Patti Boulaye

Patti Boulaye (born Patricia Ngozi Ebigwe, 3 May 1954) is a British singer, actress and artist who was among the leading black British entertainers in the seventies and eighties. In her native Nigeria, she is best remembered for starring in Lux commercials, and The Patti Boulaye Show.

Early life

The seventh of nine children, Boulaye was born after her mother went into labour in a taxi which was passing through two villages in Mid-Western Nigeria, and was raised in a strict Catholic household. As a teenager, she witnessed the horrors of the Biafran war, but attributed her family's survival to their strong faith. Shortly after the war, at the age of sixteen, she left Nigeria for the United Kingdom.

Career

Although she had hopes of becoming a nun, Boulaye auditioned for a musical after standing in what she believed was a queue for Madame Tussauds, and won a part in a production of Hair. She was disowned by her strict father for attempting to become a West End actress, but he later forgave her. After Hair, she featured in Two Gentlemen of Verona. Her first starring role was as Yum Yum in The Black Mikado under her birth name Patricia Ebigwei.

After Boulaye's starring role in African movie Bisi, Daughter of the River, she came to prominence as a singer after winning the British TV talent show New Faces, where she made history by becoming the only contestant ever to receive the maximum 120 points. Prior to this, she had spent a year releasing several singles with girlgroup The Flirtations, who unsuccessfully tried to launch themselves as a British version of The Supremes.

Boulaye's victory on New Faces led to the release of the album You Stepped Into My Life, and appearances in stage, film and television, including The Music Machine (billed as the British Saturday Night Fever) in 1979, Carmen Jones and Dempsey & Makepeace. In 1984, she had her own series, The Patti Boulaye Show on Channel Four. The Christmas special, which featured Cliff Richard was a ratings success, and an album was released in conjunction with the screening of the series. The eighties saw an increase in fitness awareness, and Boulaye was among the celebrities whose voices featured on the Shape Up and Dance keep-fit albums.

In Nigeria, she was the face of Lux Beauty soap, and The Patti Boulaye Show was shown on several NTA stations. She is also well-known as a singer there, and was invited to sing for Olusegun Obasanjo during his inauguration. In 2003, Boulaye launched her West End musical Sundance, which took twelve years to make. Hailed as a celebration of "the colours and music of Africa in a display of ceremonial dances, rituals and initiation ceremonies, all played out to the beat of African drums", it was written and produced by Boulaye herself, and opened at the Hackney empire. Critics agreed that it was not her best work - one wrote: "[Boulaye] may have put a lot of her own heart and soul into bringing this to the stage - a journey that has taken her a full decade - but it is regrettable that the result is so conspicuously lacking in either. There may be colour, light and movement in abundance, with smoothly professional contributions from set designer Christopher Woods and Nick Richings’ lighting, but none of it is anchored by any sense of form or structure...it feels, instead, like a tourist travelogue introduction to the sights and sounds of Africa, quaintly introduced before the show even begins with a screening of African wildlife scenes onto the stage’s front cloth". Boulaye featured in an excerpt from the show forming part of the interval act at the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest staged at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham.

Personal life

A devout Catholic, Boulaye has two children - Aret and Sebastian - with her husband, Stephen Komlosy.

External links

• Patti Boulaye at the Internet Movie Database
• Patti's official site
• Interview with Patti Boulaye