忆莲·佩姬 Elaine Paige 是现代音乐剧史上的重要人物，人称“英国音乐剧第一夫人”。1978年，佩姬被选中出演《贝隆夫人》中贝隆夫人的角色，一炮而红，夺得了当年伦敦西区各种音乐剧评选的重要奖项。1981年，佩姬出演音乐剧《猫》中的Grizabella，首唱了经久不衰的歌曲《回忆》(memory)。1998年，她应邀在公开发行的录像片《猫》中重新饰演这个角色，风采依旧不减当年，使得这部作品成为英美地区最畅销的音乐剧录影带。佩姬发行过多张个人演唱专辑，连续夺得过八张金唱片和四张白金唱片。1985年，她的三张专辑"Stages"、"Cinema"和 "Chess"同时入围英国唱片销售排行榜前40名。为表彰她的突出成就，1994年，英国音乐人协会授予佩姬金质奖章。1996年，英国最悠久的音像公司HMV授予她终身成就奖；1998年，她获得英国皇家OBE爵位；1999年，佩姬从英国戏剧协会又拿到一个终身成就奖。 by Bradley TorreanoBorn Elaine Bickerstaff in the spring of 1951, Elaine Paige would go on to be one of the most recognizable names in theater. She attended the Aida Foster Drama School as she was growing up, preparing her lovely singing voice for musical theater. In the early '70s, she started acting in various London productions, getting small roles in Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, and finally landing the lead in Grease (opposite an unknown Richard Gere). She eventually quit musical theater to try her hand at television. Her role on the soap Crossroads was hardly memorable, so when she had the chance to star in Andrew Lloyd Weber's Evita she jumped at the opportunity. It was a huge smash, leading to many awards and a 20-month run as the lead character. She left to try and start a pop career, but her first effort, Sitting Pretty, hardly made a dent on the pop charts. Still, her theater success landed her another high profile role in Weber's Cats and a concert hall performance at Royal Festival Hall, both enormous successes. Her eponymous sophomore album was mildly more successful than the last, but it was a series of albums released in the middle of the '80s that brought her the most success. Stages, Cinema, and Love Hurts were all popular efforts that made the Top Ten in the U.K., and her efforts in Tim Rice's Chess led to a hit single, "I Know Him So Well."Her release schedule only became more frantic as the years went by, she put out albums almost yearly and performed in several huge productions for the British stage including Piaf, Anything Goes, and Sunset Boulevard. When Sunset Boulevard came to New York in 1996, it was her first time on Broadway. She was met with much critical admiration, and brought her considerable talents to a television special for the BBC called A South Bank Show. The special showed her visiting different parts of the world where her plays had been set, and performing songs there in character. It was soon after this that she was showered with awards from critic collectives, theatrical organizations, and even the Queen of England for her years of service to the British theater. She spent the second half of the '90s performing at many tribute and benefit concerts, as well as her first major non-singing role on the stage, The Misanthrope. Her recording schedule slowed down considerably after 1998. In 2000, she started on a successful run of the King and I and began work on a second duet album with Barbara Dickson.