Amanda Lear

Amanda Lear is a French singer, lyricist, composer, painter, television presenter, actress, and novelist. The facts about her biography are disputed, including her date of birth (cited as 18 November 1939, but also 1941, 1946, 1948, and 1950) and her place of birth (Hong Kong, Saigon, or Hanoi), the gender assigned to her at birth, the names and nationalities of her parents (an Anglo-French father and a Russo-Asian mother), and where she spent her childhood.

She grew up in the south of France and moved to Paris to pursue a career in painting. She became a top model, a key figure of Swinging London in the mid-1960s, and one of Salvador Dalí’s muses, who is said to have created her stage name and public persona (“L’Amant de Dalí”).
Meeting Dalí changed her life. Over the next 15 years, she became the great artist’s only female friend, muse, and confidante, as well as that of his wife Gala. Although he stated that a woman should never paint, Dalí became her mentor, letting her work alongside him and teaching her everything she knows about art and its techniques.

After a brief affair, David Bowie advised her to try her luck as a singer and encouraged her by paying for singing and dance lessons. From the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, she was a disco queen who sold millions of albums, mainly in continental Europe and Scandinavia. To launch her singing career and intrigue her audience, Lear herself capitalized on a rumor about the gender assigned to her at birth—a subject that obsessed Salvador Dalí. Lear often denied allegations about a transgender identity while referencing them in songs such as Fabulous (Lover, Love Me), If I Was A Boy, or I'm A Mistery.

A pop icon, Amanda Lear has recorded 15 studio albums and released around 60 singles to date. In 2012, a new album was released: "I Don't Like Disco". Since the early 1980s, she has hosted television shows in Italy, France, and Germany and has worked as a stage actress. She has never neglected the passion of her life—painting—and held her first exhibition in 1980 in Rotterdam.