Charlotte Church
Charlotte Church (born Charlotte Maria Reed on February 21, 1986 at Llandaff, Cardiff, South Glamorgan, Wales) is a soprano. She introduced her aunt on ITV's Big Big Talent Show in 1998, was asked to sing and was heard by Jonathan Shalit, who then helped her to secure a record contract with Sony Classical at age 12.
Background
Church's looks and popular repertoire have made her a great commercial success. Her breakthrough album, Voice of an Angel, established her unique talents as a soprano at such a young age. She made a cameo appearance on the US CBS series Touched by an Angel. She later appeared on numerous PBS specials and television commercials, most notably in the acclaimed Just Wave Hello campaign for the Ford Motor Company. The song appeared on her self-titled second album. It was self-titled so as not to be too much associated with Ford.
Charlotte has been represented in the press as an opera singer; however, she has never sung in any performances of opera, only recordings (and those of excerpts, usually edited and engineered to fit her range). While her recordings have ranked high on classical music charts, their appeal is to the crossover audience, rather than classical music lovers.
Movie-going audiences heard Church for the first time in the 2001 Ron Howard film A Beautiful Mind. Since Celine Dion was not available to perform the film's end title song, All Love Can Be (Dion was beginning her concert engagement in Las Vegas), composer James Horner enlisted Church to handle the vocals, and the song was re-written to Church's vocal range. As it turned out, Church also handled the vocal passages throughout the score.
Two years later, Church made her on-screen debut in the Craig Ferguson film I'll Be There. The film was so critically panned it did not even receive a U.S. theatrical release (it was released in Europe, however). It is now available on video.
In the past couple of years, she has provoked some controversy with remarks on the September 11, 2001 attacks and saying that agents are turning her down because of her weight. There was more controversy when she was awarded the Rear of the year title in 2002 at the age of 16.
In March 2005, a topless photograph of Charlotte was rumored to have been stolen from the mobile phone of her boyfriend Gavin Henson, a Welsh international rugby player, when he lost his phone on a night out in Cardiff. In interviews, Church said she was in her bra, but not nude in the picture. She also said that a topless picture of her circulating around the Internet was a fake.
Recently, her ex-boyfriend, Steven Johnson demanded Charlotte pay him £3m from her fortune to stop him from releasing his tell-tale book. His Father promised the book would "hang the Church family" by revealing salacious details of Steven and Charlotte's sex life. Charlotte has yet to respond to this. Previously, her other ex had sold stories of his relationship with Charlotte to the tabloids.
Discography
- Voice of an Angel (1998) #4 UK, #28 US
- Charlotte Church (1999) #8 UK, #40 US
- Dream a Dream (2000) #30 UK, #7 US
- Enchantment (2001) #24 UK, #15 US
- Prelude The Best Of Charlotte Church (2002) #76 US
- Tissues and Issues (July 2005) #5 UK
From Charlotte Church:
- "Just Wave Hello" - From the Ford Motor Company's world-wide new millennium TV advert (1999) #31 UK
Guest appearance:
- "The Opera Song (Brave New World)" (Jurgen Vries featuring CMC) Singer: CMC = Charlotte Church - Writer/Pianist: Jurgen Vries - aka Darren Tate (2003) #3 UK
From Tissues and Issues:
- "Crazy Chick" (2005) #2 UK
Filmography
- I'll Be There - Directed by Craig Ferguson (2003)