Amanda Lear - Early Life

Early Life

Lear's origins are unclear. Contested facts include her birthdate, her birth sex, the names and nationalities of her parents and the location of her upbringing. Raised speaking French and English, she learned German, Spanish and Italian in her teens, languages she later was able to use in her professional life. According to Lear's official biography she relocated to Paris at the end of elementary school to study at Académie des Beaux-Arts, before joining St. Martins School of Art in London in 1964.

Lear's alleged transsexual background has been commented upon in the media and in the biographies of those who knew Lear earlier in her life. April Ashley, a transsexual woman who was once a Liverpudlian seaman, has long claimed that she worked with Lear in the 1950s at Le Carrousel, a transvestite revue in Paris. In her book, April Ashley's Odyssey, she recalls a man named Alain Tapp, stage-name Peki d'Oslo, who later became Amanda Lear. It has been verified that an Alain Louis Maurice Rene Tap was born in Saigon on 16 June 1939. Furthermore, Lear's real name is given as "Amanda Tapp dite Amanda Lear" on a French government list of those awarded honours in the field of arts.

According to Ashley, Dali met d'Oslo/Tap/Tapp at Le Carrousel in 1959, but at the time of the book's release Ashley and Lear had not spoken to each other for years.