Stephanie Lawrence

Stephanie Lawrence (16 December 1949 – 4 November 2000) was a British musical theatre actress.

Stephanie Lawrence was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, England in 1949. She was the daughter of a welsh singer which is where she credited her voice, and a classically trained dancer. She moved to Hayling Island at the age of four. From an early age she was close friends with another famous Islander, Peter Chilvers, who in 1958 invented the windsurfer.

Having trained at the Arts Educational School, Tring, Hertfordshire (now Tring Park School for the Performing Arts), she made her debut in The Nutcracker at the Royal Festival Hall in London in 1962. She became a member of the corps de ballet at the Royal Festival Ballet at the age of 12 with the intention of becoming a ballerina, however, her plans were disrupted when she was forced to miss a year after contracting pneumonia aged 15.

Her West End debut came at the age of 16, playing the part of a rollerskating tap dancer in Forget Me Not Lane. Her first musical appearance in the West End was in Bubbling Brown Sugar.

In 1980, Lawrence was cast as the alternate to Marti Webb as Eva Peron in the musical Evita, written by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Webb had previously played the role while Paige was on holiday and was persuaded by director Hal Prince to remain with the production to perform twice weekly, in anticipation of succeeding from Paige at the end of her contract. This established a precedent which would continue for the remainder of the show's London run. Lawrence subsequently graduated from alternate to main performer in 1981.

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