Sheena Easton

Sheena Easton (born Sheena Shirley Orr on April 27, 1959, Bellshill, North Lanarkshire, Scotland) is a Scottish Grammy Award-winning pop singer and theatre & television actress. Sheena became famous for being the focus of an episode of the United Kingdom television programme The Big Time, a 1980 reality TV series which recorded her attempts to gain a record contract and got her a deal with EMI.

Biography

Easton was the youngest of six children of a steel mill laborer, Alex Orr, and his wife Annie. Her siblings included brothers Robert and Alex and sisters Marilyn, Annessa and Morag. Her earliest known public performance as a singer was at the age of five, when in 1964 she sang "Early One Morning" for her uncle and aunt and various relatives at the couple's 25th wedding anniversary celebration.

In 1969, Easton's father died. Her mother took on work as a laborer to support the family. Easton's web site states that her mother was always available for her children, despite her tremendous workload: "Sheena always speaks very highly of her mom and the wonderful job she did in raising her and her siblings, including teaching each of them all to read at home before they were even enrolled in school."

She had not seriously considered entering upon a singing career until a viewing of the movie The Way We Were, with Barbra Streisand. Streisand's singing over the opening credits "overtook" the young Scottish girl and convinced her that what she wanted most was to be a singer and to have that kind of effect on others. Her top grades in school earned her a scholarship to attend the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, and she trained there from 1975 to 1979 as a speech and drama teacher by day, while singing with a band called 'Something Else' by night at local clubs. She chose to study teaching rather than performing, because it was a course of study that would let her perfect her craft as a singer.

In 1979, she married Sandi Easton, the first of four husbands. They divorced after eight months, but Sheena decided to keep the surname Easton. That year, Esther Rantzen, producer of the BBC programme The Big Time selected Easton as the subject of a documentary film planned to chronicle a relative unknown's rise to pop-music stardom, after one of her Academy instructors coaxed her into auditioning. Her talent persuaded reluctant EMI executives to award her a contract, and Christopher Neil was assigned as her recording producer. Deke Arlon became her first manager, and Easton spent much of 1980 being followed by camera crews, who filmed her throughout the process of making her first EMI single, "Modern Girl."

Her second marriage, in 1984, was to Rob Light, a talent agent, but ended after 18 months. Easton earned U.S. citizenship in 1992 and adopted her first child, Jake in 1994. Two years later, she adopted again, this time a baby girl named Skylar. In the summer of 1997, she met producer Tim Delarm, while filming an episode of ESPN Canon Photo Safari in Yellowstone National Park and later married Delarm in Las Vegas July of 1997. The marriage lasted one year. In 2001, she became engaged to John Minoli, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon and married him on November 9, 2002. They divorced in 2003 and Easton has been a single mother to her two children since and currently resides in Las Vegas.

Shrewd investments in Florida property have meant that she has appeared in the Sunday Times Rich List.

Career overview

A screenshot of "9 to 5".

Her first single, the disco-tinged soft-synth-pop tune "Modern Girl," was released in the UK before the show aired and reached a disappointing #56. At the end of the show, Sheena was still unsure of her future as a singer, but the question was soon resolved when, after the show aired, her second single, "9 To 5," soared up the UK Singles Chart to #3 in 1980. "Modern Girl" re-entered the chart subsequently and climbed into the top 10, and Easton, who had just a few months earlier been a virtual unknown, now found herself with two songs in the top 10 simultaneously.

9 To 5 was Easton's first single release in the United States, although it was renamed "Morning Train (Nine To Five)" for its release in the U.S. and Canada to avoid confusion with Dolly Parton's hit movie title song "9 to 5." "Morning Train" became Easton's only #1 hit in the U.S. and topped both the Billboard Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts in Billboard magazine. "Modern Girl" was released as the follow-up and peaked at #18, and before 1981 was over Sheena had a top 10 hit in both the U.S. and UK with the Academy Award-nominated James Bond movie theme "For Your Eyes Only." Easton's U.S. success culminated in her winning the Grammy Award for Best New Artist of 1981.

Sheena Easton in For Your Eyes Only. She is the only artist seen performing the song in the title sequence in the entire Bond series.

Easton's first three U.S. albums, Sheena Easton, You Could Have Been With Me, and Madness, Money and Music, were all in the same soft rock/adult contemporary pop vein (although she made a grab for the dance audience with "Machinery," from the latter album), but by the end of 1982, with British synthesizer bands taking over the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, she saw her sales slumping. In 1983 she came back strongly in America with the album Best Kept Secret and its first single, the synthesized dance-pop tune "Telefone (Long Distance Love Affair)", which became her fourth top 10 hit (her third was a duet with Kenny Rogers earlier in the year on Bob Seger's "We've Got Tonight", which reached #1 on the country chart, and the top 10 on the pop and AC charts). The follow-up to "Telefone," "Almost Over You," was a #1 AC chart hit and Top 30 pop hit, and later became a hit on the country charts for Lila McCann in 1998.

In 1984, she began collaborating with Prince and made an Olivia Newton-John-like transformation into a sexy dance-pop siren. She was rewarded with the biggest-selling U.S. album of her career, A Private Heaven, and her fifth top 10 single, the sassy "Strut." She was also one of the first artists to have a music video banned because of its lyrics rather than its imagery, when some broadcasters refused to play the sexually risqué "Sugar Walls", which had been written for her by Prince (using the pseudonym Alexander Nevermind). "Sugar Walls" was also named by Tipper Gore of the Parents' Music Resource Council as one of the "Filthy Fifteen", a list of songs deemed indecent because of their lyrics, alongside Prince's own "Darling Nikki". "Sugar Walls" also hit #3 on the R&B singles chart.

Around this time she also recorded a Grammy-winning Spanish-language single, "Me Gustas Tal Como Eres" ("I Love You Just the Way You Are"), a duet with Luis Miguel. It was taken from Easton's album, Todo Me Recuerda a Ti ("Everything Reminds Me of You"). Success in the pop, adult contemporary, R&B, country and Latin fields earned Easton a reputation as one of the most versatile vocalists of the 1980s.

Easton's follow-up to A Private Heaven, entitled Do You, received poor reviews and disappointing sales (despite yielding the top 30 single "Do It For Love"). Release of a further follow-up album, 1987's No Sound But a Heart, was canceled in the United States after an initial single release, Eternity, flopped. One track from the album, "The Last to Know," was later covered by Celine Dion for her English-language debut album, Unison. No Sound But a Heart did eventually get released in the United States in 1999, with four bonus tracks, including Easton's contributions to the soundtrack of the 1986 film About Last Night..., "Natural Love" and the minor hit single "So Far, So Good."

Easton was not totally absent from the charts in 1987, however; She sang on Prince's #2 hit, U Got the Look, and also appeared in the video. (The two would later team again for "The Arms of Orion," featured on Prince's soundtrack to the movie Batman, but it wasn't as big a hit, reaching US #36 Uk#27.)

In November 1987 Easton made her first dramatic acting appearance on the television program Miami Vice, playing a singer named Caitlin Davies, whom Sonny Crockett was assigned to protect until she made a court appearance. Sonny and Caitlin were married by the end of the episode, the first of five for Easton until her character was killed off. By the spring of 1988 the latest installment of the Miami Vice soundtrack was released, and featured the song "Follow My Rainbow", which Easton sang on her last appearance, moments before her character was shot to death. The song also appeared on her next album The Lover In Me, a gold-selling disc released the following autumn that put Easton back on the charts. This album features Urban R&B and Dance-pop. The title song from "The Lover In Me" reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became her biggest pop hit since "Morning Train." It also became a #5 hit on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles and Trackschart. It was followed on the R&B chart by "Days Like This" (#35), which missed the Billboard Hot 100. A third single was released "101" and missed the Billboard top 100 but did make it to #1 on the Billboard Dance chart. A final single "No Deposit,No Return" was released and failed to chart.

Sheena Easton is the only artist in the history of the Billboard charts to have a top 5 hit on the Billboards key charts. AC, Dance, Pop, Country, and R&B.

The 1990s

In 1991, What Comes Naturally became the last of Easton's albums to chart in the United States; the title song was also her last Top 40 single to date, reaching #19, and some of her recent albums have only been available in the Far East or Europe except for the critically acclaimed No Strings and My Cherie. In the late 90's Sheena retained a record contract with MCA Japan and released 2 discs of new material. "Freedom" in 1997 a return to her trademark pop including a remake of her debut single "Modern Girl 97" and in "1999" released the self produced acoustical set of "Home".

Recent Times

She signed a record contract with Universal International UK in 2000 and attempted a comeback in 2001 with "Fabulous", an album of classic disco covers produced by Ian Masterson and Terry Ronald of (Trouser Enthusiasts) fame. Although seen by many as a blatant attempt to tap into the lucrative gay market, the album was largely ignored mainstream but faired well in the gay dance clubs of London and Japan.

On an appearance on Late Night with Bob Costas she confessed her wish to be pregnant with news anchor Peter Jennings' baby. Jennings recounted the incident in an interview with Larry King and said he was flattered and amused by the proposal.

Easton continued acting in America, starring in Broadway revivals of Man Of La Mancha (1992) and Grease (1996). Between 1994 and 1996, she played several characters in Gargoyles the animated series, including Lady Finella, the Banshee, Molly and Robyn Canmore. In 1999, she voice-acted a half-demon character, Annah-of-the-Shadows, in the computer game Planescape: Torment. She lives in Las Vegas with her two children and often performs in the city's casinos. She voiced the character Fiona Canmore for a scripted, but unfinished episode of the canceled Team Atlantis.

In June 1998, her former secondary school Bellshill Academy celebrated its centenary. Easton signed a tribute to the school for its special occasion which is still on display in the main building. She was a pupil there from 1971-1977.

A popular story at the school was that there used to be a school desk that Easton had graffiti'd her then name "Sheena Orr" which was of some source of pride to the teacher whose classroom it belonged to. Upon returning from the summer holiday break a number of years later, the teacher was dismayed to find that the furniture had all been replaced and the signature strewn desk had gone.

In April and May 2004, Easton visited Australia and featured in a kooky TV commercial for Connex in Melbourne. A number of unrealistically happy passengers in an unrealistically underpatronised morning train were singing "9 to 5". Easton boarded the train at Burnley Station, and screamed. The passengers paused in awe, then went on singing.

On October 31, 2004, she was inducted into the Casino Legends Hall of Fame at the Tropicana Resort & Casino along with fellow Las Vegas icons Debbie Reynolds, Ben Vereen, Patti Page, Jack Jones and Tempest Storm.

In January 2005, Easton appeared in the television series Young Blades.

In July 2005, she played the Narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at North Carolina Theatre in Raleigh, NC. The show co-starred Ray Walker as Joseph, Merwin Foard as the Pharaoh, David F.M. Vaughn as Reuben, Demond Green as Judah, and Darryl Winslow as Simeon.

In 2006 Cherry Red records Ltd. (UK) re-released "The Lover In Me" (Remastered) with bonus tracks.

In February 2007 Fuel Records (Varase Sarabande) re-released "Freedom" officially in the United States. Also, Sheena's 1995 disc "My Cherie" was released on Itunes.

Albums

• Take My Time (1981) #17 UK, #4 Japan
• Sheena Easton (1981) #24 U.S. , #9 Canada - retitled edition of Take My Time
• You Could Have Been With Me (1981) #33 UK, #47 U.S., #7 Japan
• Madness, Money & Music (1982) #44 UK, #85 U.S., #5 Japan
• Best Kept Secret (1983) #99 UK, #33 U.S. , #32 Canada, #4 Japan
• Todo Me Recuerda a Ti (1984) - Spanish language release - #30 Japan
• A Private Heaven (1984) #15 U.S. #36 Canada, #9 Japan
• Do You (1985) #40 U.S., #32 Japan
• No Sound But a Heart (1987) #59 Japan
• The Lover In Me (1988) #30 UK, #44 U.S.
• What Comes Naturally (1991) #90 U.S., #85 Japan
• The World of Sheena Easton The Singles Collection (1993)
• No Strings (1993) #80 Japan
• My Cherie (1995) #30 Japan
• Greatest Hits (Japan only release) (1995) #98 Japan
• Freedom (1997) #53 Japan
• Home (1999) #97 Japan
• Best Ballads (Japan only release) (2000)
• Fabulous (2001) #65 Japan
• Classic Masters (2002)

Other album/soundtrack/film/song performances

• "For Your Eyes Only" - from the film of the same name (1981)
• "It's Christmas All Over the World" - from Santa Claus (1985)
• "So Far, So Good" and "Natural Love" - from About Last Night... (1986)
• "U Got the Look" - duet with Prince on his album Sign O' The Times (1987)
• "We've Got Tonight" - from Shades of Love: Make Mine Chartreuse (1987)
• "The Arms of Orion" - duet with Prince on his Batman soundtrack album (1989)
• "A Dream Worth Keeping" - from the animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992)
• "The Nearness of You" - from Indecent Proposal (1993)
• "Sugar Walls" - from Beavis and Butt-Head episode "Plastic Surgin'" (1994)
• "Are There Angels?" - from Shiloh (1996)
• "Count Me Out," "I Will Always Be With You," - from All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 (1996)
• "Carry a Dream" - from Marco: Haha wo Tazunete Sanzen Ri (Japanese, 1999, feature-length remake of 1976 Nippon Animation anime TV series)
• "Morning Train (9 To 5)" - from EuroTrip (2004)

Singles

Filmography

• Miami Vice (1987) - Caitlin Davies (five episodes)
• All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 (1996), All Dogs Go to Heaven (1996 - TV series), An All Dogs Christmas Carol (1998) - voice of Sasha LeFleur
• Body Bags (1993) - Megan (in segment titled "Hair")
• Highlander (1993) - Annie Devlin (in episode titled "An Eye for an Eye")
• The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (1993) - Crystal Hawks (one episode)
• Charles Dickens' David Copperfield (1993) - voice of Agnes
• TekWar (TV series) (1994) - War Bride
• Real Ghosts (1995) - Janet (nightclub owner)
• Gargoyles the Movie: The Heroes Awaken (1995) - Robyn Canmore, Banshee, Molly, Finella
• The Outer Limits (1996) - Melissa McCammon in episode titled "Falling Star"
• Road Rovers (1996) - Groomer, Persia
• Chicken Soup for the Soul (1999) - Vicky in episode titled "Sand Castles"
• Disney's The Legend of Tarzan (2001) - voice role (one episode)
• Vegas Live! With Clint Holmes and Sheena Easton (2003)
• Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster (2004) - voice of Professior Fiona Pembrooke
• Young Blades (2005) - Queen Anne

See also

• List of number-one hits (United States)
• List of artists who reached number one on the Hot 100 (U.S.)
• List of number-one dance hits (United States)
• List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. Dance chart

External links and references

• Official Website
• UK Based Unofficial Website
• Lyrics to EVERY Sheena Easton song
• Sheena Easton Discography
• Sheena Easton at the Internet Movie Database
• Sheena Easton's Connex advertisement

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