ÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ» º SAMANTHA FOX - THE LIFE STORY º ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ At 16, she was the darling of the shop floor. Pictures of the teenager with the fantastic figure, torn from the tabloid press, adorned the walls of almost every factory in the country. Today, just four years later, that same girl has fulfilled a fantasy most of us only dream of. Not only is she the country's top model, but also a chart-busting rock singer, a television personality and an actress. She has her own designer label, a restaurant, and a race horse, and she's still the girl everybody wants to see. She is simply a sensation. She's Samantha Fox . . . SAM - THE STORY SO FAR . . . Samantha Fox was born on the 15th April, 1966, in the East End of London. Small and rather delicate as a child, Pat and Carole, her parents, never imagined that she might one day follow her mother footsteps into the modelling world. They couldn't have dreamed that she would employ them both to help run the business of keeping Sam Fox on the road. As a youngster, she was no great beauty. In fact from the age of five, the young Samantha had to wear a caliper on her leg to help cure a bad hip. She wore it for three years, by which time, the Fox family had moved to Crouch End in North London, where their home remains to this day . . . Sam's first ambition was to get her own wheels. Not the sprauncy sports car that she now finds herself riding around in, but a humble push bike. She had to wait until she was 13 before her parents could afford to buy her one, and trusted her on the busy Islington streets. Mum and Dad were protective towards Samantha from the start, and even now Mum chaperones her on many of her tours, and Dad is strict about how she handles her career. `They're the best Mum and Dad in the world,' Sam says . . . `Nobody's got parents as kind as mine, and if that sounds naff, then hard luck.' All the same, when that bike finally arrived, young Sammy cried her eyes out . . . SAM, THE NAUGHTY SCHOOLGIRL Samantha describes her days at St. Thomas More School as great, though she admits to being nothing special academically (`I was no thickie either,' she adds). It was the first chance that Sam's bubbly personality had to shine through, and she made the most of it. she became the class clown, cheekily putting drawing pins on the teacher's seat, and sticking notices like `I'm a prat.' on the backs of the other schoolgirls' blazers. Hard though it is to imagine, Sam was considered to be something of a tomboy, and surprised all the teaching staff by insisting on studying motor engineering at CSE, despite being the only girl in the class. But that didn't bother her. in fact, she revelled in the attention. At 16, she left school with `O' levels in English, art and music, an `A' level in art, and that CSE in motor engineering . . . YOUNG FOX AT PLAY As a teenager, another factor entered her life - boys. Her first crush was on Richard Chamberlain as Dr. Kildare. `I thought he looked so dishy in that outfit,' she says, and admits that she still has a secret hankering to meet him. With that interest came her first concern about her appearance. She decided to dye her hair. Unfortunately the only thing at hand was food colouring, and so she set to work with that. `I thought it looked really great,' she laughs. `But nobody else seemed to agree. Sam also meet with some resistance when, at the age of 15, she told her careers officer that she wanted to be a Page Three girl. The lady had never even heard of The Sun's most famous feature, and instead palmed her off with a leaflet on fashion modelling. It was useless. For a start it insisted that all models had to be 5 foot 7 at least, not much help when you're only 5 foot 1. Sam's next idea wasn't much better. She decided that she would become a policewoman, but again her ambitions were too high. WPC Fox was not the uniform height. Graphic design was more realistic. With her art qualifications, she had some hope of achieving a living. But this was not enough for ambitious Sam. She wanted to be famous, and wasn't going to spend another three years at college trying to achieve it. She was going to be a model - and the best . . . TOPLESS TO THE TOP Many teenagers dream of a career in front of the cameras, but few have as many advantages as Samantha did. At 16, she was blessed with a stunning 34D-22-31 figure (later to fill out to 36D!), and parents who not only approved, but encouraged her to enter the cut and thrust of professional modelling. However, it was not her famous assets that first launched her career. Her mother entered her for the `Face Shape of 83' contest in the Sunday People. She didn't win, but she was second, and enough photographers noticed another shape that would be a winner. Within a few months she was appearing topless on Page Three. The public loved her, and soon after was making more topless appearances than any other model. At 17, she won the coveted title of Page Three Girl of the Year for the first time, and became the darling of millions of readers of The Sun, Star and Daily Mirror. In case of accident, Sam even had her boobs insured for œ250,000. Her ambitions had been achieved but that wasn't enough any more. There were a lot more people who were going to hear about Samantha Fox . . . FOX ON THE BOX By the time Sammy won the Page Three Girl of the Year contest a second time, sceptical media men were beginning to realize that she was not going to be a flash in the pan. Television started to take an interest in the curvy cockney. She was invited to appear on chat shows, often with her Page Three colleagues, and always with great success. Her chirpy personality shone through, and TV producers began to see that she was more than just a pretty chest. True, in her early TV days, she was hired mainly for her buxom beauty (feeding Jim Davidson with one-liners, for example, or demonstrating a glowing bra from the 1950's on Noel Edmonds' Time of your Life), but at least she was being given dialogue - more than most Page Three girls or Benny Hill's angels ever seem to attain. Soon after, she was appearing in chat shows in her own right. Des O'Conner and Terry Wogan both helped Sam show that she had the makings of a television personality. It wouldn't be long before someone offered Sam that chance to show just how good she could be on the small screen . . . That opportunity came in 1985, when the 19-year-old was signed up for a reputed œ30,000 as a reporter, presenter and interviewer on London Weekend Television's Six O'Clock Show. A light hearted look at the weeks's news, it was an excellent vehicle for Sam's cheeky manner. She conducted interviews in the street with men about `visible pantie line', talked to guests from the world of show biz, and lent an individual style to reporting some of the sillier events in London. At first her lack of TV experience showed, but a public keen to see new talent and a lively approach lapped her up. All-too- soon her six month contract was up . . . It would have been easy for Sam to carry on in a similar vein, but again she saw a much larger market for her talents. By now, practically the whole country had heard of Samantha Fox. She advertised The Sun on television, turned up in comedy programmes, appeared at charity functions, and became as much a part of comic folklore as the mother-in-law. No event seemed complete without inviting Sam Fox to be there. And she was still the biggest thing on Page Three. It was rumoured that she earned more than the Prime Minister, and she was certainly more popular. She was the British sex symbol of the Eighties, the Marilyn Monroe of her day. Who could ask for more? Sam could . . . SAM'S A SINGER Many Page Three girls have decided to release records. They have, on the whole been abysmal offerings intended for the novelty market, selling in small numbers on their name alone. When Samantha came to release her first single, both she and the record company, Jive, were determined it wouldn't be like that. For a start Sam wasn't picked because of her modelling fame. She was auditioned along with hundreds of other hopefuls by producer Jon Astrop. He chose her, he says, because she was the most natural performer, honest, outgoing and above all enthusiastic. He also reckoned that she had the idea voice for the pop market. Nobody could have been more pleased than Sam. This was the new avenue that she had been looking for. A song was chosen. Touch Me was co-written and produced by Astrop. It took two ten-hour days to record, which Sam somehow fitted into her already crowded schedule. Astrop praised Sam's hard work saying that she never gave less than 150 per cent, and adding that she was surprising confident for a first timer. Everyone was very happy, but how would the single fare in the hard world of rock? . . . It was a smash! Touch Me roared to the Number Three slot in Britain, and reached Number One in nine other countries. Her second single Do Ya, Do Ya, followed it in the top ten, and the album Touch Me went silver within a fortnight of being released. Naturally, the music press were a little narked at this invasion by a `mere model' and many complained that the songs only sold through her Page Three notoriety. But this was not true. Sam's records were even bigger in Europe where nobody had heard of Page Three, than they were here. What had won over the record buying public was the combination of good production, great singing, Sam's personality and her performance on video. Much as the serious music press might not like to admit it, Sam has everything a pop star needs. Her third single, Hold on Tight, followed immediately and again rushed into the charts. Its sound was reminiscent of the Chapman and Chinn creations for stars like Suzi Quatro in the seventies, and was perfect disco music. However, it was time for the anti-Sam brigade to show their claws. The stern bosses of BBC Radio One banned the song from their playlists, pompously claiming that it was of `poor standard' and that they `had a duty not to inflict it on their millions of listeners.' The millions of listeners however felt differently. It was another Top Twenty hit, (amazingly without Radio One play) and firmly established Sam as one of our top female singers . . . THE SUN'S OUT, SAYS SAM Such was the success of her singing and TV career that Sam was quoted as saying that she was given up topless modelling this year. This rash statement prompted a Christmas style postal rush as thousands of letters, some addressed simply `Sam Fox, England' poured into newspaper offices and Samantha's north London home. They were all pleas for her to continue, many in the sort of language lovers use when they are about to be given the elbow. She responded at once, and appeared centre page of The Sun baring her boobs again. `Don't worry, you'll see me on Page Three again,' she said. `Whether I become a nun or a serious actress that's what I'll be remembered for. I'll only give up if my body is no longer good enough.' By the way of thanks, the readers of The Sun voted her Page Three Girl of the Year for the third time this year. However, it is nonetheless true that Samantha is cutting down on her Page Three work, and more of her modelling is clothed. Recently, for example, she appeared in practically every high street in the country on giant posters advertising Mecca Social Clubs, wearing a sequined but neck-high evening dress. And she is also a part of the Daily Mail advertising campaign where she is seen on billboards demurely clad, and mockingly claiming that she is now after a paper with `better coverage' . . . SAMMY'S SIDELINES As if being a top rock star, TV personality and a model wasn't enough to fill her time, Sam has a few other interests to keep her busy. Last year she launched her own designer label producing clothes with a foxy feel. It features everything from elegant evening gowns to a skin-tight plastic catsuit. In fact, Sam has become quite a fashion leader through her TV appearances and pop videos. She introduced the idea of tight, torn jeans at the launch of Touch Me, and her leather outfits have also been much in demand. She's also going to have to start watching the horse racing on television with great interest. She recently bought her own race horse, also called Touch Me. It's a filly that she picked on a trip to Ireland, and she hopes to race her next season. And should she get hungry, Samantha can also pop into her own restaurant, Sam's, in the heart of London . . . FOX HUNTERS - SAM'S FANATICAL FOLLOWERS But Samantha would be the first to admit that she could never do it without you, the fans. Sam appeals to practically every age and social group from the humble Sun reader to the rock fan and media junkie. Few girls have that broad an appeal. How many posters of Madonna will you find in Britain's factories, eh? And what a devoted lot you are! When The Sun recently held a competition to find Britain's biggest Sam Fox fan, they were amazed at the response. Men from all over the country pin her to their walls, with or without their wives or girlfriends' permission. The bedroom seems to be the most popular place of worship . . . A FOXY FUTURE? Where does Samantha go from here? She has very firm views. Her ambition, from childhood, has been to be famous, and that still holds good. She recently told the Daily Mirror she wants to top the charts, `to be in the big league if it means competing with Madonna and Springsteen. I would love a Number One in Britain.' But some have warnings for her. Radio One D.J. Steve Wright said in his column that she would be wrong to think of singing full-time. He called her a beautiful girl and a natural TV performer, but his advice was to stay in modelling for another year and develop her TV skills. Singing, he reckoned, should remain a lucrative hobby. However Steve was commenting before Sam made her first promotional trip to America - a trip which has been another great success for the fabulous Fox. It co-incided with the release to Touch Me in the States, which leapt into the US charts immediately. Whilst she was there, Sam was invited onto no less than seven radio talk shows in two days, she hosted her own show on MTV, and was deluged with enquires about her singing career from interested members of the public... One MTV executive producer praised her down-to- earth attitude and giggly charm, and Jonathon King said that the reaction to her rivalled Beatlemania. However, the Yanks are going to miss out on one aspect of Samantha's talent. She will not be doing any topless modelling there. Her record company say that could damage her popularity in the Bible belt. However, cheeky cockney's like Sam have always done well in the US (think of Twiggy, not to mention all the repeats of Upstairs, Downstairs), so this could be a whole new ballgame for Britain's bombshell . . . THE FOX IN HER LAIR Despite fame and constant claims that she is now a millionairess, Sam is still very much a homely girl. She still lives with her parents, her 17-year-old sister Vanessa and the two dogs Bianca and Lucy in the family's Victorian semi-detached in Islington. Her parents are now a part of her business. Mum occasionally accompanies her on jobs, and her father works as her manager, helping to answer the thousands of fan letters that arrive daily. These days, Sam travels more and more but wherever she goes in the world, she always says she's glad to get back to her Mum's cooking. Her favourite meal is something plain and simple like steak and kidney pudding. Her hobbies are simple too; swimming, watching football and resting when she gets the opportunity. She does have a taste for the night life, however. She can often be spotted at Stringfellows, dancing with other celebrities. She also enjoys eating out with her friends (old school mate rather than other models who, she complains, only tend to talk about work). One of her current fads is for Malaysian restaurant which she is keeping to herself. When she's not at home, Sam eats out a lot, she doesn't enjoy cooking, she finds it boring . . . Sam likes to keep her private life quiet, but the press soon latched onto her fondness for millionaire Peter Foster. Sam and Peter recently went away together on what the papers dubbed `a secret African love safari'. It was no secret for long, however. Despite travelling 5,000 miles to Kenya, then taking a private plane to a jungle hideaway, photographers still found them. Sam told them that the main reason for the holiday was to relax after the pressure of work commitments. Whether she was able to relax with all the press attention, we may never know, but one thing is for certainly did jolt her. On her return she was involved in a four-car pile-up when the brakes failed on her father's car. She was shaken but unhurt. Of course, Sam may well have known that it would happen all along. She is a keen follower of astrology, and says that she never leaves the house without first reading her stars. Her sign is Aries, which makes her an honest, plain-speaker who can get away with murder, and also very passionate! But it doesn't take an astrologer to see that Samantha Fox is going to be around for some time. A happy combination of good looks, talent and careful management will assure Sam of a long career with fans all over the world. At only 23, Sam still has big things in front of her . . . Samantha Fox - The Life Story Compiled and edited by: Raistlin Majere, Archmage of the Black Robes (Samantha Fox's greatest fan! and therefore this is dedicated as a tribute to her). "The best is yet to come..." (C) 18/09/1990 Warlock Enterprises Ltd.