Natalie Imbruglia

Natalie Imbruglia biography

Natalie Jane Imbruglia (; born 4 February 1975) is an Australian singer-songwriter, model and actress. In the early 1990s, Imbruglia was known to audiences as Beth Brennan in the popular Australian soap Neighbours. Three years after leaving the programme, Imbruglia launched a singing career with the international hit, "Torn". The subsequent debut album Left of the Middle (1997) sold over 7 million copies worldwide. Further releases, White Lilies Island (2001) and Counting Down the Days (2005), have been unable to match the commercial success of her debut, although the latter did become her first UK #1.

She co-starred in the 2003 film Johnny English and made her leading actress debut in the 2009 film Closed for Winter. Imbruglia is ranked #90 on VH1's Top 100 Sexiest Artists.

Early life

Natalie was born on 4 February 1975, in Sydney, Australia, the first of the four daughters to Elliot Imbruglia, her father of Italian descent (originally a Sicilian from Lipari) and Maxene Anderson, her Anglo-Celtic Australian mother. Imbruglia grew up in Berkeley Vale, New South Wales, between Sydney and Newcastle. At the age of 15, she moved to Sydney with her family. Imbruglia studied ballet, tap, and highland dancing as a child, hoping to make a career out of it.

Imbruglia auditioned for Australian TV commercials and appeared in spots for Coke and the popular Australian snack Twisties. By age 16, she left high school to start a career in acting. She soon obtained the chance to play a regular role on the Australian soap opera Neighbours at the age of 17. By the end of her second year, she left the show to move to London in 1994, immersing herself in the city's club scene. Natalie occasionally met with Anne Barret, who would become her future manager and convinced her to register a demo with four songs. Her effort paid off and she was signed to BMG Publishing, after coming up with a demo of the song "Torn" which greatly impressed RCA Records.

Career

1997-2000: Left of the Middle era

She has received an MTV Award for Best New Artist in 1998, and 3 constitutive Grammy Award nominations in 1999. She has sold over 9 million albums worldwide. She was ranked No. 11 on Rock on the Net's list of single artists of the year in 1998, and No. 76 in 2001. Imbruglia has tied up her 4-album record deal with BMG after the delivery of her compilation album, Glorious: The Singles 1997-2007.

Imbruglia's first internationally released single, "Torn" (1997), was a cover of an Ednaswap song. Instantly the single became one of the biggest hits of the 90s, reaching number two in the UK Singles Chart in November 1997 and number one on airplay around the world and was number one on the Billboard Airplay chart for 14 weeks. The single went on to sell over a million copies in the United Kingdom alone.

It was also released as a radio single in the US, but not in buyable CD-format. The single quickly hit No. 1 on the Billboard's Hot 100 Airplay chart, where it stayed for 14 weeks. At the time, singles not released commercially were unable to chart to the overall Hot 100 chart (combined sales and airplay), so "Torn" made no appearance on it for a while. By the time the policy was changed in late 1998 to allow airplay-only songs, "Torn" was already heading down the charts, so its peak on the Hot 100 only ended up being at #42. The single also topped the Top 40 Mainstream/CHR Pop and Adult Top 40 charts.

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