Amanda Lear

Amanda Lear (née Tap or Tapp) is a French singer, lyricist, painter, television presenter, actress and former model. Lear studied art in Paris and at Saint Martin's School of Art in London. She began her professional career as a fashion model in the mid-1960s and went on to model for Paco Rabanne and Ossie Clark, among others. She met the Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí and would remain his closest friend and muse for the next 15 years. Lear first came into the public eye as the cover model for Roxy Music's album For Your Pleasure in 1973. From the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, she was a million-album-selling disco queen, mainly in Continental Europe and Scandinavia, signed to Ariola Records. Lear's first four albums earned her mainstream popularity, charting in the top 10 of European charts, including the best-selling Sweet Revenge (1978). Her biggest hits included "Blood and Honey", "Tomorrow", "Queen of Chinatown", "Follow Me", "Enigma (Give a Bit of Mmh to Me)", "The Sphinx" and "Fashion Pack". By the mid-1980s, Lear had positioned herself as one of the leading media personalities in Italy where she hosted many popular TV shows. Although television took priority over musical activity, she continued to record, experimenting with different genres and trying to revive her career by re-recording and re-mixing earlier hits to various levels of success. Lear has also developed a successful career in painting, which she has long described as her biggest passion, and regularly exhibited her works in galleries across Europe and beyond since the early 1980s. She has also written a number of autobiographies, including My Life with Dalí. Since the 1990s, her time has been divided between music, television, movies and painting. Despite regular album releases, she failed to achieve major success in charts with her music. However, her television career has remained stellar and she has hosted numerous prime time TV shows, mostly in Italy and France, occasionally making guest appearances in TV series. She has also performed acting and dubbing roles in independent as well as major film productions. In the late 2000s, Lear would reinvent herself as a theatrical actress, performing in long-running stage plays in France. To date, she allegedly has sold over 27 million records worldwide. Lear is also a widely recognized gay icon.