Hazel O'Connor

Hazel O'Connor (born 16 May 1955) is a British singer-songwriter and actress.

Career

The daughter of a sailor from Galway who settled in England to work in a car plant, she went to Coventry Art College after leaving School. O'Connor originally shot to fame as an actress, playing the role of Kate in the critically acclaimed film Breaking Glass in 1980, and its accompanying soundtrack. The years before she appeared in the film Breaking Glass were eventful to say the least - see O'Connor's autobiography for full details.^[1] As she wrote in the introduction note of the programme for a gig at "At My Place" in Santa Monica, Los Angeles in 1989 - "I ran away from my home in Coventry when I was 16.....made and sold clothes in Amsterdam, picked grapes in France, joined a dance troupe that went to Tokyo then onto Beirut (escaping the start of the civil war by one month!) travelled West Africa, crossed the Sahara, sang with a dreadful singing trio for the U.S. troops in Germany and came home to "settle down". Through all this experience of life and the world I realized that singing always cheered me up. I decided to be a singer. Through strange turns of fate I ended up in a film called Breaking Glass I also ended up writing all the songs for the movie". In 1980, her performance as Kate in Breaking Glass won O'Connor the Variety Club of Great Britain Award for 'Best Film Actor' and BAFTA nominations for 'Best Newcomer' and 'Best Film Score.' The album of the same name went double platinum,reaching number 5 in the UK Albums Chart with a 28 week stay and produced several hit singles, the most successful being the haunting "Will You", and "Eighth Day". When O'Connor toured the UK in support of Breaking Glass the album, she selected as her opening act a then-unknown local group from Birmingham called Duran Duran. It was the band's first opportunity to play to large audiences throughout the UK and gave them the exposure they needed to secure a recording contract (with EMI). Subsequent albums for Hazel O'Connor include Sons and Lovers which featured the hit singles "D Days", "Cover Plus", "Smile" and "Five in the Morning". Legal battles plagued O'Connor from the early 1980s - in her own words "I became famous, then had a load of court battles to fight against my first record company, I was ripped off, torn up and spat out by the machinery of 'Showbiz'" However, despite the hassle, O'Connor continued to record and to play live, touring the UK, Ireland, Europe and the U.S. with her band Megahype, and continuing her career as an actor. She has made numerous TV appearances, starring in Jangles on British television and in 1986 playing the lead role of Vivienne in the critically acclaimed Fighting Back as well as singing the theme tune. She also played a singer in an episode of Prospects on Channel 4 in 1986 resulting in the release of two spin off singles alongside former Breaking Glass actor Gary Olsen. Her theatre work includes "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, "Nightshoot" at the Tricycle Theatre, London, "Girlfriends" at the Playhouse, London, "Swing Out Sister", her own production, at the Riverside Studio, London, "The Raven Beckons" at the Riverbank Theatre, Dublin and "The Cuchulain Cycle" at the Riverside Studio, London. In 1997 she made a new studio album, Five In The Morning with record producer, co-writer and guitarist, Gerard Kiely. The album included turntable hit "Na Na Na", which generated a lot of airplay in the UK, especially in Scotland. A live album, Live In Berlin, followed. The turn of the century saw O'Connor tell her life story in an autobiographical touring show entitled "Beyond Breaking Glass", with harpist, Cormac De Barra. The show was a hit at the Edinburgh fringe festival and toured the UK, The Netherlands (twice), Australia and Canada. In 2002 she signed to Invisible Hands Music, which triggered a run of new releases and deluxe re-issues of her 1990s work. A commercially available reincarnation of the previously mail-order "Beyond Breaking Glass" was followed by a previously unreleased acoustic concert, "Acoustically Yours". In 2003 Five In The Morning and Live In Berlin were repackaged with new photos and liner notes. In 2003 Invisible Hands Music released O'Connor's first-ever official best of compilation, A Singular Collection, which brought together her early hits from the Albion days, mid career work at RCA, and the best of the latter, DIY era. To add something new to the best of compilation, O'Connor recorded a cover of her friend George Michael's hit, "One More Try", with a band that included drummer Carlos Hercules, who at the time was playing for Annie Lennox and Beverly Knight. Hercules joined George Michael's band in 2006. The track was released as a single, and generated extensive airplay and renewed interest in O'Connor - the following year saw her perform a powerful set at the Glastonbury Festival. June 2005 saw the UK release of Hidden Heart, produced by Martin Rushent and including duets with Moya Brennan and Rob Reynolds. O'Connor currently divides her time from living in Ireland and France.

Trivia

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• She was briefly married to the journalist, Danny Kelly.
• O'Connor was also married to the artist, Kurt A Bippert. David Rappaport was Best Man, and Dave Wakeling, from The Beat gave O'Connor away.
• O'Connor is a vegetarian.^[2]
• O'Connor made a cameo appearance in the 1983 Eurythmics video "Who's That Girl?"
• On 12 October 1996, O'Connor made a special "internet guest" appearance on Hungarian pop/rock group KFT's concert held in the fully packed Budapest Sport Arena. She - while being in a studio in Dublin, Ireland - appeared on a large screen behind the stage and sang along with the band a song titled "Stranger in a strange land" in front of about 15,000 spectators.

Discography

Albums

• Breaking Glass (1980) #5 UK
• Sons And Lovers (1980)
• Cover Plus (1981) #32 UK
• Smile (1984)
• Greatest Hits (1984)
• Alive And Kicking In L.A. (1990)
• To Be Freed (1993)
• Over The Moon...Live (1993)
• Private Wars (1995)
• Live In Berlin (1997)
• 5 In The Morning (1998)
• Beyond the Breaking Glass (2000)
• Acoustically Yours (2002)
• Ignite (2002)
• A Singular Collection - The Best Of Hazel O'Connor (2003)
• Hidden Heart (2005)
• Fighting Back - Live (2005)

Singles

• "Eighth Day" (1980) #5 UK Singles Chart
• "Give Me An Inch" (1980) #41 UK Singles Chart
• "D-Days" (1981) #10 UK Singles Chart
• "Will You" (1981) #8 UK Singles Chart
• "Zoo" (1981) (Germany Only)
• "Do What Do You/Waiting" (1981)
• "(Cover Plus) We're All Grown Up" (1981) #41 UK Singles Chart
• "Hanging Around" (1981) #45 UK Singles Chart
• "Calls the Tune" (1982) #60 UK Singles Chart
• "Men Of Good Fortune" (1982) (Not UK)
• "That's Life" (1982) (Not UK)
• "Just Good Friends" (1984)
• "Tell Me A Story Now/The Man I Love" (1984)
• "Don't Touch Me" / "Bring It All Home to Me" (1984)
• "Cuts Too Deep" (1984)
• "Stranger In A Strange Land" (1985)
• "Why Don't You Answer" (1985)
• "Push And Shove" (with Chris Thompson) (1985)
• "Fighting Back" (1986)
• "Today Could Be So Good" (1986)
• "We Tried Boy (Didn't We?)" (1986)
• "And I Dream" (with David Easter) (1987)
• "Heat Of The Night" (1990)
• "My Friend Jack" (1993)
• "Tell Me Why" (1993)
• "Na, Na, Na" (1998)
• "One More Try" (2004)

Filmography

• Breaking Glass (1980)
• "Alive and Kicking in L.A." (1989-1990) Rockumentory

References

1. ^ O'Connor, Hazel (November 1981). Hazel O'Connor: Uncovered Plus. Proteus Publishing Ltd.. ISBN 978-0906071816. 
2. ^ Last Word - Hazel O'Connor (PDF). The Vegetarian magazine. Vegetarian Society (2003). Retrieved on 2007-11-18.

• Guinness Book of British Hit Singles - 16th Edition - ISBN 0-85112-190-X
• Guinness Book of British Hit Albums - 7th Edition - ISBN 0-85112-619-7

External links

• Official Website
• Hazel O'Connor at the Internet Movie Database