Paula Abdul Biography, Photos and Posters

Paula Abdul

Biography

Born: June 19, 1962
City and Country of Origin: San Fernando, California
Music Training: dance lessons at the age of 8; dance camp at 15
Awards: Emmy 1989 Outstanding Achievement in Choreography, The Tracey Ullman Show; 1990 Outstanding Achievement in Choreography, The Tracey Ullman Show
Top Recordings: "Straight Up," "Forever Your Girl," "Cold Hearted," "Opposites Attract," "Rush Rush," "The Promise of a New Day"
Paula Abdul Biography: Paula Julie Abdul, former Los angeles Laker cheerleader rose to fame as a much sought after choreographer and pop singer with a string of hits records during the late 1980s and early 90s. After her career was short circuited by a series of unfortunate reverses in both her professional and personal life she was able to find renewd fame as a judge on th ehighly rated television show American Idol.

Paula was born to Canadian former concert pianist Lorraine Rykiss and Harry Abdul a Syrian-Brazilian orphan who was born to parents of Sephardic Jewish descent. When she was 7 her parents divorced. Although she often mistaken to be of mixed or African descent by young Black kids she is actually a mixture of Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jewish heritage.

She attended Van Nuys High School where she was a cheerleader and played flute in the band and was an honor student. When she was 15 she received a scholarship to a dance camp in Palm Springs where whe learned the nasty eating habits of binging and purging practiced by her much taller fellow ballerinas.

She enrolled at the California State University at Northridge to study broadcasting, but left after she was selected from a pool of girls at auditions for the Los Angeles Lakers' famed Laker Girls squad. After she was named head choreographer she quit school. As a cheerleader whe was visible to many people in th eentertainment field and in 1984 she was chosen by the Jackson family when she was just 20 to choreograph a music video for their Victory album. Soon she was choreographing videos for acts like Duran Duran, Prince, The Jacksons, Jermaine Jackson, Kool & the Gang, the Pointer Sisters, Steve Winwood, Luther Vandross, INXS, Debbie Gibson, ZZ Top, George Michael and Dolly Parton. She also choreographed dance sequences in the films Coming to America, The Running Man and American Beauty, as well as Cuba Gooding Jr.'s touchdown celebration in Jerry Maguire, the giant keyboard sequence involving Tom Hanks’ character in Big, and The King's touchdown celebration, as seen in a string of popular Burger King television commercials that aired during the 2005-2006 NFL season.

By 1987 MTV and the music video genre were well established due impart to her own contributions to the medium. Judging that the time was right Paula invested $35,000 of her own savings to make a demo of herself singing. Even though she lacked vocal training her dancing ability made her a very marketable commodity. In 1988 she released her first album Forever Your Girl. The album took 62 weeks to reach the top of the charts, making it the longest duration of time any album took to reach the top, where it stayed for 10 weeks. The album spawned 5 top singles "Straight Up", "Forever Your Girl", "Cold Hearted", "(It's Just) The Way That You Love Me", and "Opposites Attract."

After a court case, claiming that a backup singer's voice was blended with Abdul's on several tracks, was settled in favor of Virgin Records, Abdul released her second album 1991's Spellbound. The alum sold 6 million copies and included hits like "Rush, Rush" which topped the Billboard charts for 5 weeks. After some weighty problems due impart to her bulimia Paula released Head Over Heels in 1995 including modest hit singles "My Love Is for Real," "Crazy Cool," and "Ain't Never Gonna Give You Up." In 2000 she released her Greatest Hits cd which did not fare well. In 2002 she appeared, along with Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson, as one of the three judges on the reality series American Idol.

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