Cherry Vanilla

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Cherry Vanilla

Background information
Birth name	Kathy Dorritie
Born	1943 (age 64–65), New York, US
Genre(s)	Punk rock, glam rock
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter
Instrument(s)	Singing
Label(s)	RCA Records
Associated acts	The Police David Bowie
Website	Official site

Cherry Vanilla (born Kathy Dorritie) is an publicist, singer-songwriter and early 1970's Glam rock star. She has worked as David Bowie’s publicist and previously also performed in Andy Warhol's stage show Pork.

1 Career
2 Filmography
3 Discography
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Career

Warhol's Pork starring Vanilla and Wayne (now Jayne) County, is cited as a direct influence on Bowie's change from floppy hatted folk singer to outrageous glitter queen in 71/72.

Vanilla was the first female to front a rock band on the NY scene, ahead of Patti Smith and Blondie (who were threatened enough by Cherry's front runner status at the time that they wrote a song about it, "Rip Her To Shreds".) Her high profile in NY was the impetus for Miles Copeland to invite her to England, using her as allure to attract attention to the then unknown band, The Police.

After parting ways with Bowie in the mid 70's, she moved to London (in 1976), becoming part of the emerging punk scene and releasing two albums on RCA Records. The Cherry Vanilla Band consisted of bassist Gordon "Sting" Sumner, guitarist Henry Padovani, drummer Stewart Copeland (who soon went on to achieve global success as The Police, with Andy Summers in Padovani's place), guitarist (and then-boyfriend) Louis Lepore and keyboard player Zecca Esquibel.

In 1980 she performed the narrative on Vangelis' "Not A Bit - All Of It" (from his "See You Later" album). She then ran his American office. ^[1]

In 1987, she was the composer in the boxing club documentary film Broken Noses.