After two years away from the stage, Amanda Lear returns until May 5, 2024, reprising the role of Bette Davis in The Scientific Cardplayer. This play, inspired by a funny Italian comedy from the 70s, tells the story of an explosive-tempered old billionaire who takes pleasure in ruining her entourage. This is an opportunity for us to look back at the story of Amanda Lear: from her beginnings as a muse for the legendary painter, Salvador Dali, to her successes as a singer and actress that led her to become a famous icon of culture.
Amanda Lear as an old billionaire viper
At the Théâtre Libre, everything is allowed: laughter, low blows, money, and vices… Amanda Lear appears as an old billionaire who promises her fortune to whoever beats her on her travels. The couple of victims: Jean-Luc and Pierrette, prepare each year to recover “the scientific cardplayer”. Their clever and mischievous daughter will do everything to help them fool the billionaire and her butler.
“Scathing” or “Diabolically brilliant”, the French press is unanimous: Amanda Lear’s return is a sensation! After two years of absence, the cultural icon still seduces…
Fruitful artistic collaborations
Having become a star of music and television, Amanda Lear began her career as a muse for Salvador Dali, whom she met thanks to the couturier Paco Rabanne. In the 60s, the Spanish painter fell under the charm of the androgynous young woman, still a student at the Beaux-Arts. He invites her into his world and Amanda Lear discovers the show business, an environment in which she is comfortable. She decides she wants to make her place there, something that did not please Salvador Dali, who ended their relationship just after this episode.
Subsequently, she attracted public attention in 1973 by posing for the cover of the album For Your Pleasure by Roxy Music, which led her to start a love affair with David Bowie allowing her to enter the world of music. The latter encouraged her by paying for her singing lessons. She also had passionate love affairs with Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones during her English period.
With a deep, mysterious, and sensual voice, Amanda Lear met immediate success as a disco singer in Europe, Scandinavia, and especially in London at the beginning of her career. Her first producers were the La Bionda brothers. Between the 70s and 80s, she had great success as a singer with the Munich record company Arjola Records by collaborating with the composer Anthony Moon.
Her first four albums were successful, entering the top 10 best sellers in France. She has released more than fifteen studio albums and more than sixty singles.
Polyglot woman rooted in different countries
Since the 80s, Amanda Lear divides her time between music, television, cinema, painting, and writing. Polyglot, she participates in various entertainment projects in France, Germany, and Italy thanks to Silvio Berlusconi, such as presenter, co-presenter, or jury member in popular shows. But since her various successes, what has become of Amanda Lear? Since 2000, she has focused her attention on the theater and regularly performs as an actress in successful plays. In total, seven plays including La Divina in 2014 or La Candidate in 2017.
Mysteries and ambiguities
A mysterious woman, Amanda Lear, her real name, Amanda Tap, keeps the secret of her origins. It is impossible to know her date of birth or her ancestry, everyone wonders how old Amanda Lear is. The only certainty, the 84-year-old actress lives in Saint-Étienne-du-Grès near Avignon. Born in the middle of the 20th century, probably in Indochina to a Franco-English father and a supposedly Russo-Asian mother, Amanda Lear grew up in the Swinging Sixties.
Rumors about Amanda Lear’s transsexuality have always appeared in the media. Accused by the singer Régine, by Dali’s biographer, or even by Franco’s niece of being a man, the singer has always amused herself with this and the proof of the opposite has never been revealed.
In the end, the character she builds fascinates, almost more than her artistic activities.
Remarkable longevity
“When we have too much freedom, everything becomes possible and in the end, we are not happy”. A free woman, Amanda has always made her own choices: sometimes an actress, sometimes a fashion icon. The pretty blonde poses for Yves Saint-Laurent or Paco Rabanne in metal dresses and makes the cover of many magazines like Newlook. Amanda Lear wears Mary Quant‘s mini-skirt even in the puritanical states of the United States and even does advertising. The icon parades for Thierry Mugler or her friend Jean-Paul Gaultier. Follow Me, one of her most famous titles, was even chosen in 2023 for the new global campaign of Coco Mademoiselle by Chanel.
Queen of disco who continues to shine today both in music and theater, Amanda Lear is a free woman of any label, resourceful, who continues to inspire entire generations. She has never stopped reinventing herself and succeeds great ladies of the theater like Jacqueline Maillan, more academic actresses. But the icon knows how to please and continues to surprise at her advanced age.
We eagerly await what’s next…
