**Elaine Paige** OBE (born **Elaine Jill Bickerstaff**, 5 March 1948) is an English actress and singer. She was born and raised in Barnet, Hertfordshire, in 1948. She is known for her roles in musical theater.

Life
----

She worked in the theatre from a young age. She quickly became famous in the role of Eva Perón in the musical *Evita* in 1978. She studied acting at the Aida Foster stage school in London and then played roles in the British tour of the show *The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd* and the first London production of *Hair*. She played Sandy in the London production of *Grease* and appeared as one of Michael Crawford's girlfriends in *Billy*. She has since said she was about to leave the world of acting, possibly to become a teacher, but then the role in *Evita* was offered to her.

After *Evita*, she did not have any work for a period. She thought that her musical career had seen its best. When the actress Judi Dench had an injury during rehearsals for *Cats*, the producers asked Paige play the role in stead of Dench. They stated that the role "was not another *Evita*" and that her role only had one and a half songs. Fortunately, the song was "Memory", which was a top 10 hit for Paige and has become her signature song.

After *Cats*, she appeared in *Abbacadbra*, an ABBA compilation, and *Chess*, also written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA but with lyrics by Tim Rice, co-writer of *Evita*. Paige then scored a number 1 single, "I Know Him So Well", a song from *Chess*, as a duet with Barbara Dickson.

In 1989, she co-produced and starred in a production of Cole Porter's *Anything Goes* in London, which made a star of John Barrowman. In the early 1990s, her term relationship with the lyricist Tim Rice stopped and Paige tried an image change by recording an album with a California-based producer in the Bette Midler torch singer vein entitled *Love Can Do That*. Her solo albums had so far been a variety of songs, including the very successful *Stages* in 1983, with songs from musical theatre. In 1993, she returned to the United States to work with Peter Matz on an album called *Romance and the Stage* featuring songs from earlier days of musical theatre. The following year, she recorded, *Piaf*, which had music from the role she was playing in the Pam Gems play, also called *Piaf*. Critics were impressed by her acting skills in that play. 

However, in 1995 she had a role in another musical, playing Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber's *Sunset Boulevard*. She had always wanted to perform on Broadway and *Sunset Boulevard* now made this possible. For more than a year she played the role. She later had another role in 2000 with the *King and I*. She has recently moved more into television and radio work.

Paige was awarded an OBE in 1995. Now she is hosting a Sunday afternoon BBC Radio 2 show which plays music from the stage and film.

Other websites
--------------

* Official website Archived 2021-01-27 at the Wayback Machine
* Elaine Paige on IMDb

| Authority control Edit this at Wikidata |
| --- |
| International | 
* FAST
* ISNI
* VIAF
* WorldCat Identities

 |
| National | 
* Norway
* France
* BnF data
* Germany
* Israel
* United States
* Latvia
* Czech Republic
* Korea
* Netherlands

 |
| Artists | 
* Grammy Awards
* MusicBrainz artist

 |
| Other | 
* IdRef

 |