Samantha Karen "Sam" Fox

Born on 15 April 1966 in Mile End, London
Samantha Karen "Sam" Fox is an English former glamour model and dance-pop singer.

Modelling career
In early 1983, Carole Fox photographed her teenage daughter wearing lingerie and submitted several pictures to the The Sunday People newspaper's "Face and Shape of 1983" amateur modeling contest. Judged joint runner-up in the contest, Fox 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 breasts made her an enormously popular Page Three model. After famously insuring her breasts for a quarter of a million pounds sterling, she won The Sun's Page Three Girl of the Year award for three consecutive years between 1984 and 1986. She also posed nude for several British soft-porn magazines, although very few full-frontal shots were ever published.

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. 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. In 1996, aged 30, she appeared in the October issue of Playboy magazine. These were her final published nude photos.

Fox's father Patrick, a former carpenter, managed her career until 1991, when Fox hired accountants to trace over £1 million that she believed he had embezzled from her accounts. She then sued her father, who by then had divorced and remarried, and in May 1995 she was awarded a £363,000 court settlement. Patrick Fox died in 2000, at which time he and Fox had not spoken for almost a decade.

Samantha Fox was, in a online vote held by the British Newspaper the Daily Star, voted by its readers, as 'The best page 3 pin up ever' in September 2008. As a result of the poll win, she appeared topless for the first time in 12 years in the Daily Star although on page 5, not page 3.

Fox's films
Fox's pictures gained her such fandom in India that she was invited to star in a Bollywood film Rock Dancer. This was written and directed by V. Menon, starring Shammi Kapoor, Kamal Sadanah, Ronit Roy, Sharon Prabhakar, Javed Jaffri, Johnny Lever etc. It also featured guest appearances from Govinda, and was produced by Subbir Mukherjee.

Fox also featured in It’s Been Real, written and directed by Steve Varnom and starring John Altman, and The Match, written and directed by Michael Davis and starring Pierce Brosnan, Ian Holm, Tom Sizemore, Neil Morrissey, David Hayman and Ilar Blair.

On From Under the Cork Tree, Fall Out Boy have a track called "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me" which references the movie Sixteen Candles and Samantha Fox's album Touch Me. (The title also references the posthumous dance hit by Elvis Presley, "A Little Less Conversation.")

Fox turned down the opportunity to join the cast of EastEnders in 2008, claiming she was not a fan of the show.

Music career
In the late-1980s, Fox began a successful singing career, producing three albums in three years (1986-1988), and working with notable music producers such as Stock Aitken Waterman and Full Force.

Samantha Fox released her debut single, Touch Me (I Want Your Body), when she was just 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.

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 thirty 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 2nd album in 1987 for Jive Records titled Samantha Fox. 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 predecesor 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.

As a result of the disappointments in previous singles released from the album, 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 cart (#31). The track was a different sound for Fox, being produced by the US hip-hop producers Full Force. These 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.

Fox released 21st Century Fox in 1998, in a limited number. (It had fallen out of print by the turn of the 21st Century, but copies could still be purchased new or used at Amazon.)

Most of the selections sounds much like the eurodance from the middle to late 1990s, in the vein of Real McCoy and La Bouche. It is considered a step above some of her hit pop-dance songs, from the late 1980s, which have been criticized for supposed silliness. "Let Me Be Free" did fairly well in club play and on dance charts, and several others from the CD were regional and cult favorites with club DJs. Collectors of 1990s dance music consider it a "must-have," citing "Just A Dream" alone as being worth the price.

In November 2005, Fox released her latest album, Angel with an Attitude, in Canada. For the album, she chose to work together with the award-winning producer Joe Barrucco.

Fox toured Australia throughout late August and early September of 2007, as part of "The Countdown Spectacular 2." The selections she performed included "Do Ya Do Ya (Wanna Please Me)" and "Touch Me (I Want Your Body)."

On 24 August 2008, Fox performed in Poland in concert of stars of the 1980s, together with Kim Wilde, Sabrina, Sandra, Modern Talking, Limahl and Shakin' Stevens. The concert was a part of Sopot Festival 2008 and was scheduled to be presented live on Polish channel TVN.

Samantha took the stage at the Colisée Pepsi in Quebec City on 11 April 2009 as part of a 1980s-themed concert along with Deborah "Debbie" Gibson, and Rick Astley.

In February 2003, she made a statement about her personal life:
"But I can't keep saying, 'Maybe,' or denying it. It is time to let people know where my heart is. People keep trying to say I'm a lesbian. I don't know what I am. All I know is that I'm in love with Myra [Stratton, her manager]. I love her completely and want to spend the rest of my life with her."

Fox participated in the television show Celebrity Wife Swap with her partner.

In 2009 Fox came third in a poll of the UK's most attractive older lady in Saga (UK) magazine, behind Davina McCall (2nd) and Amanda Redman first.

Discography

* Touch Me (1986)
* Samantha Fox (1987)
* I Wanna Have Some Fun (1988)
* Just One Night (1991)
* Greatest Hits (1992)
* 21st Century Fox (1998)
* Watching You, Watching Me (2002)
* Angel with an Attitude (2005)
* Angel with an Attitude (2007) - Australian re-release with 1 bonus track

Birthdate: 15 April 1966 (1966-04-15)
Birth location: Mile End, London, England
Birth name: Samantha Karen Fox
Measurements: 34C-24-33
Height: 5 ft 1 in (1.55 m)
Eye colour: Green
Hair colour: Blonde
Ethnicity: English
Official web site http://www.samfox.com/

Samantha Fox has donated her favourite bra to a charity auction which will see fans able to buy a piece of celebrity clothing. Sense's Strip It Off three-day auction will begin on 4 March[year needed] and will see members of the public bidding for stars' garments in order to raise money for the deaf blind charity.