(Vibes is a 1988 American romantic adventure comedy film d...)
Vibes is a 1988 American romantic adventure comedy film directed by Ken Kwapis and starring Cyndi Lauper, Jeff Goldblum, Julian Sands, and Peter Falk. The plot concerns Sylvia, a ditzy psychic, and Nick, her equally odd psychic friend, and their trip into the Ecuadorian Andes to find the "source of psychic energy."
(With her iconic four-octave voice, Cyndi celebrates the 3...)
With her iconic four-octave voice, Cyndi celebrates the 30th Anniversary of the Grammy-winning smash debut album with Front and Center. Taped from New York City's Highline Ballroom, the performance showed the album from start to finish.
Cyndi Lauper is an award-winning American singer-songwriter. She rose to fame in the 1980s with a string of pop hits such as "Girls Just Want to Have Fun."
Background
Born on June 22, 1953, at Boulevard Hospital in Astoria, Queens, New York City, Cynthia Ann Stephanie "Cyndi" Lauper is the youngest daughter of Frederick A. Lauper, of Swiss-German descent, and Catrine Dominique Gallo, an Italian American. She has an older sister, Ellen, and a younger brother, Fred. The early part of her life was spent in Brooklyn but when she was four years old, she relocated to Ozone Park, Queens where she grew up in a railroad-style apartment. In 1958, her parents divorced. Gallo later remarried but it too ended in a divorce.
Education
As a teenager, Lauper, along with her sister, received rape threats from their stepfather who also used to spy on her when she took baths. This prompted her to leave home at 17 years of age. She has always been a social outcast and possessed an insatiable desire to rebel against what is viewed as conventional. This very mindset would later define her as an artist, as well as the legacy of her music.
Like any other adolescent with a penchant for defiance, she experimented with a variety of hair colors and eccentric clothing. On a friend’s suggestion, she began to spell her name "Cyndi" rather than "Cindy." At 12, she started writing songs and playing the acoustic guitar she had received from her sister as a gift. However, her education suffered. She was expelled from her school, Richmond Hill High, but later she did earn her GED.
After leaving her home, she eventually ended up in Vermont where she enrolled at Johnson State College to study art. When she wasn’t studying, she was working, be it as a waitress, an office assistant, or a singer in a Japanese restaurant.
Cyndi Lauper had her first taste of success with the band Blue Angel, which landed a record deal. The group made one record together before splitting up.
Going solo, Lauper burst onto the charts with her debut album, She's So Unusual. With her eclectic clothes, flamboyantly styled hair, and contagious pop melodies, Lauper took the music world by surprise. The 1983 recording sold over 6 million copies in the United States alone (16 million worldwide) and featured her first hit, "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." The song became a female party anthem, and the music video went into heavy rotation on MTV. Lauper became wildly popular almost overnight, scoring a string of hits that included "Time After Time," "She Bop" and "All Through the Night." She was further rewarded for her work when she won the 1984 Grammy Award for Best New Artist. In 1985, she released "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough" for the soundtrack of the film The Goonies.
Her 1986 follow-up album, True Colors, sold nearly two million copies in the United States and seven million worldwide. Exploring new creative avenues, Lauper made her film debut in 1988 starring opposite Jeff Goldblum in the comedy Vibes. The movie performed poorly in both the commercial and critical realms. In 1989, Lauper released her third album A Night to Remember, which featured the hit "I Drove All Night," but had weak overall sales compared to her previous albums.
Lauper had success as an actress in a recurring role on the TV sitcom Mad About You, which starred Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser. In 1995, Lauper won an Emmy for her work on the series. She later appeared on such shows as That's So Raven and Bones.
While she explored acting, Lauper continued to make music. Although Hatful of Stars (1993) was not a commercial success, it was an artistic achievement for Lauper. The album was widely praised by critics for songs, which took on difficult topics such as domestic abuse and homophobia. Twelve Deadly Cyns, a compilation of her hits, was released in 1995. In 1997, Lauper received critical praise for Sisters of Avalon, which included all new music, and she followed up with a holiday album Merry Christmas... Have a Nice Life! (1998).
Lauper didn't release new music until At Last (2003), a collection of pop standards. Her 2008 album Bring Ya to the Brink (2008) featured dance tracks including the Grammy-nominated song "High and Mighty." Her album, Memphis Blues (2010), featured her take on several classic blues songs and became Billboard's bestselling blues album that year.
In 2012, the pop icon wrote her autobiography Cyndi Lauper: A Memoir. The following year, she took her talents to Broadway writing the music and lyrics for Kinky Boots with a book by Harvey Fierstein. Kinky Boots won six Tony Awards, including for best musical, the best leading man, and best original score. Lauper is the first solo female who's won in the best musical category. Directed and choreographed by Tony Award-winner Jerry Mitchell, the production centers on the life of Charlie Price, who, after inheriting his father's nearly bankrupt shoe factory, discovers the man he's meant to be with the help of an entertainer named Lola.
In 2013, Lauper celebrated the 30th anniversary of the album that launched her career, She's So Unusual, with a tour. In 2016, she released Detour, a country album featuring duets with Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill, Jewel, and Alison Krauss.
Cyndi Lauper has been listed as a notable Musician by Marquis Who's Who.
Cyndi Lauper’s album "She's So Unusual" is listed among Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Vh1 included the album’s single Time After Time in their list of the 100 Best Songs of the Past 25 years while Lauper herself was ranked at #58 on the list of the 100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll.
At the 1984 Billboard Awards, Cyndi Lauper was conferred with the Best New Artist award and the Best Female Performance for the song Time After Time.
In 1985, she won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. She won her second Grammy for Best Musical Theatre Album in 2014 for Kinky Boots. For the track We Are the World, she was granted the People’s Choice Award for Favourite New Song in 1986.
In 1995, she received the Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress In A Comedy Series for Mad About You.
Her work in Kinky Boots also brought her Best Original Score accolade at the 2013 Tony Awards.
Cyndi Lauper was raised in the Roman Catholic faith.
Politics
Lauper is a well-known activist. She criticized Donald Tramp's politics and supported Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential elections.
Views
Outside of music, Lauper has been a tireless activist for the gay rights movement. "Civil rights have to be afforded to every American, no matter what their color, gender or sexual preference. You can't say this is democracy if that isn't the case," she told WWD. She helped establish the True Colors Fund, which works to promote awareness and fight for equality.
On the fund's website, Lauper writes "Everyone - whether straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender - should be allowed to show their true colors, and be accepted and loved for who they are. Every American should be guaranteed equal treatment at school, at work, in their relationships, in service of their country... and in every part of their lives." In addition to touring to raise money for the fund, Lauper competed on the reality show The Celebrity Apprentice to help out her charity.
In July 2015, while announcing her support for the National Psoriasis Foundation and Novartis on The Today Show, Lauper admitted she had recently been diagnosed with psoriasis.
Quotations:
"It's a strange lesson to learn in life that your differences, the things that make you feel uncomfortable about yourself are what will help you to grow into who you are. Those are your gifts."
"On my darkest days, I wear my brightest colors."
"I absolutely refuse to reveal my age. What am I - a car?"
"Understand where it is you want to go. Then picture yourself there. If you can picture yourself there, then you can be there. Bottom line."
"In the darkest place, shed the brightest light."
"You always have to remember - no matter what you're told - that God loves all the flowers, even the wild ones that grow on the side of the highway."
"If you can't go one way, there's many ways to get where you're going. So you just take a step back and see beyond the wall."
"And I'll see your true colors shining through I see your true colors and that's why I love you so don't be afraid to let them show your true colors, true colors are beautiful like a RAINBOW."
"People used to throw rocks at me for my clothes, now they wanna know where I buy them."
"The more you practice and study, the better you are so I still practice and study all the time."
Personality
Lauper's iconic cover and re-arrangement of Robert Hazard’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun has cemented her status as a feminist idol. According to journalist and music critic Sheila Moeschen, Lauper has come to be viewed as the embodiment of a different kind of aesthetics that celebrates the playfulness in self-expression, as opposed to the raw sensuality and edginess of her contemporaries such as Madonna and Joan Jett.
Cyndi Lauper was sexually assaulted in the early years of her career by a member of a cover band she was part of. During this period, she also became pregnant by a former boyfriend. Despite wanting to keep the child, this man pressured her to have an abortion.
Interests
Artists
Bob Burell
Sport & Clubs
yoga
Music & Bands
Barbra Streisand, Eydie Gorme, Louis Armstrong
Connections
In past, Cyndi Lauper had dated Dave Wolff, her previous manager, for six and a half years. She met actor David Thornton on the set of the film Off and Running (1991) and fell in love with him. They married on November 24, 1991. Their son, Declyn Wallace Thornton, Was born on November 19, 1997.
