Yvonne Elliman

Yvonne Marianne Elliman (born December 29, 1951) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress who performed for four years in the first cast of the stage musical Jesus Christ Superstar. She scored a number of hits in the 1970s and achieved a U.S. No. 1 hit with "If I Can't Have You". The song also reached No. 9 on the Adult Contemporary chart and number 4 on the UK Singles Chart. Her cover of Barbara Lewis's "Hello Stranger" went to No. 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and "Love Me" was No. 5; at the time she had three top-ten singles. After a long hiatus in the 1980s and 1990s, during which she left music to be with her family, she made a comeback album as a singer-songwriter in 2004.

Yvonne Marianne Elliman was born on December 29, 1951 and raised in the Manoa neighborhood of Honolulu, Hawaii. Her mother was of Japanese and Chinese ancestry, and her father, a salesman for Best Foods, was of Irish descent. Elliman showed interest in music from an early age, playing the ukulele by age four and taking piano lessons at age seven. While attending President Theodore Roosevelt High School, Elliman performed in the school band on upright bass and violin. However, she became most proficient on the guitar and performed as a singer and guitarist in a folk music band named We Folk, which she formed with schoolmates. The band fared well competing in local talent shows.

According to Elliman she was truant during her senior year at high school but graduated owing to the intervention of Peter Wilcox, the school's British-born band teacher, who persuaded her teachers to allow her to pass. He encouraged 17-year-old Elliman to relocate to London and pursue a musical career, which she did shortly after graduating.

Elliman's singing career began in 1969 in London, performing in bars and clubs. At the time she did not like what she was singing. "I hated the music then", she recalled in a 1973 interview, adding, "I did it for the bread. I was into drugs and all that, and thought Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane was it". Still an unknown, she was discovered by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, who asked her to sing Mary Magdalene's part for the original audio recording of Jesus Christ Superstar. Ian Gillan was featured singing as Jesus. After its release as an album in 1970, they invited her to join the stage show's travelling cast, which she did for four years.

She had her first Billboard Hot 100 hit single in 1971 with the ballad "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar. Her original version was not issued as a single until a cover version by Helen Reddy started moving up the U.S. charts; appearing concurrently on the charts (a rare event, not common since the 1950s when different releases played in different parts of the United States), Elliman's original peaked at #28, while Reddy's cover peaked at #13. In the end Elliman performed on the 1970 concept album, with the original Broadway cast (1971), and in the 1973 film. She and Barry Dennen were the only cast members to feature in all three versions of the project. Her performance in the film as Mary Magdalene led to her being nominated for a 1974 Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Comedy or Musical.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.