|
Cyndi Lauper
| |
|
| |
|
Miami Vice Performer
|
|
|
Born
|
June 22, 1953, New York, New York
|
|
Active
|
1977-present
|
|
Spouse/Child
|
David Thornton (1991-present), one son
|
Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper (born June 22, 1953) is of European descent and a Grammy Award singer and Emmy Award winning actor whose song "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" appeared in the episode "Brother's Keeper" of the show Miami Vice. The song was performed by an unidentified singer and not Lauper.
Career[]
Lauper was born in New York, New York, to parents Fred and Catrine Lauper. She began dyeing her hair different colors at a young age and left home at 17 to "find herself". She began singing with New York cover bands in the mid-1970s, but her vocal chords were damaged and she took time off to learn proper vocal exercises and returned to singing in 1978 with the band Blue Angel, but after one self-titled album that sold poorly, the band broke up, and Lauper returned to singing in clubs and working at a thrift store to make ends meet. At one of her shows she met David Wolff, a record manager (and later boyfriend) who got her a contract with Portrait Records (a subsidiary of Columbia Records) for an album. That album, She's So Unusual, was released in 1983, and became a smash breakout hit for Lauper, fans (especially teens) were attracted to Lauper's fashion style and punk/new wave sounds. The album produced five Billboard Top 10 singles, two of which reached #1: "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and "Time After Time". The other three Top 10s were "All Through The Night", "She Bop", and "Money Changes Everything". The video for "Girls..." featured her mother Catrine and the WWE/F manager Capt. Lou Albano playing her father, which won the first MTV VMA for Best Female Artist video, and the album was awarded a Grammy for Best New Artist.
Rock and Wrestling Connection[]
In 1984, with Lauper's video for "Girls..." receiving heavy rotation on MTV, the WWE/F (referred to as WWF for historical purposes) decided (as a part of their plan to bring pro wrestling mainstream) to feature Lauper and Albano in an "angle" over his appearance in the video, making it seem like Albano was the only reason the video and song did so well, and called Lauper a "broad" on a segment of WWF's Piper's Pit. Lauper responded by hitting Albano with her purse, and challenged Albano to find a female wrestler of his choice to take on Lauper's chosen female wrestler. Lauper chose newcomer Wendi Richter, while Albano chose longtime WWF Women's Champion The Fabulous Moolah, with Moolah's title on the line. The match, called "The Brawl To Settle It All", was held in Madison Square Garden in July, 1984, with Richter winning the title (after Lauper hit Moolah with her "loaded purse of doom"). Richter then lost the title to Moolah protege Lelani Kai at The War To Settle The Score, with Lauper in Richter's corner. These matches were carried on MTV which helped increase the WWF's (and Lauper's) popularity. Lauper's final wrestling appearance took place at the inaugural WrestleMania in 1985, when Lauper helped Richter regain her Women's title over Kai. In June, 2012, Lauper, Richter, and Piper reunited as part of the buildup to the 1000th episode of WWE Raw. Piper presented Lauper with a "gold record" in tribute to her role in the "Rock and Wrestling Connection", but she smashed it over the head of WWE wrestler Heath Slater when he began denigrating Lauper, Piper and Richter.
Mid to Late 1980s[]
Lauper appeared in the single We Are The World, and served as musical producer for the Steven Spielberg movie The Goonies. The video for The Goonies R Good Enough (which hit the Billboard Top 10, but Lauper did not perform the song live from 1987-2004) featured several WWF wrestlers, but was physically exhausted by the end of the production, to the point she had to miss the Live Aid concert. 1986 brought Lauper's first album in three years, True Colors, which produced Lauper's second #1 song (the title track), and two other Top 20 singles. Lauper also made her film debut in 1988's Vibes (with Aharon Ipale, John Kapelos, and Steve Buscemi). In 1989 Lauper's third album, A Night To Remember, was released, but did not sell nearly as well as her first two, with just one Top 10 single, "I Drove All Night". About that same time Lauper and David Wolff mutually ended their five-year relationship.
1990s[]
Lauper appeared in a second film, Off and Running (with David Thornton and Richard Belzer), and began a romance between Lauper and Thornton (who appeared in Vice as Lile in "Rites of Passage"), which later led to their marriage in 1991 (with Little Richard officiating). In 1993 Lauper's fourth album, Hat Full of Stars was released, and was a dismal failure in the United States. Her greatest hits album Twelve Deadly Cyns...and Then Some, released in 1995, also did not sell well, but she did win an Emmy for her guest appearance in the sitcom Mad About You. In 1997 Lauper gave birth to son Declyn Wallace Thornton Lauper (named for Elvis Costello, whose real name is Declyn, and William Wallace, who led (and died for) an army for Scottish independence in the 14th century, and known as Dex, and has joined his mother on tour occasionally). Lauper released two more albums, Sisters of Avalon and a Christmas album, both of which also sold poorly, but Lauper continued to do well in other areas, appearing on an episode of The Simpsons, and teaming up with Cher for a version of "If I Could Turn Back Time" on VH-1 Divas. After her sister Ellen "came out" as a lesbian, Lauper began working tirelessly for gay rights, LGBT, and AIDS activist causes, and continues that work to the current day.
2000s-2010s[]
Lauper's sixth album, Shine was to be released on September 11, 2001, but weeks before that tragic date the record label she was with folded and the tracks were leaked to the public (the album would only be released in Japan in 2004). In 2003 At Last was released and her most recent studio album, called Bring Ya To The Brink, came out in 2008. She appeared in numerous TV shows in 2008-09, including As The World Turns and American Idol, and in 2010 she was a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice, and finished in sixth place. Her latest album, Memphis Blues, was released in June, 2010, featuring blues-oriented tracks. In June, 2013, Lauper won a Tony Award (giving her three of the four EGOT awards, she lacks only the Oscar) for her score in the musical Kinky Boots, which was Lauper's first Broadway composition, and began a limited concert tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of her debut album She's So Unusual. She has appeared in commercials for the anti-psoriasis drug Cosentyx, discussing her lifelong battle with the disorder. Lauper returned to TV in the reboot of Magnum P.I. in 2018, and reunited with songwriter Rob Hyman to create a musical based on the 1988 film Working Girl (featured Melanie Griffith).