Hazel O'Connor
| Hazel O'Connor | |
|---|---|
Hazel O'Connor in 2010 at the Ropetackle Centre, Shoreham
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| Background information | |
| Born |
16 May 1955 Coventry, England |
| Genres | New wave, alternative, folk, new-age |
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter, actress |
| Website | www |
Hazel O'Connor (born 16 May 1955) is a British singer-songwriter and actress. She became famous in the early 1980s with hit singles "Eighth Day", "D-Days" and "Will You", as well as starring in the film Breaking Glass.
O'Connor was born in Coventry, England. She is the daughter of a soldier from Galway who settled in England after the Second World War to work in a car plant.
Her film debut was in Girls Come First in 1975. She became prominent as an actress and singer five years later in 1980 when playing the role of Kate in the film Breaking Glass, and performing its accompanying soundtrack.
I ran away from my home in Coventry when I was 16.....made and sold clothes in Amsterdam, picked grapes in France, joined a dance troupe that went to Tokyo then onto Beirut (escaping the start of the civil war by one month!) traveled West Africa, crossed the Sahara, sang with a dreadful singing trio for the U.S. troops in Germany and came home to "settle down". Through all this experience of life and the world I realized that singing always cheered me up. I decided to be a singer. Through strange turns of fate I ended up in a film called 'Breaking Glass' I also ended up writing all the songs for the movie.
Her performance as Kate won her the Variety Club of Great Britain Award for 'Best Film Actor' and BAFTA nominations for 'Best Newcomer' and 'Best Film Score.' The film's soundtrack album featured songs written and performed by O'Connor and reached number 5 in the UK Albums Chart. It had a 38-week chart run and was certified Gold by the British Phonographic Industry. Several tracks from the album were released as singles, the most successful being "Eighth Day" and "Will You" which both reached the UK Top 10. When O'Connor toured the UK to promote the album, she selected as her opening act a then-unknown group called Duran Duran. It was the band's first opportunity to play to large audiences throughout the UK and gave them the exposure they needed to secure a recording contract.
Subsequent albums released by O'Connor included Sons and Lovers (which featured the UK Top 10 hit single "D Days"), Cover Plus, Smile, Private Wars and Five in the Morning. O'Connor also collaborated with other artists, and made appearances in the video for Mick Karn's "The Sound Of Waves" and a cameo appearance in the 1983 Eurythmics video, "Who's That Girl?".
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