Geri Halliwell
| Geri Halliwell | |
|---|---|
 Geri solo at the O2 Arena in London, 6 January 2008. |
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Geraldine Estelle Halliwell |
| Also known as | Ginger Spice, Ginger |
| Born | 6 August 1972 Watford, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom |
| Origin | London, England, UK |
| Genres | Pop, dance pop, pop rock |
| Occupations | Singer–songwriter, philanthropist, author, actress |
| Years active | 1994–present |
| Labels | Virgin (1996–98) EMI (1999–2003) Innocent (2004–05) 19 (2010–present) |
| Associated acts | Spice Girls |
| Website | Official website |
Geraldine Estelle "Geri" Halliwell (born 6 August 1972) is an English pop singer–songwriter, author, actress and philanthropist. After coming to international prominence as a member of the girl group, the Spice Girls, Halliwell launched her solo career and released her debut album Schizophonic. Since then she has released two more studio albums — Scream If You Wanna Go Faster and Passion — and four number one singles at the UK Singles Chart, "Mi Chico Latino", "Lift Me Up", "Bag It Up" and "It's Raining Men". In 2008 Halliwell published a book series named Ugenia Lavender.[1] As a solo artist Halliwell has sold 12 million records worldwide and been nominated for Brit Awards in both 2000 and 2002.
Contents |
Early life
Halliwell was born at Watford General Hospital, Watford, Hertfordshire England, UK to Laurence Francis Halliwell (1922–1993),[2] who was of English, Irish, and Swedish descent, and his wife Ana María (née Hidalgo), who is of Spanish descent from Huesca, Spain. She grew up on a council estate in North Watford, Hertfordshire.[3] For a brief time, Halliwell's mother tried to bring her up as a Jehovah's Witness. Halliwell took her A-Levels at Camden School for Girls, obtaining an A-level in English at A grade standard, having taken her GCSEs at Watford Girls Grammar School. Before starting her music career, Halliwell had worked as a nightclub dancer in Majorca,[3] a model and presenter on the Turkish version of Let's Make a Deal[3] and as a glamour model.[3] Following her rise to fame with the Spice Girls, nude photos[4] of Halliwell were re-published in a number of top-shelf magazines in the UK, as well as in Playboy and Penthouse.[5][6]
Career
1994–98: Spice Girls
Halliwell first found fame as one of the five members of the girl group the Spice Girls, and was dubbed Ginger Spice by Top of the Pops magazine in 1996 because of her flaming red hair and sassy, assertive attitude. Geri became renowned for wearing outrageous stage costumes and often garnered extensive publicity.
The group sold over 65 million records and are the best selling girl group of all time. Their debut single "Wannabe" became the first of nine number-ones in the United Kingdom and reached the top position in 41 countries around the globe, including Australia, Canada and the United States. Other successful releases followed, including "Say You'll Be There" and "2 Become 1" from Spice, and "Spice Up Your Life", "Too Much" and "Stop" from Spiceworld.[7]
On 30 May 1998 Halliwell left the Spice Girls due to depression and differences between the group.[8] The first official confirmation was an announcement to the media by her solicitor on 31 May. Her action aroused controversy, her former group being due to embark on a North American tour, which they eventually completed without her.[9] Although she had already left the group, the Spice Girls released "Viva Forever", the final music video to feature Halliwell's likeness. After she left, the other girls co-wrote a few songs about her which appeared on their album Forever: "Goodbye" and "Let Love Lead the Way".[10]
1998–2005: Solo musical career
Shortly after leaving the Spice Girls, Halliwell appeared in a 90 minute documentary Geri for the British television channel Channel 4 by Molly Dineen.[11] In 1999 Halliwell launched her solo career and released her debut album Schizophonic, with the lead single "Look at Me", produced by Absolute and Phil Bucknall. "Look at Me" would go on to sell over one million copies worldwide, followed by further number ones at the UK Singles Chart "Mi Chico Latino", "Lift Me Up" and "Bag It Up". Halliwell performed "Bag It Up" during the BRIT Awards ceremony in 2000, emerging between giant inflatable legs, ripping off her shirt and walking in stiletto heels over the backs of topless pink-haired men whilst performing the song.
"Look at Me" was released to radio in the United States in late 1999, receiving limited airplay. With only a radio single, Schizophonic debuted at number forty-two on the Billboard 200 before dropping out within the next month. The album was eventually certified Gold, distributing over 500,000 copies.[12] "Mi Chico Latino" did not have a big impact on American radio, and no further singles from Schizophonic or albums were released in the United States. In 1999 she wrote an autobiography If Only, in which described her life as a Spice Girl.[13]
In 2001 Halliwell followed up with her second album, Scream If You Wanna Go Faster. It also included her cover version of The Weather Girls' 1983 hit, "It's Raining Men", used on the Bridget Jones's Diary film soundtrack, and the video game, DDRMAX2 Dance Dance Revolution 7thMix. The song also won her the International Song of the Year award at the 2002 NRJ Music Awards. The song has been added to the album at the last minute, and another song "Feels Like Sex" had already been slated as the lead single. The singles that followed, "Scream If You Wanna Go Faster" and "Calling", reached, respectively, number eight and number seven in the United Kingdom. Halliwell even released a special French edition of the single, entitled "Au Nom de L'amour". Scream If You Wanna Go Faster was not released in the United States.
In 2002 Halliwell was featured alongside Pete Waterman and Louis Walsh as a judge on the television series Popstars: The rivals which created Girls Aloud.[13] The following year she released her second autobiography, Just for the Record, detailing her rise to fame and her turbulent celebrity lifestyle.[13] She has also released two Yoga DVDs with her yoga teacher Katy Appleton, Geri Yoga and Geri Body Yoga.[14] In the United States Halliwell has also appeared as a judge on the reality programme All American Girl and as a guest reporter on celebrity-based series Extra. She has also made appearances in the television series Sex and the City and in the 2004 film Fat Slags, based on characters from Viz Magazine. In 2004, Halliwell appeared on channel Five as one of the hosts of the Party in the Park event for The Prince's Trust, the presenter and main performer of the Tickled Pink Girls' night in Live! event and an appearance in a documentary There's Something About Geri.[13]
In late 2004, Halliwell made a return to music with the single "Ride It", which reached number four in the United Kingdom and number one on the dance charts. However, several months elapsed before another single was released, during which time she was apparently instructed to record some new tracks for the as yet unreleased album by her record company, which was unhappy with the setlist.[15] Halliwell planned her first solo tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland, but due to lack of ticket sales, compounded by the label's pressure on Halliwell to record additional songs led to the cancellation of the tour. Eventually a new single, "Desire", was released on 30 May 2005, reaching number 22 in the UK Singles Chart and number one on the UK Dance Charts. Released shortly after, the album Passion similarly received little attention from the public or critics, and stalled at number 41 in the UK charts. Halliwell's recording contract with EMI was subsequently not renewed, and in recent interviews Halliwell has stated that she is not interested in recording another album at the moment and was content with writing children's books and being a mother. In 2009 Passion become available in the United States via Amazon.com.
2007–08: The Return of the Spice Girls
_56.jpg)
On 28 June 2007, Halliwell announced she was joining her former group-mates for "Return of the Spice Girls", a concert tour that would see all five original members of the Spice Girls re-uniting on stage for the first time since Halliwell walked out mid-tour in 1998. Part of the setlist of the reunion tour features Halliwell performing solo, singing her cover of It's Raining Men. It was announced on 1 February that the tour would end early, on 26 February 2008.[16]
2008–09: Ugenia Lavender
On 12 April 2007, it was announced that Halliwell had signed a six-book deal with Macmillan Children's Books.[17] The books follow the adventures of nine-year-old Ugenia, a character based on Halliwell[18], alongside her friends Bronte, Rudy and Trevor[1]. Other characters are said by Halliwell to be loosely based on Gordon Ramsay[19], George Michael[20], Marilyn Monroe[21], Vincent van Gogh[21], Wayne Rooney[22] and the character Justin Suarez from the TV series Ugly Betty[22]. The character Princess Posh Vattoria, a caricature of Halliwell's bandmate Victoria Beckham, was featured in early drafts but has not appeared in the book series[23].
Halliwell has recently been seen in the film Crank: High Voltage alongside friend, actor, John Damon. Her most recent appearance on British Television was on the BBC 1's The One Show on 7 May 2009.[24] On 24 May 2009 she spoke to the Speed TV reporter Peter Windsor in the pit lane just prior to the start of the 2009 Monaco Grand Prix.
Though Geri has given up singing and continues to write books, rumours are circulating in the United Kingdom saying that she may record one single and release a Greatest Hits, but so far this is a rumour and Halliwell has said nothing about it. In interviews to promote the book series Ugenia Lavender, Halliwell said she had no plans to return to a solo musical career in the near future.[25]
2010–present: Return to music
In March 2010, vocal coach and singer Carrie Grant announced on ITV1's The Alan Titchmarsh Show that Halliwell would be making a return to music. The following month Halliwell announced through her official website that she was back in the studio and recording.[26]
In 2010 Halliwell was contracted to appear as a guest judge on The X Factor standing in for Dannii Minogue at the Glasgow auditions.
Personal and media life
After her album Passion was a failure, Halliwell fired her managers, then-married team Paul and Katie Conroy, in October 2005, and went to Los Angeles to work on unnamed projects. Soon after, she was photographed by the paparazzi, having put on weight and looking exhausted. The tabloids reported that Halliwell was pregnant, which was subsequently confirmed. Sacha Gervasi is reported to be the child's father, but Halliwell has never publicly confirmed that.[27] On 7 March 2006, Hello! magazine published an interview with Halliwell, "It is tacky to kiss and tell, I would never deprive a child of the right to know its father."[28]
On 14 May 2006, Halliwell gave birth to her daughter, Bluebell Madonna, by caesarean section at London's Portland Hospital with her sister by her side.[29] Explaining her name choice, she said, "What really clinched it for me was my mother telling me that the bluebell is increasingly rare – so it's a precious flower, which seems just right for my daughter." Her daughter's middle name came from two of Halliwell's heroines, the Virgin Mary and pop singer Madonna. During her pregnancy Halliwell studied Kabbalah. On 23 April 2007, all of The Spice Girls except Melanie Brown attended the christening of Halliwell's daughter, with Victoria Beckham, Emma Bunton and George Michael's partner Kenny Goss serving as godparents.[30]
On the Spice Girls reunion tour of 2007–08, Halliwell met dancer Ivan "Flipz" Velez. They dated for six months before breaking up in November 2008.[31] According to the Sun, she became engaged to Italian multimillionaire Fabrizio Politi in January 2009 after only a month together.[32] However, the couple broke up in March 2009.[33]. She has been dating aristocrat Henry Beckwith since March 2009.[34][35]
Halliwell is currently residing in a house in Streatley on Thames, just across the River Thames from George Michael's house in Goring-on-Thames.[36]
Charity work
In 1999, after having left the Spice Girls, Halliwell became a representative for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). As a goodwill ambassador, Halliwell toured the Philippines on a fact-finding trip. She visited with staff and clients of family planning clinics, women's groups in slum areas, and college students.
In 2000, Halliwell appeared in the two part documentary series Geri's World Walkabout for the BBC which followed her work with the UN and other travels. Halliwell met with kids in Rio de Janeiro and visited child piano prodigies in the United States.
Halliwell picked up further UN work in 2006, by visiting Zambia from 14–16 November, to promote greater international awareness of the urgent need to reduce maternal death and halt the spread of HIV/AIDS. Both aims are contained in the Millennium Development Goals adopted by the world's leaders in September 2000. She attended the first 2007 BBC Four Reith Lecture and can be heard asking questions on women's rights in the recording.[37]
Halliwell also attended the UK leg of Live Earth at Wembley Stadium, London on 7 July 2007[38] and introduced Duran Duran to the crowd.
In 2008, Halliwell also pledged her support to the Kentish Times Christmas Toy Appeal, which aimed to collect second hand toys as Christmas presents for patients in Child Wards in Bromley, Bexley, Woolwich and Dartford. Halliwell not only gave publicity to the campaign, but also donated toys from her own daughter's collection.[39]
Halliwell is also a patron of Breast Cancer Care.
Political affiliations
In the run-up to the 1997 UK General Election, Halliwell declared: "I saw a lot of what Mrs Thatcher did. She was definitely the original Spice Girl rising from the greengrocer's daughter to Prime Minister." For this, Lauren Laverne called her "Tory scum".[40] She claimed that her background was deeply-rooted in support for the Conservative Party and that Thatcher was the pioneer of 'Girl Power' and the spiritual sixth member of the Spice Girls. She claimed in 1996 that Tony Blair was "not a safe pair of hands for the economy".[41]
By the 2001 General Election Halliwell had switched her support to Tony Blair and the Labour Party, making a cameo appearance in one of their party election broadcasts.[42]
Discography
Albums
|
UK Singles Chart number-one singles
|
Videography
Filmography and teleography
Bibliography
Awards and nominations
References
External links
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||