Fergie says her life changed when she discovered Annie and its star, Andrea McArdle
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Permalink Reply by Julie Stevens on -
Fergie grew up in a Los Angeles suburb dreaming of belting out show tunes. Her mother was a fan of musicals and took her to most of the bigger shows when they came to the city. She says that her life changed when she discovered Annie and its star, Andrea McArdle.
“My mother took me to see the classic revivals like West Side Story and Sweet Charity, but when I saw Annie it was over, because there were kids my age on the stage. She bought me the Andrea McArdle album from the original show and I would play it over and over. I would mimic her, and she had a very powerful voice. I was little but I wanted to sound as powerful as she did. It’s funny because when I made this movie, I felt like I had come full circle.”
Fergie started singing in grocery stores and performing for anyone who would watch her. At the age of eight, she told her mother that she wanted to perform on-stage. “I was one of those very lucky people who knew what she wanted to do at a very young age. I told my mother, ‘Mommy, I don’t want to be in the audience anymore.’ I wasn’t one bit shy. I just wanted to perform. I did a lot of child acting and I did commercials and I did the voices of Sally Brown and Lucy Van Pelt in Peanuts cartoons. When I was nine, I was hired to do a series called Kids Incorporated . It was a Mickey Mouse Club kind of show where you sing and act. I did some very bad acting as a child.”
Six years later, the show was being phased out and she started to look for more work. She was 15 when one of the girls from the show contacted her and told her there was a girl group being formed and that the two of them should audition. They talked to another friend from the show, showed up together, and got the job. But she still had the acting bug. Whenever she had time, she would look at ways of getting back to her original ambition.
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Permalink Reply by Sara S on -
I was a fan of Stacy aka Fergie on Kids Inc. when I was a kid. She had a strong voice and I loved her singing the most of all. I bought the Kids Inc. records just to hear Stacy sing on them. It really doesn't surprise me that she was inspired by Andrea at all! Actually if the oppotunity happened for her at the time, Stacy easily could have done well playing Annie or an orphan on Broadway.
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