Amanda Lear (née Tap or Tapp;[1][2] born 18 June or 18 November 1939 or 1941[8] or 1946[9][10] or 1950[11] in Saigon[12] or Hong Kong[8] or Hanoi[13][14]) is a French singer, songwriter, painter, television presenter, actress and former model.

Her bigger hits included "Blood and Honey", "Tomorrow", "Queen of Chinatown", "Follow Me", "Enigma (Give a Bit of Mmh to Me)", "The Sphinx", and "Fashion Pack".

Although television took priority over musical activity,[16] she continued to record, experimenting with different genres and trying to revive her career by re-recording and remixing earlier hits to various levels of success.

[50][51] However, French,[52] British and Italian[53][54] newspapers and magazines in the 1960s and 1970s and more recently in 2008[55] and 2011[56] and a 2016 article in La Stampa included passport details and an alleged reproduction of a copy of Lear's birth certificate, which states that she was given the name Alain Maurice Louis René Tap on 18 June 1939 in Saigon.

She also took part in his art projects, posing for a number of Dalí's drawings and paintings, including Angélus de Millet - Amanda (1968),[59] Roger Freeing Angelica (St. George and the Damsel) (1970),[60] Bateau Anthotropic (1971),[61][62] and Exploding Head (1982).

Soon after her debut Lear was photographed by Helmut Newton, Charles Paul Wilp and Antoine Giacomoni for magazines such as Beau (1966), mr. (1966),[71] Le Nouveau Candide,[72] Cinémonde (1967),[73] Scandal, Marie France, Nova,[74] The Daily Telegraph, Stern,[7] Bravo and Vogue.

She modelled for fashion designers including Yves Saint Laurent and Coco Chanel in Paris and Mary Quant, Ossie Clark and Antony Price in London.

"[12] In New York, Lear became a fixture at Max's Kansas City, partying every night with Andy Warhol and friends, to the point of neglecting some of her modelling duties, saying : "Do you even think I could have been ready and spotless by 8 A.M. as they wanted me to be ?".

[87] After the release of For Your Pleasure, Lear appeared on stage at Camden Palace during Roxy Music concerts; "Freddie Mercury and Elton John thought I was great", she said.

[91] In 1974, disillusioned by a shallow and conservative fashion industry and encouraged by her boyfriend Bowie,[92] who paid for singing and dancing lessons, Lear decided to launch a career in music.

Bowie recommended a Hungarian voice coach Florence Wiese-Norberg, with whom he also worked,[93] and the pair subsequently recorded a demo track called "Star", which remains unreleased to date.

[94] Lear's debut single, "Trouble", a pop-rock cover of Elvis Presley's 1958 classic, was released unsuccessfully by minor label Creole Records in the United Kingdom.

A French-language version of the track, "La Bagarre", was released on Polydor in France and while equally unsuccessful there, it became a minor disco hit in West Germany in early 1976.

The track caught the attention of the singer, composer and producer Anthony Monn and label Ariola, which offered her a seven-year, six-album recording contract for a sum of money that Lear since has described as "astronomic".

I Am a Photograph's mixture of lush disco, schlager, kitsch and camp, topped with Lear's deep half-spoken, half-sung vocals and her characteristic Franglais accent was a successful combination.

The first single from Sweet Revenge, "Follow Me", powered by Lear's characteristic deep and recitative voice and the theme of the devil, was an instant smash hit.

Lear took part in three Italian productions in 1978: a war-time parody Zio Adolfo in arte Führer, a softporn documentary Follie di notte directed by Joe D'Amato, and a six-episode controversial TV show Stryx.

The album featured a variety of genre exercises like the dance version of a war-time classic "Lili Marleen", the interpersonal ballad "The Sphinx", the cabaret-esque "Miroir", futuristic tracks "Black Holes" and "Intellectually", as well as the hit disco single "Fashion Pack (Studio 54)".

Two non-album singles followed the Diamonds for Breakfast album in late 1980: a pop cover of Eric "Monty" Morris's early ska hit "Solomon Gundie" and the chanson-esque "Le Chat de gouttière", the latter with both music and lyrics written by Lear and recorded for francophone markets.

At the artistic and commercial peak of her international career, but with the so-called "anti-disco backlash" beginning to take its toll, she had tentatively started recording tracks for a forthcoming album with producer Trevor Horn in London.

Tam-Tam, a collaboration with Italian composers and producers, was a modern and minimalist early 1980s synthpop album with a soundscape dominated by Roland TR-808 drum machines and sequencer-programmed synthesizers.

Although she performed some of the songs from the album on the popular Italian TV show Premiatissima, she did not promote Tam-Tam in West Germany or any other parts of Europe and neither did the record company.

Lear launched a very successful and lucrative career as a TV presenter in Italy, thanks to the future prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, soon becoming a household name in that country.

She hosted many successful TV shows there, including Premiatissima and W le donne (the latter adapted in France as Cherchez la femme), where she frequently promoted her music.

The same year, Amanda re-recorded some of the songs in French and cut the dance single "Métamorphose" for the French-Italian re-release of the album Tant qu'il y aura des hommes.

Her next acting and television ventures were the French movie Bimboland, in which she starred alongside Gérard Depardieu, and an Italian makeover TV show Il brutto anatroccolo.

She cut the title song for her Italian TV show Cocktail d'amore in which she interviewed some of Italy's most famous 1980s music stars, and released the single "Beats of Love" with the Belgian boy band Get Ready!

Next year, Lear dubbed the voice of Edna Mode in the French and Italian versions of the Disney/Pixar's blockbuster The Incredibles, and her 1978 song "Enigma" enjoyed success in Central and Eastern Europe after exposure in the Kinder Bueno TV advert.

The following month, Lear released the autobiography Je ne suis pas celle que vous croyez... (I am not who you think...) and the EP Brand New Love Affair.

At the time of an interview in the Italian program Domenica in on 16 October 2016, Lear had planned a retirement immediately after completing the La Candidate tour in Spring 2017,[134][135] however, she had to cancel a number of final dates due to health issues.