Grace Jones biography
Grace Jones (born May 19, 1948) is a Jamaican singer, model and actress.
Jones started out as a model and became a muse to Andy Warhol, who photographed her extensively. During that era she regularly went to the New York City nightclub Studio 54. Jones secured a record deal with Island Records in 1977, which resulted in a string of dance-club hits. In the late 1970s, she adapted the emerging electronic music style and adopted a severe, androgynous look with square-cut hair and angular, padded clothes. Many of her singles were hits on Billboard's Hot Dance Club Play and Hot Dance Airplay charts, for example 1981 "Pull Up to the Bumper", which spent seven weeks at #2 on the U.S. dance chart. Jones was able to find mainstream success in Europe, particularly the United Kingdom, scoring a number of Top 40 entries on the UK Singles Chart. Her most notable albums are Warm Leatherette, Nightclubbing and Slave to the Rhythm, while her biggest hits (other than "Pull Up to the Bumper") are "I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)", "Private Life", "Slave to the Rhythm" and "I'm Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect for You)".
Jones is also an actress. Her acting occasionally overshadowed her musical output in America; but not in Europe, where her profile as a recording artist was much higher. She appeared in some low-budget films in the 1970s and early 1980s. Her work as an actress in mainstream film began in the 1984 fantasy-action film Conan the Destroyer alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the 1985 James Bond movie A View to a Kill. In 1986 she played a vampire in Vamp, and both acted in and contributed a song to the 1992 film Boomerang with Eddie Murphy. In 2001, she appeared in Wolf Girl alongside Tim Curry.
Life and career
Background and early career
Grace Jones was born in 1948 in Spanish Town, Jamaica, the daughter of Marjorie and Robert W. Jones, who was a politician and Apostolic clergyman. Her parents took Grace and her brothers, Chris and Noel Jones (Bishop Noel Jones), and relocated to Syracuse, New York in 1965, where she studied theatre at Syracuse University. Before becoming a successful model in New York City and Paris, Jones studied theatre at Onondaga Community College. In the 1973 film
Gordon's War, Jones played the role of Mary, a Harlem drug courier.
Jones secured a record deal with Island Records in 1977, which resulted in a string of dance-club hits and a large gay following. The three disco-oriented albums she recorded - Portfolio (1977), Fame (1978), and Muse (1979) - generated considerable success in that market. These albums consisted of pop melodies set to a disco beat, such as "On Your Knees" or "Do or Die" and standards such as "What I Did for Love" from musical A Chorus Line, Jacques Prévert's "Autumn Leaves", "Send in the Clowns" from Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music and Édith Piaf's signature tune "La Vie en rose". During this period, she also became a muse to Andy Warhol, who photographed her extensively. In 1978, she appeared with French model and singer Amanda Lear in the controversial six-episode Italian TV series Stryx.
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