Samantha Karen "Sam" Fox (born 15 April 1966) is an English dance-pop singer, actress, and former glamour model. In 1983, at the age of 16, she began her topless modeling career on Page Three of The Sun, and went on to become an enormously popular pin-up girl. In 1986 she launched her pop music career with her debut single "Touch Me (I Want Your Body)," which became a Number 1 hit in five countries. She has since sold over 30 million albums worldwide.[1] Fox has also appeared in a number of films and reality television shows, and has occasionally worked as a television presenter.

BackgroundThe eldest daughter of the late John Patrick Fox and Carole Ann Wilken, Samantha Karen Fox comes from a family of market traders in the East End of London. She has a sister, Vanessa, who is six years younger, and a half-sister, Frederica, from her father's second marriage.[citation needed]

She attended St Thomas More RC School, Haringey and took a keen interest in the theatre from an early age.[citation needed] She first appeared on a theatre stage at the age of three, and was enrolled in the Anna Scher Theatre School from the age of 5.[citation needed] Her first television appearance came in 1976, at the age of 10, in a BBC play entitled No Way Out. Following on from this, she started at the Judi Dench Mountview Theatre School, near her home in Haringey, at the age of 11.[citation needed]

Interested in music from an early age, she formed her first band, with Richard Smart on guitar, Edward Gallagher on triangle and Bob Day on tambourine, at the age of.[citation needed] Her first record deal came a year later, with Lamborghini Records. However, both her theatre and music careers went on hold when her modelling career took off.[citation needed]

Modelling careerIn early 1983, Carole Fox photographed her 16-year-old daughter in lingerie, and submitted several pictures to The Sunday People newspaper's "Face and Shape of 1983" amateur modeling contest. Fox came joint runner-up in the contest, had her pictures published, and was soon after invited for a test shoot for The Sun newspaper's Page Three feature. Her parents gave their consent for their daughter to pose topless, and on Tuesday, 22 February 1983, Fox's first Page Three photograph was published under the headline "Sam, 16, Quits A-Levels for Ooh-Levels".

Fox's cockney background, bubbly-blonde looks, winning smile, and 36D bust made her an enormously popular Page Three model. After famously insuring her breasts for a quarter of a million pounds sterling,[citation needed] she won The Sun's Page Three Girl of the Year award for three consecutive years between 1984 and 1986.[citation needed] She also posed nude for several British men's magazines and was a UK Penthouse Pet, but very few full-frontal shots were ever published.[citation needed]

Fox retired from Page Three modelling in 1986, at the age of 20, by which time she had arguably become Britain's premiere sex symbol of the era.[citation needed] In 1995, aged 29, she made a one-off appearance in The Sun to promote Page Three's 25th anniversary week. After receiving an overwhelmingly positive reader response, she appeared in the slot every day during the anniversary week, with Friday's final topless picture given away as an A3-sized poster.[citation needed] In 1996, aged 30, she appeared in the October issue of Playboy magazine.[citation needed]

In September 2008, readers of The Daily Star tabloid newspaper voted Fox as the top Page 3 pin-up girl of all time.[citation needed] At the age of 42, she posed topless for the tabloid, her first topless appearance in twelve years.[citation needed]

Music careerIn the late-1980s, Fox began a successful singing career on Jive Records, producing three albums in three years (1986–1988), and working with notable music producers such as Stock Aitken Waterman and Full Force.[citation needed]

[edit] 1980sShe released her debut single, "Touch Me (I Want Your Body)", when she was 19 years old in March 1986. The single made the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic (#3 in the UK; #4 in the US). It also topped the charts in many countries, including Canada, South Africa and Australia. Her debut live performance came at Peter Stringfellow's club Hippodrome.[citation needed] Her second single "Do Ya Do Ya (Wanna Please Me)" also made #10 in the UK though fared less well in the US. The third release from the album, "Hold On Tight" managed to secure a top 30, placing in the UK singles chart (#26) while the final single, "I'm All You Need" just narrowly missed the UK Top 40 (#41).

Within a year, Fox had released her second album, Samantha Fox (1987), again on Jive Records. The first single released from the album, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now", enabled her to achieve her third (and final) top ten hit in the UK (#8), though it only managed to peak at #80 on the US Billboard charts. The track was produced by the legendary production team Stock/Aitken/Waterman. The second single release, "I Surrender (To the Spirit of the Night)", failed to match the success of its predecessor in the UK and peaked at #25 in the UK. The next two releases, "I Promise You (Get Ready)" and "True Devotion", both failed altogether to make the UK Top 40 singles chart. "True Devotion" was a substantial radio hit in Canada.[citation needed] The fifth and final single, "Naughty Girls (Need Love Too)", turned the fortunes of the album around and managed to secure a top ten placing on the US Billboard charts (#3), becoming her biggest hit to date in the US and scoring Fox another Top 40 hit on the UK singles chart (#31). The track was a different sound for Fox, being produced by the US hip-hop producers Full Force.[citation needed] They would continue to work with Samantha on subsequent albums and achieve similar success with her stateside, whereas her changed sound did not fare as well for her with European listeners, who preferred the Euro-pop sound of her earlier music.[citation needed]

The following year, Fox released her third album, I Wanna Have Some Fun (1988), also on Jive Records. The album was produced by various producers covering the Euro-pop sound.[citation needed] Two tracks, "Next to Me" and the title track, reunited her for Full Force, where another reunion with Stock Aitken Waterman saw her record a cover of Dusty Springfield's "I Only Want to Be with You", and the SAW original "You Started Something". The first UK single released from the album was "Love House". The second single released in the UK, "I Only Wanna Be with You", managed to secure her her biggest hit in over a year, peaking in the Top 20 at #16. The first single release in the US fared even better. The title selection, "I Wanna Have Some Fun", produced by Full Force, managed to peak in the US Top Ten at #8 (although when released as the third single in the UK it only managed a #63 placing). The American release, as the follow-up, of "I Only Wanna Be with You" peaked inside the US Billboard Top 40 at #31. No further singles were released from the album.

[edit] 1990sIn 1991, after a three year break, Fox released her fourth album, Just One Night, again on Jive Records. The first single lifted from the album, "(Hurt Me! Hurt Me!) But the Pants Stay On" was another Full Force production. However, the lead single failed to make an impression in either the UK or US charts. Second single, "Another Woman", originally produced by Ralf-Rene Maue, was remixed by PWL stable-mate Phil Harding for release and performed moderately on some European charts. A third single, the albums title track, was also released. A bonus track, "Now I Lay Me Down" (again a Full Force production), was featured in the film A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child and on the accompanying soundtrack.

In 1992, Jive released Samantha's first official compilation, Greatest Hits, which featured three new tracks. Fox co-wrote and performed the track "Go for the Heart" for UK submission in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1995.[citation needed] It was performed as Sox featuring Cris Bonacci and Lorraine McIntosh. The song placed 4th in preliminary public voting and was therefore not selected as the representative track. "Go for the Heart" was a modest hit throughout some European territories.[citation needed]

In 1997, she released a new album, 21st Century Fox. It performed moderately throughout Europe and Scandinavia. Without a worldwide distribution deal the album suffered from little promotion and a staggered release schedule. Singles "The Reason Is You", "Deeper", "Let Me Be Free" and "Perhaps" made little chart impression (although "Let Me Be Free" was a Top 20 hit in The Netherlands) despite Fox making numerous television appearances to promote the album. In 1998, Fox released a single together with DJ Milano,"Santa Maria", which charted at #31 in the UK chart and was a TOP 10 hit in Austria and the Czech Republic. In 1999 Sam was cast in her first stage musical, Tayla Goodman's Virus, but she had to withdraw when the backer pulled his money.