Elaine Paige
Elaine Paige
Elaine Paige at BBC Radio 2’s Voice of Musical Theatre
gala final in 2006.
Background information
Birth name
Elaine Mary Bickerstaff[1]
Born
5 March 1948 (age 61)
Origin
Barnet, London, England, UK
Occupation(s) Singer, actress
Elaine Paige OBE (née Bickerstaff;[2] born
5 March 1948) is an English singer and act-
ress best known for her work in musical
theatre. Raised in Barnet, North London,
Paige attended the Aida Foster stage school
and made her first professional appearance
on stage in 1964. Her appearance in the
1968 production of Hair marked her West
End debut.
Following a number of roles over the next
decade, Paige was selected to play Eva Perón
in the first production of Evita in 1978, which
brought her to the attention of the broader
public. For this role, she won the Laurence
Olivier Award for Performance of the Year in
a Musical. She went on to originate the role
of Grizabella in Cats and had a Top 10 hit
with "Memory", a song from the show. In
1985, Paige released "I Know Him So Well"
with Barbara Dickson from the musical
Chess, which remains the biggest-selling re-
cord by a female duo. She then appeared in
the original stage production of Chess, fol-
lowed by a starring role in Anything Goes
which she also co-produced. Paige made her
Broadway debut in Sunset Boulevard in 1996,
playing the lead role of Norma Desmond, to
critical acclaim. She appeared in The King
and I from 2000 to 2001, and six years later
she returned to the West End stage in The
Drowsy Chaperone. She has also worked in
film and television.
In addition to being nominated for five
Laurence Olivier Awards, Paige has won
many other awards for her theatre roles and
has been called the First Lady of British
Musical Theatre. She has released 20 solo al-
bums, of which eight were consecutively cer-
tified gold and another four multi-platinum.
Paige is also featured on seven cast albums
and has sung in concerts across the world.
Since 2004 she has hosted her own show on
BBC Radio 2 called Elaine Paige on Sunday.
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