Amanda has given out different years (1941, 1945 and even 1948) and places (Hong Kong,
Saigon) for her birth.The most likely story is that she was born Alain Tapp in 1939. He was raised bilingual in French and English, and became fluent also in Italian, Spanish and German as a teenager.
She became a long-time friend of Salvador Dalí, who may have paid for her operation with Dr Burou in 1963. Some say that her name = ‘a man’ + ‘dali’ or ‘L’amant Dali” (this latter the title of one of her books).
In 1965 after working with Ricky Renee in Berlin and at Raymond's Revue Bar in London, Peki became Amanda and studied at St Martin’s College of Art in London, and became acquainted with Marianne Faithfull and Keith Moon.
Desiring a UK passport she and April went to a pub in Notting Hill and found a Mr Lear, an Scottish architecture student, who was willing to wed Amanda for ₤50. Mr Lear was dumped right after the ceremony, but Amanda has kept his name to this day.
She became a disco star in the 70s. At this time there were rumours that she was transsexual, but she consistently denied them. She has claimed that the sex-change was merely a publicity stunt thought up by Salvador Dali. In her disco song, ‘Fabulous Lover, Love Me”, she sings: “the surgeon made me so well that you could not tell that I was not somebody else".
She is the model with the black panther on the cover of the Roxy Music album, For Your Pleasure. She dated Brian Jones, Bryan Ferry and David Bowie. She modelled nude for Playboy in 1977.
In 1979 she marr
ied Alain-Philippe Malagnac d'Argens de Villèle, the former beloved for two decades of French writer Roger Peyrefitte,
and himself the owner of Le Bronx, one of Paris’ first openly gay nightclubs. He and Amanda were together for 21 years until he died in a fire at their farmhouse near Avignon.She has released 13 albums and over 50 singles, with sales in the millions. She has written three books about her life with Salvador Dalí. She has hosted long-running television shows in Germany and Italy. She has exhibited her own paintings and gives lectures on Dalí.
In 2006 she was made a Chevalière in the l'Ordre National des Arts et des Lettres.
In 2007 she created a kerfuffle when she refused to perform or appear on stage in Milan because she would be next to a group of transsexuals. She was reported to say ‘Tenete lontani i trans’ (keep the transies far away).
In 2008-9 her Wikipedia page was revised to remove all suggestions that she is transsexual, and in 2009 she published an autobiography with the the tantalizing title of Je ne suis pas celle que vous croyez..
- Amanda Lear. Wer Hat Angst Vor Amanda Lear? Berengaria Editions Germany/France. 1979.
- Duncan Fallowell & April Ashley. April Ashley's Odyssey.
London: Jonathan Cape viii, 287 pp 16 plates 1982: 69,70,120,178-180,196, 241,268. London: Arrow 1983. Also online at www.antijen.org/Aprilv1.
- Amanda Lear. My Life with Dali.
London: Virgin Books Ltd, 1985.
- Amanda Lear. Persistence of Memory: A Personal Biography of Salvador Dali
. Bethesda, Md: National Press, 1987.
- Amanda Lear. L'amant-Dalí. Paris: M. Lafon, 1994.
- Ian Gibson. The Shameful Life of Salvador Dali. Faber and Faber. 1997: 527-536
- Romy Haag with Martin Schacht. Eine frau und mehr. Berlin: Quadriga 319 pp 1999.
- Andrew Anthony. “At the court of Queen Lear”. The Observer. 24 December 2000. www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2000/dec/24/focus.news.
- Simon Napier-Bell. “Daily post to March 2007”. www.simonnapierbell.com/correspondence_oc06_ma07.html.
- “Amanda Lear”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Lear.
- Annie Richards. “Fabulous Amanda”. Second Type Women. http://transwoman.tripod.com/gallery-amanda.htm.
- “Amanda Lear Biography”. www.netcomuk.co.uk/~lenin/AMANDA_LEAR.html.
- http://amandalear.tripod.com.
- Amanda Lear. Je ne suis pas du tout celle que vous croyez. Paris: Hors collection, 2009.
April Ashley swears that Amanda L is a post op transsexual. Its a shame that a transsexual woman like Amanda L would make transphobic comments about other transpeople. Its a bloody shame.
ReplyDeleteI believe that Amanda is transsexual but i don't understand why she would deny it there is no shame in it. She looks fabulous and is a great singer
DeleteThere was shame in it back in the 60s and 70s, so i get her reluctance
DeleteALL THE TRUE on PEKI D'OSLO before and after:
ReplyDelete"Il Caso Amanda: Alain Tap, Peki d'Oslo e Amanda Lear", by Giovanbattista Brambilla (pubblied in PRIDE, august 2008
http://www.gaynews.it/view.php?ID=78788
I lived in Berlin from the late 80's to the mid 90's.
ReplyDeleteFrom independent accounts I have heard the same story of Peki D'Oslo from former dancers, one of whom was a MTF transgender.
Some Trans women get very pompous and like to imagine themselves better than any other. and then The famous and rich font often care about the rights of 'the little people' - Faye Coon
ReplyDeletehttps://john25-iii.blogspot.com/2016/05/amanda-lear.html Seems that "Peki D'Oslo" is actually someone else, but that Amanda was Alain Tap.
ReplyDeletePeki D'oslo was definitely Amanda Lear, Ossie Clark recalls in his diaries being friends with her and seeing her strip act at the Raymond Revuebar where she appeared as Peki D'Oslo, she was one of his models so he should know.
DeleteThere's a ton of 60s British newspaper stories about Amanda Tapp (as was) being the victim of a burglary, and there it states she was working as a stripper (not a drag queen, cos by this time, she had fully transitioned and was presenting stealth) called Peki D'Oslo. So, yes, I am now fully convinced it is her.
Deleteprobably was doing both. Back then you can be stealth and still do drag shows and strip ...I know a miss continental winner in the early 90's that has done it
DeletePeki d'Oslo was a stage name, and nothing prevented its reuse by other performers. However there is no mention in Hélène Hazera's interview with Nana that she did use that name. We do have witness from April Ashley and others, who were there at Le Carousel, that Alain Tap did use the name.
ReplyDeletePerhaps she's not transgender in any way? And possibly people are being unkind and perpetuqting lies out of nastiness, and also why should any trans women ever ever regardless of current status quos, have to reveal something so very private? Why? Medical proffessionals and certain authorities are the only people to know and thats bad enough, im post op 20 years, im not who i am just to have to tell the world and his wife so as to be constantly reminded that apparrently "your not real" have no humanity alledgedly and you used to be a man and were you born a man crap never mind the threats from evry tom dick and scrubber etc etc, im fed up with all this "lets all reveal our personal trans status" since that dreadful database filler the gender recognition act, or even friends or frenemys quite deliberately outing you because they feel slighted somehow for having the humanity to correct your physical boey to match your nagural born brain gender. No idont think for a second that amanda is trans anything, i think a rumour has gone far too far regarding her. More power to her elgow i say, afterall she is just human its just not any of our business any how regardless of a myriad of opinions ewpecially from lezzy terfs.
ReplyDeletethe voice alone is a giveaway
ReplyDelete