Ayshea

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Ayshea (pronounced A-sha) was the stage name of Ayshea Brough. She was a British singer, model, actress and television presenter, born in London on 12 November 1948, although her year of birth was sometimes given as 1951 for publicity purposes. As a presenter of Lift Off, the children's pop show which ran on ITV from 1969 to 1974, she introduced current pop acts and also had her own singing slot, and was one of the few British Asians on television at that time. She wrote a weekly column related to Lift Off in the children's magazine Look-in.

Towards the end of its run, the show was renamed Lift Off with Ayshea. Ayshea sang with Roy Wood of Wizzard several times on the show. She was even rumoured to have married him at one point. Wood wrote, produced and played all the instruments on her 1973 single "Farewell". Lift Off with Ayshea was also notable for the first TV performance of "Starman" by David Bowie in 1972, the tape of which is now wiped.

Ayshea also played a character called Ayshea (also referred to as Lt Johnson) in the Gerry Anderson science fiction TV drama UFO in 1970. During filming she recorded several singles and an album, but they did not sell well. Ayshea was married to record producer Chris Brough, who had managed Cat Stevens in the 1960s. Her father-in-law was Peter Brough, a popular music hall ventriloquist.

More recent facts about Ayshea are difficult to confirm, and all are hearsay. She is reported to have moved to California in 1983, where she was married to film producer Michael I. Levy from 1985 to 1990. After her divorce, Ayshea started her own interior design business in Beverley Hills.

She now lives in Grantham England where she is a property developer.

• Ayshea at the Internet Movie Database