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Yahoo!'s Web Celeb Fiona Apple The beautiful blue-eyed 20 year old Fiona Apple, songwriter/musician/singer is a Manhattan native. The hit LP entitled Tidal, with over 1.5 million sales, combine the confessional images with solid craftsmanship. The songs are of a deeply personal nature including "Sleep To Dream", the opening song of her album where she lashes out at her former lover. Other songs were either written when she was 15 or drawn out of experiences from that time, including the song "Sullen Girl," which is based on the time she was raped at age 12. There is almost a torch-song tension to her music. Her vocals have been compared to such major artists as Laura Nyro and Nina Simone. When the waif-like girl with the pierced navel performs she uses alluring body language that may seem far too advanced for someone her age. She is a woman-child with her 5 ft. 2 inch, 102 lb. body. A product of a broken home Fiona's parents split when she was 4. Fiona Apple uses her first two given names rather than choosing between the last names of her parents who never married. Her songs are the story of her relationships and her life. She has been in therapy since she was 8 years old. Fiona began writing as an outlet to the letters she used to write out of frustration to parents and friends when she felt they were not listening to her. She hated looking in the mirror and going to school because the kids called her "ugly" and "dog." She skipped school 100 times one year. Known for her outspoken manner she has been likened to a "public relations Molotov cocktail." Her jarring acceptance speech for the Best New Artist at the MTV Video Music Awards shocked many. Celebrity on the Web     Yahoo!'s Fiona Category     UnfURLed's Ultimate Fiona Page     Today's Entertainment News     Billboard Music Charts    Other Celebrity Web Sites    The BIZ Message Board   Her father, Brandon Maggart, is an actor who moved to L.A. in 1974 to pursue movies and television. Her mom, Diane McAfee, stayed in New York where she worked at many jobs. Apple and her older sister Amber, lived with their mother who eventually remarried. Summers were often spent with their father in L.A. Apple was unhappy in NY and transferred to high school in LA in her sophomore year. Unfortunately, she was unhappy there too so she returned to New York. Her relief was in playing the piano (she took lessons briefly at around 8 yrs. old but enjoyed improvising even more as an escape into her own world) and listening to albums handed down to her by her parents. They ranged from the Beatles and Jim Hendrix to Ella Fitzgerald and Joan Armatrading. Fiona did not think about music as a career until her final year of high school, when she realized in essence this was her only option. She had been miserable in school and did not look forward to attending college. In the fall of 1995 she went into a recording studio in Venice and spent three days making a three-song demo that cost about $1,500, and ended up with 75 copies of the tape. It only took one tape to launch her career. A friend of Apple's passed on the tape to Kathryn Schenker, a high-powered New York publicist who passed it on to the manager of the Wallflowers, Andrew Slater who in turn sent the tape to WORK/Clean Slate Records, a division of Sony Records. Together they launched her career with marketing and ad campaigns. Her debut LP took eight months to produce. The albums release in 1996 was critically acclaimed but her popularity grew chiefly through the strength of her live shows. Her tours will take her to Europe, Japan and Australia. She says she may try acting in the future although currently absorbed by her music and album. The woman with the angry, self-obsessed image has come a long way from the awkward young girl. She is finally proud of herself and can stand up to the scrutiny of anybody-- including the press and audiences. Another UN Production Past Web Celebs: Laurie Plaskin, Andrew Shue, Calvert Deforest, Yasmine Bleeth, Howard Stern, Pamela Lee Anderson, David Letterman, Cindy Margolis, Will Smith, Kate Mulgrew, Jewel, Chris Rock, Rosie O'Donnell, Pierce Brosnan, and Tracey Ullman. Also check out Yahoo! NY Model of the Month and Yahoo! Chicago Blues Review. Yahoo! and the Yahoo! logo are trademarks of Yahoo! Inc. Copyright © 1994-97 Yahoo! All Rights Reserved.