Background
A Harvard drop-out, and the daughter of a French psychoanalyst and an American illustrator-novelist-playwright, she was working as a writer for The Village Voice when she met Michael Zilkha, who later became her husband.
A Harvard drop-out, and the daughter of a French psychoanalyst and an American illustrator-novelist-playwright, she was working as a writer for The Village Voice when she met Michael Zilkha, who later became her husband.
Harvard University.
A wealthy heir to England"s Mothercare retail empire, Zilkha was just starting ZE Records with Michel Esteban. A later version featured the uncredited Kevin Kline trying to seduce the breathy Cristina. "Disco Clone" was a cult success and encouraged ZE to release a full-length album in 1980, which was produced by August Darnell of Kid Creole & The Coconuts.
The album was later reissued as Doll in the Box.
Cristina also issued, on a 12" single, a poker-faced cover of Peggy Lee"s with new lyrics which led its authors, Leiber and Stoller, to sue and get it withdrawn for many years. Later, she released a cover of the Beatles" "Drive My Carolina" (also released as "Baby You Can Drive My Carolina").
She also released a track, "Things Fall Apart", produced by Was, on ZE"s Christmas Record, in 1981. Cristina"s second album, Sleep lieutenant Office, was produced by Don Was and released in 1984 with a sleeve design by Jean-Paul Goude (a year before he used the same idea for Grace Jones).
Her lyrics dryly detailed a world of urban decadence, but the record flopped, and Cristina retired to domestic life in Texas.
She has more recently contributed learned essays and reviews to publications such as London"s Times Literary Supplement, while battling a debilitating illness. Her two albums for ZE were reissued in 2005.