alias =
Born = Allegedly birth date and age|1946|11|18
Allegedly Hong Kong, China
Origin = Flag|France
Genre = pop, disco, dance, dance-pop, jazz, rock, new wave
Instrument =
Occupation = singer, lyricist, painter, television presenter, actress, novelist, model
Years_active = 1975 - present
Label = Creole Records, Polydor, Ariola Records, RCA Victor, Chrysalis Records, Carrere, ZYX Music, Sony BMG etc.
URL = [http://amandalear.tripod.com www.amandalear.tripod.com]

Amanda Lear is a French singer, TV presenter, painter, actress, lyricist and novelist, allegedly born in Hong Kong on November 18 1939, allegedly as Amanda Tapp. She was a Disco Queen in Continental Europe, the Eastern Bloc and most other parts of the world in the mid 1970s to the early 1980s. She first came to the public's attention as the fetishistically clad model on the cover of Roxy Music's album "For Your Pleasure" in 1973. [ [http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/artsetlettres/juillet2006.html The French Ministry of Culture. (July 2006)] ] [ [http://www.divus.cz/umelec/en/pages/umelec.php?id=931&roc=2000&cis=5 Umelec Magazine biography (May 2000)] ] .

Lear started her modelling career in the early 60s. However, she achieved the peak of her popularity in the late 70's as a singer. She then became one of the most popular disco performers in Europe. In 1980's, after her music career had slowed down, she worked mainly as a TV presenter, especially in Italy where she hosted many successful TV shows. During the following decades she focused on painting. From time to time she releases a new album and appears in various television shows.

Biography

Early life ( - 1975)

According to Lear herself, she was born to a British Naval officer on leave in Hong Kong and a mother of Mongolian-Chinese origin. Soon after her birth, her parents separated and Lear was raised by her mother in Nice, in the south of France.

The truth about Lear's date of birth, the names and nationalities of her parents and the location of her upbringing has however been a matter of speculation and debate in France, Germany and Italy since the early 1980s. All through her career, Lear has deliberately made a point of providing the media with different, contradictory accounts of her early life; her mother's origin has previously been English, French, Vietnamese, Mongolian, Russian and/or Chinese. Her father has been at times English, Russian, French and Indonesian, sometimes serving in the Royal Navy, other times the French. Her place of birth has been reported as Switzerland, Hanoi, Saigon as well as Hong Kong and her date of birth from 1939 to 1946. [http://www.divus.cz/umelec/en/pages/umelec.php?id=931&roc=2000&cis=5 Umelec 5/2000] Umelec International, May 2000]

In addition to having two mother tongues by birth, French and English, she showed a talent for languages at an early age and also learned German, Spanish and Italian in her teens, which she used later in her professional life.

At the age of sixteen, she relocated to Paris to study at L'Academie des Beaux Arts before joining St. Martins School of Art in London in 1964.

In 1965, Lear was spotted by legendary French modelling agent Cathérine Harlé and, eager to find a way to finance her studies, she returned to Paris to catwalk for rising star Paco Rabanne. Soon thereafter, she found herself being photographed for magazines like Elle, Marie France and Vogue and modelling for fashion designers like Mary Quant, Ossie Clark, Antony Price, Yves Saint Laurent and Coco Chanel. After some time, she dropped out of art school, began modelling full-time and went on to lead a bohemian and flamboyant life in the Swinging London of the Sixties, hobnobbing with the rich and famous like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg, Brian Eno, Twiggy, Sacha Distel, David Bailey, Yul Brynner and Keith Moon. While clubbing with Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones and her then boyfriend, the Guinness heir Tara Browne, in a Parisian nightspot named Le Castel in 1965, she was introduced to a man that was to change her life - on many levels according to some - none other than Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) who instantly saw a kindred spirit in her. Lear's biography "My Life With Dalí", which was first published in 1986 and had Dalí's approval, gives a detailed insight into the lives of both Dalí and his muse. She accompanied him and his wife on trips to Barcelona, Madrid, New York and Paris and spent every summer with Dalí at his home in Cadaqués in Catalonia. Dalí served as a mentor to her; travelling with him, Lear discovered the great museums of Europe, Parisian salons and restaurants, New York bohemia and his homeland, Spain, while she, in return, introduced him to the younger generation of the counterculture in art, fashion, photography and music in London. The factual accuracy of "My Life With Dalí" is however disputed by many researchers of Dalí's life and work.

Although she remained Dalí's confidante, protegée and mistress all through the Sixties and Seventies, Lear was also romantically linked to Brian Jones (which resulted in the Rolling Stones track "Miss Amanda Jones", included on 1967 album "Between the Buttons"), had a year-long affair with the married David Bowie and was briefly engaged to Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music but in 1979 she married French aristocrat Alain-Philippe Malagnac d'Argens de Villèle who, in fact, was the former lover turned adopted son of controversial gay novelist Roger Peyrefitte.cite web |url=http://www.glbtq.com/literature/peyrefitte_r.html |last=Sibalis |first=Michael D |title=Peyrefitte, Roger |year=2006 |accessdate=2007-07-18 |work=glbtq.com] The marriage ceremony took place in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Rumours of transsexuality

Despite modelling nude for Playboy Magazine in 1977 and Lear saying "and they could see I was a woman like everybody else", she was and still is widely rumoured to be either a transsexual or an intersexual because of her height (5ft 9.25 /176 cm), her masculine facial features and, most of all, her exceptionally low baritone-like vocal timbre. That Lear was born male is considered an open secret in Continental Europe although Amanda has since the early 1980s insisted that these rumours are the result of a planned succès de scandale, a clever publicity stunt thought up by herself and Salvador Dalí to get her career in music started, just like her contradictory statements about her childhood. " - Everything Dalí said, I just listened to. He was the genius, who was I? When it came to launching my career, he told me I was a lousy singer and if I wanted to sell records, I'd have to find something other than the music to attract people to buy them. So we built the Amanda Lear persona into something very intriguing and very ambiguous and it worked." [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2001/01/23/tldali23.xml 'Why would I want to kill my husband?'] Christa D'Souza, telegraph.co.uk, 2001-01-01, 'So, she was not born Alain Tapp? "No."', '"I have said many times that Peki D'Oslo is not me"']

However, Britain's first publicly confessed transsexual April Ashley has since gone on record in her autobiography "April Ashley's Odyssey" to say that she worked with Lear in legendary Parisian drag show Carrousel Club in the late 1950s. According to Ashley, Lear was then a man in his early twenties, called Alain Tapp, performing in drag shows using the stage name "Peki d'Oslo" and a regular member of the Carrousel ensemble as they toured Germany, Scandinavia, Italy and South America. [cite web| url=http://www.antijen.org/Aprilv1| title=April Ashley's Odyssey |author=April Ashley| date=2008-08-22] This early alter ego could in fact be a reference to her Eurasian origin; Oslo/Peking.

These claims were later confirmed by famous Dutch transsexual singer, actress and nightclub owner Romy Haag in her 1999 autobiography "Eine Frau und mehr" (translated as "A Woman And More"). Just like Ashley, Haag describes that she first met Lear under the name Peki d'Oslo at the Carrousel and that the two also worked together at Romy's famous nightclub "Chez Romy Haag" in Berlin, in the early seventies.

In March 2007, renowned British music manager Simon Napier-Bell was the next eyewitness to come forward, saying that "...my publishers sent me off to Paris to make a record with Amanda Lear, someone I’d known years before as a young Asian-looking guy called Peki who hung out in the Gigolo, a gay bar in London in the 60' s. Now that Peki had become Amanda, I wasn't interested anymore, but other people were - Amanda's new companion was Salvador Dalí." [cite web| url=http://www.simonnapierbell.com/correspondence_oc06_ma07.html| title=daily post to march 2007 |author=Simon Napier-Bell| date=2007-03-12]

Furthermore, in her autobiography April Ashley claims that Alain Tapp, also known as Peki D'Oslo, had already changed her stage name to Amanda when she persuaded a 20-year-old architecture student, Morgan Paul Lear, to marry her on December 11, 1965 at Chelsea Register Office for £50 in order for her to obtain British citizenship. Ashley also insists that Lear and Dalí met long before 1965, probably in 1958 or 1959 while Lear was still working at the Carrousel as a female impersonator. [cite web| url=http://www.antijen.org/Aprilv1| title=April Ashley's Odyssey |author=April Ashley| date=2008-08-22] Some sources go even further, saying that Lear was Dalí's greatest artistic creation of his whole career, suggesting that he was the one who paid for a sex reassignment that was to have taken place in Casablanca, Morocco in 1963. (see Georges Burou)

However it should be added that Dalí, David Bowie and April Ashley have stated that Lear is transsexual and rumors of her transsexuality predates her meeting with Dalí. She appears to have attempted to go into stealth mode after moving to London and finding her career hampered by her past.

British actress and comedienne Joanna Lumley, who not only bears an uncanny physical resemblance to Lear but also was a fashion model in London in the mid-Sixties herself, has in several interviews confirmed that her glamourous but notoriously foul-mouthed Absolutely Fabulous character Patsy Stone was loosely based on the mysterious life story of a certain A. Lear. (see Absolutely Fabulous, Series 2, Episode 3: Morocco) [ [http://members.aol.com/lemfou2/Advocate2.htm Advocate Magazine interview, US (September 1996)] ] Interestingly, Amanda Lear’s MySpace page [www.myspace.com/reinelear] says her record label is called Edina, the name of the other main Ab Fab character.

International disco career (1976–1983)

'I Am A Photograph'

In 1975, disillusioned by a shallow but surprisingly conservative fashion industry and encouraged by boyfriend Bowie, Lear decided to launch a career in music. The debut single "La Bagarre'" released on Polydor was a French language cover of Elvis Presley's 1958 classic "Trouble" and became a minor disco hit in West Germany in 1976 - catching the attention of singer, composer and producer Anthony Monn (born March 17, 1944) and label Ariola-Eurodisc. Her first full-length release "I Am A Photograph" was recorded in Munich, with most songs composed by Monn and arranger Rainer Pietsch and Amanda herself providing the English lyrics. The title track was naturally a tongue in cheek reference to her previous profession, but Lear's selfpenned, witty, provocative and sometimes even disturbing lyrics made it perfectly clear that there's more to this glam model than meets the eye - much more. The album included her first paneuropean hit "Blood And Honey", lyrically paraphrasing Dalí's 1941 painting "La Miel Es Más Dulce Que La Sangre (Honey Is Sweeter Than Blood)", follow-up single "Tomorrow" as well as cover versions of Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" and Leroy Anderson's "Blue Tango'", all of which have become repertoire standards. "I Am A Photograph"'s mixture of lush disco, schlager, kitsch and camp, topped with Amanda's deep half-spoken, half-sung vocals was a winning combination. The album spun off four Top 10 singles in Italy and stayed on the West German albums chart for thirty-three weeks alone. The second edition of "I Am A Photograph", which also contained German Top 5 hit "Queen Of Chinatown", sported a free fold-out poster picturing a topless Amanda smiling towards the camera.

'Sweet Revenge'

In 1978, Lear continued her line of disco hits with "Sweet Revenge", an album that opens with a side-long concept medley retelling the story of a girl who sells her soul to The Devil to gain fame and fortune. The first single to be lifted off "Sweet Revenge", the dark and seductive "Follow Me", powered by Lear's characteristic deep and recitative voice, was an instant smash hit all over Europe, topped the West German singles chart and has since served as her signature tune. The album went on to sell in excess of four million copies and charted in forty-one countries, including Chile, South Africa, India and Thailand where it stayed on the charts for sixteen weeks, spawning further European hit singles like "Gold", "Run Baby Run" and "Enigma (Give A Bit Of Mmmh To Me)". Again, all of these tracks were songwriting contributions by Lear herself and this in combination with a larger-than-life image very much the creation of herself made her one of the few artists of the Eurodisco era whose star power was far stronger than the music itself - all according to plan - and the Amanda Lear persona left an impact on European pop culture that has lasted for three decades.

" - Sweet Revenge is of course the album I'm most proud of. I put so much of myself into it. I wrote the lyrics, created the double cover, chose the pictures. I tried to tell a story. So, at least for me, it is the best one." (Acme Celeb Interview)

'Never Trust A Pretty Face'

Later in 1978 Lear and Monn teamed up for "Never Trust A Pretty Face", an album that includes a discofied reimagining of "Lili Marleen", a wartime classic that Lear managed to make her own and has since re-recorded in 1993 and 2001. " - In Germany I succeeded because they'd been waiting for someone like Marlene Dietrich to come along ever since the war. They obviously needed a drunken, nightclubbing vamp so that's what I gave them." While Amanda herself may consider the best-selling " Sweet Revenge" her proudest moment, fans and critics alike usually rate "Never Trust A Pretty Face" as the artistic highpoint of her international career. It is often cited as a landmark in the history of "The sound of Munich" - groundbreaking Giorgio Moroder/Donna Summer collaborations included. "Never Trust A Pretty Face" was in fact recorded in Moroder's legendary Musicland Studios with the assistance of British arranger Keith Forsey. The album features a variety of genre exercises like the clever title track ballad ("A pretty face/a rotten heart/I warned you from the start"), "Forget It" ("He doesn't like art/he doesn't like gays - forget it"), the cabaret-esque "Miroirs", futuristic electro disco like "Black Holes" and "Intellectually" - but most importantly hit single "Fashion Pack (Studio 54)". The lyrics of this Eurodisco classic actually ridicule the decadent behaviour of the rich and famous and especially New York's disco glitterati at the time, offering some serious namedropping in the process; Liza (Minnelli), Francesco (Scavullo), (John) Travolta, Andy (Warhol), Margaux (Hemingway), Bianca (Jagger), Paloma (Picasso) etc. - most likely all of them friends or acquaintances of Lear's, but she had obviously already 'been there and done that'. Another hit and standout track is the suggestive "The Sphinx" which Lear has since named as her personal favourite among her own recordings. She also very effectively continued to play on her 'devil in disguise' persona with the "Never Trust A Pretty Face" album sleeve portraying her as a mythological creature in the Egyptian desert, smiling broadly, with beautiful angel's wings - but also with a snake's tail...

'Diamonds For Breakfast'

In late 1979, Lear recorded "Diamonds For Breakfast" which became her commercial breakthrough on the Scandinavian market (#4 Sweden, April '80), producing hits like "Fabulous (Lover, Love Me)", "Diamonds", "When" and the autoerotic "Ho Fatto L'Amore Con Me" (translated as "I Made Love To Myself"). The album abandoned the Munich disco sound with its lush strings and brass arrangements in favour of an electronic new-wave rock style, most likely in accordance with Amanda's own taste in music. She may very well be the reigning White Queen of Disco but personally she didn't care all that much for the genre. " - I really wanted to be the new Tina Turner, a rough rock singer, she's still my all-time favourite rockstar" [ [http://amandalear.jexiste.fr/confessions_orbitales.html Radio interview, Confessions Orbitales, Radio Europe 1 (March 8 2003)] ] and "Diamonds For Breakfast" was a step in that direction. Lear spent most of 1980 on promotional tours for the album and its many accompanying single releases all over Europe, from Greece in the south to Finland in the north. Lead single "Fabulous Lover, Lover Me" famously includes the lines "The surgeons built me so well/that nobody could tell/that I once was somebody else" which is as close to a confession of a former identity as Lear has come - before or since.

'Incognito'

The Lear/Monn success saga neared its end with 1981's "Incognito", at which point Lear herself had become increasingly uncomfortable with the expectations and pressures of the music business in general - and her own record label in particular. " - The Germans told me 'We're going to conquer the world!' and I don't regret working with a German record company at all, because for my career it was great, but they wanted to control me, direct me and restrict me. They wanted absolute discipline and that's not the life for me, so after a few years of that I wanted out." [ [http://amandalear.jexiste.fr/confessions_orbitales.html Radio interview, Confessions Orbitales, Radio Europe 1 (March 8 2003)] ] In 1980, at the artistic and commercial peak of her career, but with the disco backlash taking its toll, she had also tentatively started recording tracks for a forthcoming album with producer Trevor Horn (The Buggles, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Grace Jones, Seal etc.) in London. Ariola did not approve of this and in no uncertain terms made it clear that Lear was to return to Munich and provide the company and the market with another Monn product. The result of these sessions was "Incognito" which included minor European hits like "Nymphomania", "Égal" and "New York" but paradoxally turned out to be her breakthrough album in South America, with three tracks especially recorded in Spanish.

'Tam-Tam'

Lear's international career momentum was however slowing and came to an end in 1983 as she delivered her final album to the Ariola label - under contractual obligation. Unlike previous efforts, "Tam-Tam" was recorded with Italian collaborators and neither the songs nor the production met the high standards of the Munich recordings with Monn in charge. "Tam-Tam" subsequently passed unnoticed by both the European and the international record buying public - which may very well have been a blessing in disguise for Lear, considering her frosty relationship with Ariola and changing music style. Around the same time, she publicly began denouncing her earlier musical output, and as usual she didn't mince her words: " - The music was crap - but at least I tried to write some clever lyrics." Instead she went on to launch a very successful and lucrative career as a TV presenter with the aid of media mogul and future prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, soon becoming something of household name in what has since turned out to be her second home country, Italy.

Post-disco career (1984–1999)

After having worked four years as a prime-time TV entertainer for Italian RAI Lear returned to music. "Secret Passion" was an album made in Los Angeles and Rome for French label Carrere, a post-disco High Energy - New Wave affair, ready to be launched in January 1987 It featured a cover of the Troggs' "Wild Thing" and was not only intended to be her comeback in Europe, South America and Japan, this time on her own terms, but also hopefully her breakthrough in English speaking territories like the States, Canada and the United Kingdom, which were more or less the only markets that hadn't succumbed to her charms during the Ariola years. However disaster struck; just as Lear was getting ready to start promoting the album she was seriously injured in a near fatal car accident and had to spend months in convalescence. The album consequently passed unnoticed on both sides of the Atlantic but this incident became the starting point of another phase in her career, this time as a writer. While in hospital, Lear began writing her first novel called "The Immortal", a slightly surrealistic tale describing the torments of a woman doomed to eternal youth and beauty, watching everyone else growing older and eventually losing all her loved ones, while being unable to stop the merciless passage of time....

Lear sporadically returned to recording in the late eighties and nineties and released singles and albums in Italy, France and Germany, none of them producing that elusive international comeback hit. Instead she focussed on her career in television and movies, also mainly in these countries, as well as pursuing what she still describes as her greatest passion: art. From the mid eighties, she has exhibited in major galleries all over Europe and also in the United States and during the last ten years her time has been largely spent painting, exhibiting and lecturing on Dalì.

Recent career (2000 - )

In 2001, a year after having tragically lost her husband of twenty-one years in a much publicised accident cite web |url=http://www.actustar.com/actualite/200012/20001219f.html |language=French |title=Le mari d'Amanda Lear mort dans l'incendie de leur maison |date=2000-12-19 |accessdate=2007-07-18 |work=ActuStar.com] , she threw herself back into work and released the aptly titled album "Heart". While most of her recordings during the Eighties and Nineties, with a few exceptions, may have been perceived as somewhat uninspired, all too often suffering from low-budget production and primarily catering to her ever loyal cult following, "Heart" was a major change and progression. It was obvious that this was a serious effort with Lear's own heart and soul involved and both time and money invested in the project by record company Le Marais Prod. The album offered club-friendly tracks like "I Just Wanna Dance Again", remixed by the likes of French electro-house DJ Laurent Wolf [http://www.laurentwolf.com/] , Pumpin' Dolls [http://www.pumpindolls.com/] and Junior Vasquez and cult Seventies TV theme song "The Love Boat", both issued as singles. As a contrast, "Heart" also contained intimate and gently orchestrated interpretations of personal favourites like Charles Aznavour/Dusty Springfield's bittersweet ballad "Hier Encore (Yesterday When I Was Young)" as well as Springfield/Burt Bacharach's 1967 classic "The Look Of Love", along with a political reading of "Lili Marleen", provided with updated lyrics by original composer Norbert Schultze. Phoenix Lear had risen from the ashes yet again, "Heart" was a return to form and turned out to be her best-selling album since the late Seventies in both France and Germany and has been re-released under the titles "Tendance" and "Love Boat".

In 2002, Lear met Italian actor and model Manuel Casella, thirty (thirty-five? forty?) years her junior. He has been her 'longtime companion' ever since and the couple have been featured prominently in the pages of the tabloid press in both France and Italy.

Lear is renowned as much for her scathing wit as her reputation as a man magnet, which has made her a regular and appreciated guest on various French talkshows for the past fifteen years. She is a regular guest on French satirical radio show "Les Grosses Têtes" hosted by well known radio celebrity Philippe Bouvard on RTL where other guests sometimes do refer comically to her former gender as male which she usually ignores (as heard on the 13 September 2007 show). She is well-spoken, opinionated, provocative - 'drôlissime', and has her very own take on concepts like 'truth' and 'reality'. She is equipped with a razorsharp tongue but luckily also with a disarmingly charming smile. She occasionally embarrassess or upsets other guests but rarely fails to entertain the audiences. For example, in 2002, Lear told New York's Paper Magazine about a run-in she had with German supermodel Claudia Schiffer a few years before. A Hollywood movie producer had optioned Lear's book "My Life With Dali" and wanted Schiffer to play Lear. "I ran into Claudia at a restaurant," Lear recalls. "She said, 'I love your book! Who wrote it for you?' I said, 'I did, darling. Who read it to you?' So that was the end of that. They never made the movie."

In 2005, Italian dance act The Housekeepers scored a European club hit with "Go Down", a reworking of Amanda's 1977 hit "Queen Of Chinatown". The original recording was also sampled and remixed that year by Hungarian DJ Sterbinzsky featuring Zola and the track, and most often its driving bassline, is now regularly being re-sampled in various dance, house and techno remixes. In 2004, another Seventies recording, "Enigma (Give A Bit Of Mmmh To Me)", had been used in TV ads for chocolate bar Kinder Bueno in Eastern Europe which resulted in it becoming something of a cult hit again and appearing on a number of European singles chart compilations, nearly three decades after its original release. Later, Spanish actor and singer Pedro Marín had a hit with a rock version of Lear's 1978 single "Run Baby Run" which became the inspiration for a full-length tribute album entitled "Diamonds - Pedro Marín Canta Amanda Lear".

With the disco revival obviously still going strong and Lear celebrating thirty years in the music business, November 2005 saw the release of the first CD compilation to be both authorised and promoted by Lear herself; "Forever Glam! - The Best Of 1976-2005". In 2006, German label Sony BMG followed suit with their comprehensive three disc box set "The Sphinx - Das Beste Aus Den Jahren 1976-1983". This digitally remastered forty-two track collection was eagerly awaited by many fans since the original Ariola albums, with the exception of "Sweet Revenge", never have been re-released in their entirety on compact disc - at least not officially. In the liner note interview of the latter, Lear expresses a new-found acceptance and appreciation of her disco past. " - It surprises me that the younger generations keep re-discovering this type of music, over and over again. They really seem to like these old recordings, still after such a long time. Perhaps they weren't so bad after all."

In July 2006, Lear received the prestigious award "Chevalier dans l'Ordre National des Arts et des Lettres" by the French Ministre Of Culture Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres in recognition of her contributions to French arts and sciences - the name appearing on the honour's list was 'Mme Amanda TAPP dite Amanda LEAR'. [ [http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/artsetlettres/juillet2006.html The French Ministry of Culture. (July 2006)] ] .

On 30th October 2006, the album "With Love" was released in France by label Dance Street. This tribute is an extension of the ballads included on 2001's "Heart" as it exclusively covers evergreens and jazz standards by the diva's own favourite divas, among them "C'est Magnifique" (Eartha Kitt), "Is That All There Is?" (Peggy Lee), "Whatever Lola Wants" (Sarah Vaughan), "Love For Sale" (Hildegard Knef) and "My Baby Just Cares For Me" (Nina Simone). "With Love" received favourable reviews by French music critics and was released in the rest of Europe by label ZYX Music in early 2007 .

Also in 2007, Lear stunned the LGBT community and particularly her fans, by refusing to perform at an event in Milan, Italy. Lear refused to appear on stage with, be photographed with, or even be seen near a group of transsexual 'beauty queen' contestants, which caused a lot of bad feeling with the crowd and the annoyed organizers who even hinted at the "ambiguity" of her own past [ [http://www.gay.it/channel/televisione/22580/Spettacolo-Amanda-Lear-non-vuole-trans-intorno.html From gay.it (February 2007)] ] . Many of the Italian news reports about the incident cited the actual words uttered by Lear to the arrangers of the event before leaving; " - “Tenete lontani i trans!” (translated as " - Keep the trannies away from me!"). [ [ http://www.arcigaymilano.org/stampa/rs.asp?ID=28208 From From Arcigay, Milano. (February 2007)] ] .

In January 2008 "With Love" was re-released in Italy under the title "Amour Toujours". Two recent recordings were added: a modern version of "Queen Of China-Town" and a salsa-version of "Tomorrow".

In the summer of 2008 Lear is busy hosting several TV shows; one called "Summer of the '70s" on ARTE and another "Battaglia fra sexy star" on the E! channel in Italy.

Lear has so far sold some 15 million albums and approximately 25-30 million singles. [ [http://amandalear.jexiste.fr/confessions_orbitales.html Radio interview, Confessions Orbitales, Radio Europe 1 (March 8 2003)] ]

She currently resides in Saint-Etienne-du-Grès near Avignon in Southern France. [ [http://amandalear.jexiste.fr/confessions_orbitales.html Radio interview, Confessions Orbitales, Radio Europe 1 (March 8 2003)] ] .

Discography

Filmography

TV shows (selected)

* 1978: "Stryx"
* 1981: "Grey Street"
* 1982-83: "Premiatissima"
* 1983: "Ma Chi É Amanda" / "Who Is Amanda Lear"
* 1984-86: "W Le Donne" / "Cherchez La Famme"
* 1995: "Beware Of The Blondes" / "Peep!"
* 1996: "Ugly Duckling"
* 2002: "Cocktail D'Amore"
* 2003: "Tendance"

Movies

* 1968: "Ne Jouez Pas Avec Les Martiens"
* 1978: "Follie Di Notte"
* 1978: "Zio Adolfo, In Arte Führer"
* 1996: "L'Amour Est A Réinventer - Dix Histoires D'Amour Au Temps Du SIDA"
* 1998: "Bimboland"
* 2002: "Le Défi" / "Dance Challenge"
* 2005: "Gigolo"
* 2007: "Oliviero Rising"
* 2007: "Starfuckers"
* 2008: "8th Wonderland"
* 2008: "Bloody Flowers"

Dubbing

* 2004: "The Incredibles"
* 2008: "Chasseurs De Dragons"

TV series

* 1969: "Der Kommissar" (episode "Keiner Hörte Den Schuß")
* 1985: "Grottenolm"
* 1988: "Marc Et Sophie" (episode "Astrochiens")
* 1989: "Maggy": odcinek "Doriana Wilding"
* 1993: "Piazza Di Spagna"
* 1993: "Une Femme Pour Moi"
* 1998: "Les Années Bleues"
* 2003: "Gala"
* 2005: "Sous Le Soleil"
* 2007: "Un Amour De Fantôme"
* 2007: "Avocats Et Associés"

Bibliography

* 1986: "My Life With Dalì" a.k.a." The Persistence Of Memory" (original French title: "Dalì Et Moi") (Biography) Beaufort Books, Inc. ISBN 0825303737; updated and expanded 2004 re-issue ISBN 0863690955.
* 1987: "The Immortal" (original French title: "L'Immortel") (Novel) Carrere France.
* 2006: "Between Dream And Reality" (Collected art) ISBN 978-3-8334-5185-0.

References

ources & external links

* Ian Gibson: Biography "The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí", W.W. Norton co., NY, 1997. ISBN 0393046249.
* April Ashley: Autobiography "April Ashley's Odyssey". ISBN 0-224-01849-3
* April Ashley: Updated autobiography "The First Lady" John Blake Publishing Ltd, 2006, ISBN 1-84454-231-9.
* Romy Haag: Autobiography "Eine Frau Und Mehr". Quadriga Germany, 1999, ISBN 3886793281.
* Romy Haag official home page [http://home.snafu.de/romy.haag/]
* April Ashley official home page [http://www.aprilashley.com/home.html]
* Simon Napier-Bell official home page [http://www.simonnapierbell.com/]
* Italian fan site [http://www.lavocedelledonne.it/cantante.aspx?ID_cantante=83]
* Diaryscape biography & picture gallery. [http://diaryscape.amateur-sex-gold.com/amanda_lear/]
* Rate Your Music biography & discography [http://rateyourmusic.com/artist/amanda_lear]
* Spanish language article by Carla Antonelli on Amanda and Salvador Dalí, with rare photos. [http://www.carlaantonelli.com/pierrot_memorias_de_transexuales3.htm]
* 2000 Biography, Umelec magazine. [http://www.divus.cz/umelec/en/pages/umelec.php?id=931&roc=2000&cis=5]
* 2001 interview with The Telegraph, UK. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2001/01/23/tldali23.xml]
* 2002 interview with Night Magazine, US. [http://amandalear_jukebox.tripod.com/indexnight_inteview.htm]
* 2002 interview with Zing Magazine, US. [http://www.zingmagazine.com/zing16/projects/sico.html]
* Great Celeb biography. [http://www.1greatcelebsite.com/amanda_lear/biography.htm]
* Italian Dago Spia article on early career. [http://213.215.144.81/public_html/articolo_1562.html]
* Discography, site Eurodancehits. [http://www.eurodancehits.com/leardisc.html eurodancehits.com]
* Biography, site Eurodancehits. [http://www.eurodancehits.com/learmain.html]
* [http://pesniretro.com/amanda_lear Photographies and singles "Amanda Lear"]