- This article is about the English model and singer; for the American pornographic actress, see Samantha Fox (porn star).
Samantha Karen "Sam" Fox (born April 15, 1966 in Mile End, London) is an English former glamour model and dance-pop singer.
Background
As the eldest daughter of the late Patrick John Fox and Carole Ann Wilken, Samantha Karen Fox came from a family of market traders in the East End of London. She has a sister, Vanessa, who is six years younger, and a half-sister, Frederica, from her father's second marriage.
She attended St Thomas More RC School, Haringey,[1] and took a keen interest in the theatre from an early age. She first appeared on a theatre stage at the age of three, and was enrolled in the Anna Scher Theatre School from the age of 5. Her first television appearance came in 1976, at the age of 10, in a BBC play entitled No Way Out. Following on from this, she started at the Judi Dench Mountview Theatre School, near her home in Crouch End, at the age of 11.
Interested in music from an early age, she formed her first band at the age of 14. Her first record deal came a year later, with Lamborghini Records. However, both her theatre and music careers went on hold when her modelling career took off.
Modeling career
In early 1983, Carole Fox took and submitted several pictures of her teenage daughter in lingerie for the The Sunday People newspaper's "Face and Shape of 1983" amateur modeling contest. Judged joint runner-up in the contest, Fox had her pictures published, and was shortly afterward invited for a photo shoot for the Page Three feature in The Sun tabloid newspaper. Her parents gave their consent for their daughter to pose topless, and on Tuesday, 22 February 1983, Fox made her first appearance on Page Three under the headline "Sam, 16, Quits A-Levels for Ooh-Levels."
Fox's Cockney background, bubbly-blonde looks, winning smile, and curvaceous 36D breasts arguably made her Britain's premiere sex symbol of the 1980s. After famously insuring her breasts for a quarter of a million pounds sterling, she went on to win The Sun's Page Three Girl of the Year award for three consecutive years between 1984 and 1986. She also posed nude for British soft-porn magazines, although very few full-frontal shots were ever published.
Fox retired from Page Three modeling in 1986 at the age of 20. In 1995, aged 29, she made a one-off appearance in The Sun to promote Page Three's 25th anniversary week. After an overwhelmingly positive reader response, she appeared in the slot every day during the anniversary week; Friday's final topless picture was given away as an A3-sized poster. In 1996, aged 30, she appeared in the October issue of Playboy magazine. These were her final published nude photos.
Fox's father Patrick, a former carpenter, managed her career until 1991. At that time, Fox hired accountants to trace over £1 million that she believed he had embezzled from her accounts. She then sued her father, who by that time had divorced her mother and remarried a much younger woman, and in May 1995 she was awarded a £363,000 court settlement.[2] Patrick Fox died in 2000, at which time he and Fox had not spoken for almost a decade.[3]
Music career
In the late-1980s, Fox began a successful singing career, producing three albums in three years (1986-1988), and working with notable music producers such as Stock Aitken Waterman and Full Force. Her debut single, Touch Me (I Want Your Body), released when she was just 20 years old, made the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic (#3 in the UK; #4 in the US). It also topped the charts in many countries. Her debut live performance came at Peter Stringfellow's club Hippodrome. Fox had three Top 10 hits in both the United States and Britain. In Canada and the U.S., Naughty Girls (Need Love Too) (#3 in the US; #8 in Canada) and I Wanna Have Some Fun (#8 in the US; #10 in Canada) made the Top 10; whereas British audiences put Do Ya Do Ya (Wanna Please Me) (#10 in the UK) and Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now (#8 in the UK) into the Top 10. Her successful singing career resulted in Fox touring the world, including unusual places such as Bosnia, Russia, Ukraine, and Siberia.
After a 3-year break, Samantha Fox released her fourth and final album in for Jive Records in 1991, entitled Just One Night. The album mirrored her previous work on 1988's I Wanna Have Some Fun, by presenting a mix of old school hip-hop style tracks featuring Full Force, along with a collection of pop & rock tracks. In 1992, Jive released Samantha's first official compilation, Greatest Hits, which featured three new tracks.
In 1995, Fox attempted to revive her singing career again by participating in the "Song for Europe", the competition to select the UK's entry for the annual Eurovision Song Contest. She performed Go for the Heart, as lead singer of the group Sox, but failed to reach Eurovision after finishing 4th in the public vote. In 1997, she released a new album 21st Century Fox. The album featured Eurodance and Hi-NRG music. The album was released in the US a year later with the lead single Let Me Be Free. 21st Century Fox became her first indie release. She also co-wrote and produced many of its tracks. Other singles from the album are Deeper and The Reason Is You. This is the album that made her a bigger favourite with her fan base. In 2004, Fox teamed up with Mats Söderlund (alias Günther) in order to do a remake of Touch Me (I Want Your Body). This version reached #1 on the Swedish Singles Chart.
In November 2005, Fox released her latest album, Angel with an Attitude, in Canada. For the album, she chose to work together with the award-winning producer Joe Barrucco.
Fox toured Australia throughout late-August and early-September 2007, as part of the Countdown Spectacular 2. It was the first time ever she'd performed in a live arena-style concert. Songs performed were "Do Ya Do Ya (Wanna Please Me)" and Touch Me (I Want Your Body).
On August 24, 2008 Samantha Fox will perform in Poland in concert of stars of the 80's, together with Kim Wilde, Sabrina, Sandra, Modern Talking, Limahl and Shakin' Stevens. The concert will be a part of Sopot Festival 2008 and will be presented live on Polish channel TVN.
Fox's films
Fox's pictures gained her such fandom in India that she was invited to star in a Bollywood film Rock Dancer. This was written and directed by V. Menon, starring Shammi Kapoor, Kamal Sadanah, Ronit Roy, Sharon Prabhakar, Javed Jaffri, Johnny Lever etc. It also featured guest appearances from Govinda, and was produced by Subbir Mukherjee.
Fox also featured in It’s Been Real written and directed by Steve Varnom, and starring John Altman, and The Match written and directed by Michael Davis, starring Pierce Brosnan, Ian Holm, Tom Sizemore, Neil Morrissey, David Hayman and Ilar Blair.
On From Under the Cork Tree, Fall Out Boy have a track called "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me" referencing the movie Sixteen Candles and Samantha Fox's album Touch Me (the title also references the posthumous dance hit by Elvis, "A Little Less Conversation").
Other sidelines
In 1986 Fox was featured in a strip poker game (Samantha Fox Strip Poker) for Commodore Amiga, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, MSX, BBC Micro, and Amstrad CPC.
In 1989, Fox co-presented the BRIT Awards with Mick Fleetwood, which became notorious for turning into a shambles; Fox has asserted in interviews since that the autocue did not work properly that night, leading to utter chaos during the show's live TV broadcast. She spent a year in New York presenting pop promo videos for MTV, and she made other attempts at TV presenting, including an interview with Rolf Harris, which was ill-fated even before it started as Fox referred to her interviewee as "Ralph" on several occasions. She appeared on the sitcom Charles In Charge in 1990 where she played the role of "Samantha Steele", a fictional rock star whose agent pushes her to romance Charles Scott Baio in order to get the paparazzi to print it in the tabloids. In the story line, it was done for career publicity reasons since people seem to enjoy some controversy. She also appeared in Fort Lauderdale, Florida for Spring Break, where she sang her various then current hits to thousands of college students.
Fox's career went quiet as she grew older and she was not commercially successful in her singing. However, this has not stopped her working. In 2003, she appeared in ("reality television") show The Club, competing against Richard Blackwood and Dean Gaffney by trying to run the most successful bar in The Club, which was full of celebrity guests such as Jordan. In August 2004, Fox was featured in a music video with Swedish music artist Günther in the song "Touch Me" (a remix of her earlier version). The album, Pleasureman, on which this version of "Touch Me" is featured was released in the US on Rhino Records in 2006. The single spent several weeks at #1 on the Swedish Chart.
In 2008, Fox and her partner Myra took part in Celebrity Wife Swap, exchanging with Freddie Starr and his wife Donna.
Personal life
Fox was twice linked to Australian con man Peter Foster. They dated in 1986-87 and then, after a seven year separation, they reunited in 1994 for a year. They were at one time reportedly engaged to be married. During this time she and Peter decided to adopt a young Australian boy named Simon. Tragedy struck when Simon accidentally ingested a bottle of alcohol and was then rendered comatose. Fox described Foster as "the love of my life". She has also been in relationships with Paul Stanley, the singer and rhythm guitarist for the band KISS.
In 1994, it was reported that Fox had become a born-again Christian. That year, she played at the Christian arts festival Greenbelt. When queried about how she could reconcile topless modeling with her Christian beliefs, she said:
| “ |
Easily. God gave me my body. I know it has made many people happy. There is no conflict there. I don't and have never promoted pornography. I'm not a born-again Christian because I have always been one. I am doing what God wants me to do. My prayer each night is: "Let me go my way and make people happy. Let me do the right thing." |
” |
Rumors regarding Fox's sexual orientation began to surface in 1999 when she judged a lesbian beauty pageant, and many people said they believed that the woman she lived with at the time, Australian Cris Bonacci, formerly guitarist with Girlschool, was more than just her manager.
In February 2003, she made a statement about her personal life: [4] [5]
| “ |
But I can't keep saying, "Maybe", or denying it. It's time to let people know where my heart is. People keep trying to say I'm a lesbian. I don't know what I am. All I know is that I'm in love with Myra [Stratton, her manager]. I love her completely and want to spend the rest of my life with her. |
” |
Fox participated in the television show "Wife Swap" with her partner.
Charitable activity
Samantha Fox has donated her favourite bra to a charity auction which will see fans able to buy a piece of celebrity clothing. [6] Sense's Strip It Off three-day auction will begin on March 4th and will see members of the public bidding for stars' garments in order to raise money for the deafblind charity.
Discography
-
Including details and chart positions
- Touch Me (1986)
- Samantha Fox (1987)
- I Wanna Have Some Fun (1988)
- Just One Night (1991)
- Greatest Hits (1992)
- 21st Century Fox (1998)
- Watching You, Watching Me (2002)
- Angel with an Attitude (2005)
- Angel with an Attitude (2007) - Australian re-release with 1 bonus track
Trivia
As a 14 year old, Sam played football for the Arsenal ladies football team, before moving on to page three modelling three years later
References
- ^ Samantha Fox biography Retrieved July 14, 2008
- ^ Christa D'Souza, "The Curse of Page 3: Sam Fox on Her New Life—and Today's Topless Pretenders," The Express, February 18, 1997
- ^ Sam Fox: I Love A Woman But I'M No Lesbian - Mirror.Co.Uk
- ^ The Mail on Sunday (London, England), 2 February 2003, page 12: "I have slept with other women but I've not been in love before Myra Stratton. People say I'm gay. I don't know what I am." Rebecca Hardy. Retrieved from Infotrac Newspapers Online on 2006-09-12.
- ^ AfterEllen.com
- ^ " Samantha Fox has donated her favourite bra to charity", Charities Aid Foundation, 2008-03-03. Retrieved on 2008-03-04.
External links
![Image <b>SAMANTHA FOX</b> "NAUGHTY GIRLS NEED <b>...</b> Picture](/viewImage.html?title=<b>samantha</b>_<b>fox</b>_45.jpg&summary=<b>SAMANTHA FOX</b> "NAUGHTY GIRLS NEED <b>...</b>&link=http://www.skidmoreart.net/samantha_fox_45.jpg&thumb=http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:TxuAVw6MJuDmIM:www.skidmoreart.net/samantha_fox_45.jpg&celebrity=Samantha Fox)
&videoType=YouTube&summary=Naughty Girls (Need Love Too) original version&link=http://www.youtube.com/v/K-j5GOsRtlk&fs=1&source=uds&autoplay=1&thumb=http://img.youtube.com/vi/K-j5GOsRtlk/2.jpg&celebrity=Samantha Fox)
