Cynthia Ann Stephanie "Cyndi" Lauper (born June 22, 1953) is an American Grammy Award-winning singer and Emmy Award-winning film, television and theatre actress. Her melodic voice and wild costumes have come to epitomize the 1980s and New Wave — the decade and genre in which she first came to fame.

Biography

Early life and pre-fame

Arguably the biggest star of the early MTV Era, Lauper was born in Ozone Park, New York, to Fred Lauper and Catrine Dominique, a waitress.[1] Her father was of German and Swiss descent and her mother was Italian American (Sicilian, precisely).[2] She has a sister (Elen) and a brother (Frank). At the age of 12, she learned how to play the guitar and started writing her own lyrics. She soon dropped out of high school and traveled to Canada, then returned to New York at a later time.
In the mid-seventies Lauper performed as a vocalist with various cover bands (such as "Doc West" and "Flyer" who still perform under the names "Gap Wilson Band" and "Red,White and Blues") in the New York metropolitan area, singing hits by bands such as Jefferson Airplane, Led Zeppelin, and Bad Company. In 1977, due to damage to her vocal cords, Lauper took a year off and trained with a vocal coach (Katie Agresta).
After Lauper got her voice back she returned in 1978 and performed her own material with her band, Blue Angel. In 1980, they released a self-titled album on Polydor Records.In 2003,The Rolling Stone Magazine included it as one of the 100 best new wave album covers. Despite critical acclaim, the album sold poorly (or "went lead," as Lauper says), and the band split soon afterwards. Lauper filed for bankruptcy and started working in retail stores such as at the New York high-end thrift store "Screaming Mimi's" to make ends meet, but continued to sing cover songs.

1983-1987: Rise to fame

Although New York City music critics who saw her perform with Blue Angel thought Lauper had star potential----she had a wide singing range(4 octave), perfect pitch, and a vocal style all her own----she still had not achieved stardom.
Then in 1981, while singing in a local New York bar, Lauper met David Wolff, who took over as her manager and got her signed with Portrait Records, a subsidiary of Columbia Records. On October 14, 1983, She's So Unusual was released, which became a worldwide hit and made Lauper a household name. The album was a mixture of teen-friendly pop-rock, synthesized dance music, punk-edged vocals and a mainstream New Wave sound. With the help of Rick Chertoff, Eric Bazilian & Rob Hyman (of The Hooters) as her primary studio musicians, "She's So Unusual"'s popularity spread like wildfire. The album's lead single was "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", which quickly established itself as a girls' anthem, and its accompanying video proved very popular on MTV. Other hits from the album included the ballad (co-written by Hyman) "Time After Time" (also covered by Miles Davis), "She Bop", a paean to masturbation; "All Through the Night", which Jules Shear wrote, and a cover of The Brains' New Wave track, "Money Changes Everything". She's So Unusual also included "When You Were Mine," a cover of Prince's song that was later released as a promotional single in 1985. At the time, Lauper became very popular with teenagers and critics, in part due to her hybrid punk image. She spent 1984 touring and promoting She's So Unusual. By the end of the year, she was the first female to have four consecutive Billboard Hot 100 top-five hits from one album, that stayed in the Top 40 charts for more than 65 weeks and sold 15 million copies worldwide.
Lauper started 1985 by participating on USA for Africa's famine-relief fund-raising single, "We Are the World." She also won a Grammy Award in the Best New Artist category. At the Awards event, she appeared with WWF Superstar Hulk Hogan, who played her "bodyguard." In return, she made many appearances as herself in a number of WWF's "Rock and Wrestling" events, where she was supposedly the manager of Wendi Richter. Their entrance music was "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." This cross-promotion arranged by David Wolff and Vince McMahon also led to a number of appearances with professional wrestlers (most notably Captain Lou Albano, who she met on an airplane during her Blue Angel days) appearing in her early videos. Lauper also contributed to "The Wrestling Album", under the pseudonym "Mona Flambé" as guest backing vocals. She later described the period as fun, but it became an increasing distraction to her musical ambitions. She largely stopped her WWF appearances after 1985. In July, she charted with her next single, "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough", which earned her a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, for the film The Goonies, which also featured WWF Wrestlers such as The Iron Sheik, Captain Lou Albano, Roddy Piper, André the Giant, "Classy" Freddie Blassie, The Fabulous Moolah & Nikolai Volkoff in the video.Also on said video were then the unknown Bangles.
Lauper released her second album True Colors on September 15, 1986. It reached number four on the Billboard 200. For this album, she increased her involvement both in production and songwriting. Guests on the album included Nile Rodgers, Aimee Mann, Billy Joel,The Bangles and Rick Derringer. Although the album was not as commercially successful as its predecessor, it contained three high-charting singles, including the title track (which become her second platinum number-one hit), "Change of Heart" (#3) and a cover of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" (#12). True Colors also featured the track "Maybe He'll Know", which was originally from the Blue Angel album. The 4th single from the album Boy Blue became cyndi's first non top 40 song.The proceeds of said song was donated to the AIDS-research.She also sang the theme song for the series "Pee-wee's Playhouse" the same year, though she was credited as "Ellen Shaw." Playhouse star Paul Reubens appeared on the True Colors album track, "911" as an emergency operator. The album sold nearly 12 million copies.

1988-1995: Career lows, personal highs

At the beginning of 1988, Lauper traveled to the former Soviet Union as part of a project to collaborate with Russian songwriters. Her trip resulted in the song "Cold Sky",a duet with Russian superstar Igor Nikolaev which appeared on the album Music Speaks Louder Than Words. She also made her film debut in the 1988 quirky comedy Vibes, alongside Jeff Goldblum and Peter Falk, as a psychic in search of a city of gold in South America. The film was poorly received by critics and commercially flopped. She contributed a track, "Hole in My Heart (All the Way to China)". At the same time she co-wrote the song Paper Heart(a song about drug addiction) with Go-go's alumna Jane Weidlin which appeared on her CD Tangled.
A Night to Remember, her third album, was released on May 23, 1989. Though critically well-received, it was not as big a commercial success as her previous albums. The album spawned only one big hit, "I Drove All Night", originally penned for Roy Orbison, although his version was not released until 1992, three years after Lauper's version and four years after his death. She also wrote and produced most of the album. The same year, Quebecer pop star Mitsou covered "Heading West" (co-written by Lauper) on her EP single of the same title. Unconditional Love was covered by ex-Bangles vocalist Susanna Hoffs. While My First Night Without You was covered by Tommy Page. In 2006, I Don't Want To Be A Friend was covered by Philippine pop singer Nina.
The following year, Lauper joined many other guests for Roger Waters' massive performance of The Wall in Berlin, performing "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II". Also taking part in The Peace Choir that performed a version of John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" later that same year. She starred in the action-thriller Off and Running with David Keith, Richard Belzer and David Thornton, who eventually became her husband.
In 1992, Lauper contributed two tracks to the European film "Tycoon". She scored another Top 20 hit in Europe (it went to #2 in France, earning a 2x platinum certification there) with "The World Is Stone", penned by Tim Rice, Michel Berger, and Luc Plamandon.It was quoted that Tim Rice and Luc Plamandon would only work on the said song if Cyndi would record it. Neither the film nor the songs were released in the U.S., though the two tracks did see the light of day stateside with the quiet release of a compilation in 2000. Later in 1992, Lauper and Frank Sinatra had their version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" on the Very Special Christmas II album.
Lauper continued to act, playing Michael J. Fox's ditzy secretary in 1993's Life with Mikey, which also starred Nathan Lane. In June of that year, around the same time her movie came out, she released her critically acclaimed fourth album Hat Full of Stars. With a smooth new R&B sound, world music instrumentation, and production by Junior Vasquez, she tackled such topics as spousal abuse, racism and abortion. Despite the critical significant accolades, however, sales were poor (just 4 million copies worldwide), largely because the album suffered from a severe lack of promotion. She recorded Boys will be Boys with The Hooters. Another duet Private Emotion was dedicated by The Hooters to her at the time. Both songs appeared on the group's CD Out of Body
Twelve Deadly Cyns...and Then Some, released worldwide in 1994 (except in the U.S., where it was held back until summer 1995), was a greatest hits compilation that included two re-recorded tracks, "I'm Gonna be Strong", first recorded with her band Blue Angel, and a reworking of her first big hit, newly christened "Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)". The album was released under a number of different titles, packaging and track listings around the world. Twelve Deadly Cyns sold over 6 million copies worldwide and she began a world tour to promote the album. Twelve Deadly Cyns was especially popular in the UK, reaching number two on the music charts, while the new "(Hey Now) Girls Just Want to Have Fun" hit number four. The song includes special appearances by Snow and Patra. Lauper also won a Emmy Award for her role as Marianne on the sitcom Mad About You.

1996-2004: Sisters of Avalon, Shine and At Last

Her fifth album, Sisters of Avalon (released in Japan in 1996 and everywhere else in 1997) brought her moderate success, but only sold 1 million copies worldwide. The album was quickly embraced by the gay community for its dance and club stylings. The topical themes of the album also contributed to its "pink" appeal. "Ballad of Cleo and Joe" addressed the complications of a drag queen's double life, "Brimstone and Fire" painted a portrait of a lesbian relationship, and "You Don't Know" showed Lauper flexing more political muscle than on her previous albums. Lauper began performing as a featured artist at gay pride events around the world. She also served as the opening act for Tina Turner's summer tour. Lauper and Thornton also welcomed their son, Declyn Wallace Thornton on November 19, 1997.The songSearchin was used in one of Baywatch's episodes.While Unhook The Stars were made into a movie with the same title starring Marisa Tomei,Gerard Depardieu and Gena Rowlands.
Lauper churned out her last album for Epic in late 1998. "Merry Christmas, Have A Nice Life," as the title implies, was a Christmas collection of original material and standards.
In 1999, she co-headlined a tour alongside Cher's Do You Believe? Tour, and contributed a cover version of The Trammps's classic "Disco Inferno" to the soundtrack of the film A Night at the Roxbury, the remixed version became a club hit and received a Grammy nomination for Best Dance Recording. She also garnered critical plaudits for her roles in several independent films including The Opportunists (with Christopher Walken).She was also nominated in the best supporting actress category for the said role.
Lauper prepared her seventh album in 2001, Shine, which saw her returning to her early pop/rock sound. Just weeks before the album's scheduled release on September 11, 2001, her label, Edel America Records, folded, and the tracks were leaked to the public. Although a five song EP of the same name was made available through her website and at Tower Records, the full-length album concept was scrapped. She then undertook another tour with Cher on her Living Proof: The Farewell Tour in 2002. Additionally Lauper's former label Sony issued a new best-of CD entitled The Essential Cyndi Lauper. She then re-signed with Sony/Epic Records and a cover album called Naked City was in the works.
In November 2003, an album of covers was released entitled At Last (formerly Naked City), which became a Top-40 hit in the U.S. and Australia. In March 2004, the full length Shine album was finally released, though exclusively in Japan. She was nominated for a 2005 Grammy Award for "Best Instrumental Composition Accompanying a Vocal" for her interpretation of the song "Unchained Melody". At Last became Cyndi's best selling album since "Twelve Deadly Cyns", with 4.5 million copies.The album was also voted as the best cd of covered songs beating those of Rod Stewart,K.d. Lang and Tony Bennet.The success of the cd prompted sony-bmg to released the dvd "At Last Live" which became gold in less than a year.

2005–Present: The Body Acoustic & current projects

Under new contract with Sony Music, Lauper released The Body Acoustic, an album that featured acoustic reinterpretations of tracks from her back catalog. Two new tracks were also written and recorded, one of which "Above the Clouds". Guests on the album included Shaggy, Ani DiFranco, Adam Lazzara of Taking Back Sunday , Jeff Beck, Puffy AmiYumi, Sarah McLachlan,and Vivian Green.
Though she hasn’t released an album of new material since 1997’s Sisters of Avalon, Lauper has remained busy over the years. Appearing on Showtime’s hit show, Queer As Folk in 2005, making her Broadway debut in The Threepenny Opera in 2006(where she won as best actress in a broadway by internet poll), and directing a commercial for Totally 80's edition of the board game Trivial Pursuit. On October 16, 2006, she was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.[3] In 2007, she sang "Beecharmer" with Nellie McKay on Nellie's "Pretty Little Head" album.And Letter's To Michael with Dionne Warwick.
In June 2007, Lauper headlined the True Colors Tour 2007 for Human Rights through the United States and Canada which also included Deborah Harry, Erasure, The Dresden Dolls, and Gossip, with Margaret Cho as MC and special guests in different cities. The tour, sponsored by Logo, the MTV Networks channel targeting gay audiences, provided information to fans who attend, as well as purple wristbands with the slogan "Erase Hate" from The Matthew Shepard Foundation.[4] A dollar from every ticket sold was earmarked for the Human Rights Campaign, which advocates equal rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people.[5].This October the Matthew Sheppard Bill was passed into a law by the US Congress largely due to the great success of the True Colors Tour.
2007 also marked her return to television, as she recorded an original single for the first two-part episode of The Backyardigans, "Super Secret Super Spy": "The Lady In Pink".
She plans to record an album of all-new original material, entitled "Savoir Faire," that she says will be released some time in the summer of 2008. She has described it as a mainly dance album with good rhythm. She has performed some of the songs at her concerts. Some of the titles are "Still with Me" , "The Other Side Of Here".
"Set Your Heart" and "Grab A Hold" are two new songs which she performed live in Singapore in August 2007 [1], where she referred to live performances as the "best Petri dish of the live experience" for musicians [2].
Cyndi will preview her new single "High and Mighty" this September at an event to be held on the Spanish island of Ibiza.