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| Elaine`s career |
| Elaine was born on the 5th March in 1948 in Barnet, Hertfordshire in England. Elaine first discovered her good singing voice while she was in school and was encouraged by her teachers. She was trained for three years at the Aida Foster Stage School in North London. |
| In the 1960s and early 1970s she appeared in several stage musicals such as The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd and Maybe That�s Your Problem. Her West End debut she made in 1969 as the member of the cast of Hair. Then she appeared in Jesus Christ Superstar and Nuts in West End before she won her first major role as Sandy in Grease. |
| In the 1978 she got the role of Eva Peron in Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber�s musical Evita. Although Julie Covington had had a UK smash hit with the show�s song "Don�t cry for me Argentina" Elaine went on to stun the critics and made the role her own. From that role she got a Society of West End Theater Award as the Best Actress in a musical and a Variety Club Award for Showbusiness Personality of the year. |
| In 1981 she stepped in a short notice to create the role of Grizabella in the new musical Cats replacing Judy Dench, who had injured her angle in rehearsals. She stole the show with song called "Memory". Elaine wasn�t only the first actress to perform the song, she got her first UK chart hit from that song. |
| In 1983 Elaine appeared as Carabosse in Abbacadabra a show written by Benny and Bj�rn from ABBA. In 1986 she sang their work again in a musical called Chess. In that musical she did a duet with Barbara Dickson called "I know him so well" which was four weeks as number one in a single chart. |
| The late 1980s she concentrated more on straight acting starring in several BBC films, notably A View of Harry Clark and Unexplained Laughter. She also hosted her own BBC TV special and "Elaine Paige in Concert" has been televised. |
| In 1989 she accomplished the dual role of starring and co-producting the musical Anything Goes and she was nominated for a Oliver Award for Outstanding Performance of the Year by an actress in a musical. |
| Piaf was her next accomplishment. Elaine played the role of a tragic chantause Edith Piaf. For this role she was once again nominated for an Oliver Award for Best Actress in a Musical. In May 1995 she took over the role of Norma Desmond from Betty Buckley in the West End hit Sunset Boulevard. Later same year she received an OBE from the Queen for service to the British Musical Theathe. In 1996 Elaine�s dream of acting on Broadway finally came true as she was asked by Andrew Lloyd Webber to take over the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. Two years later she returned to London�s West End to star as Celimene in a comedy The Misanthrope which was her debut in West End in a none musical theatre act. In the same year the video of Cats was released and she made the role of Grizabella again. She�s now playing the role of Anna Leonowens in Rodgers and Hammerstain�s musical The King and I in London Palladium. She will end the role in next April so be quick if you still want to see her. |
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| Theatre: *The Roar of the Greasepaint the Smell of the Crowd *Roar Like a Dove *Hair *Rock Carmen *Maybe That�s your Problem *Jesus Christ Superstar *Nuts *Sandy in Grease *Rita in Billy *Eva Peron in Evita *Grizabella in Cats *Carabosse in Abracadabra *Florence Vassy in Chess *Rene Sweeny in Anything Goes *Edith Piaf in Piaf *Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard *Celimene in The Misanthrope *Anna Leonowens in The King and I *Angele in Where there�s a will *Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd |
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