Skip to main content /SHOWBIZ
CNN.com /SHOWBIZ
CNN TV
EDITIONS





People

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Sheena Easton sings in Sin City, raises kids

Viva Las Vegas

Easton
Sheena Easton in March 2001. Inset: Easton back in 1983.  


By Serena Kappes
PEOPLE

(PEOPLE) -- When you think of Las Vegas, images of Wayne Newton and Elvis probably come to mind first. But here's another performer to add to the roster of stars whose names have appeared in lights along Sin City's famed Strip: Sheena Easton.

Like fellow songstress Celine Dion, Scottish-born Easton, 43 -- who once topped the charts with songs such as 1981's "Morning Train (Nine to Five)" and gained notoriety as a Prince paramour (the two teamed up for the 1987 duet "U Got the Look" and he wrote her ultra-sexy hit "Sugar Walls") -- moved to Vegas to be able to perform regularly and to have a schedule that would allow her time with her children. "Since my kids came along I have been trying to find ways to meld my two loves together, and Las Vegas is one of the few places on Earth that I can work and raise a family," she wrote recently on her Web site about her move from L.A. to the Las Vegas Hilton.

When the thrice-married singer (her most recent marriage, to documentarian Timothy Delarm, ended in 1998 after 11 months) adopted her first child, Jake, now 8, in 1994, she was single. "I wanted to be a mom, and I wasn't in a relationship with someone I wanted to marry," she told PEOPLE in 1995. "I thought, it's crazy for me to wait when I've got the love here ready for a kid who's looking for a mom." She adopted daughter Skylar, now 6, in 1996.

Starting out in Scotland

MORE STORIES
PEOPLE COVER STORY: Sharon Osbourne takes on colon cancer 

More from PEOPLE.COM 
 
RESOURCES
PEOPLE.COM PROFILE: Get to know Leonardo DiCaprio 
 
E-MAIL
Want more from PEOPLE.COM? Sign up  for free e-mails
 

Born Sheena Shirley Orr in Belshill, Scotland, Easton was the youngest of six children to Alex, a steel-mill worker who died in 1969, and Annie, a laborer. While a student at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 1979, Easton was filmed by the BBC for the documentary "The Big Time," which followed her attempts to become a pop singer. That year, she auditioned for and got a contract with EMI Records.

Two years later she hit No. 1 in the United States with "Morning Train." Throughout the '80s and '90s, Easton (who kept her last name from her first marriage, to actor Sandi Easton) continued her rise to fame with two Grammys, including one for her Spanish-language duet "Me Gustas Tal Como Eres" with Latin star Luis Miguel in 1985. She also tried acting (playing Don Johnson's wife on "Miami Vice") and musical theater (in Broadway's "Man of La Mancha" and "Grease"), and became a spokeswoman for Jack LaLanne's fitness centers. In 1992, she became a U.S. citizen.

Now no longer front and center in the public eye, Easton -- whose most recent album, "Fabulous," was released in the U.K. in 2000 -- is content in Las Vegas, where she plans to reside for the next several years; her Hilton show is scheduled to run until the end of 2002. With no immediate plans to record another album, the single-again Easton (who is dating someone but prefers not to name him) is letting her fans do the legwork to come and see her strut her stuff.

Robin Hindery contributed to this report.


For more Where Are They Now? stories, visit PEOPLE.COM


 
 
 
 



RELATED SITES:

 Search   

Back to the top