Stephanie de Sykes

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Stephanie de Sykes (born Stephanie Ryton,^[1] 1948) is a British singer, and was once a girlfriend of Angus Deayton. She had a hit in 1974 with the Simon May penned "Born With a Smile on My Face" which reached Number 2 in the UK Singles Chart ^[2]. She also recorded the theme tune to the TV programme The Golden Shot with the group 'Rain' that same year.^[3] The theme song, "Golden Day" was written for them by Lynsey De Paul and Barry Blue.^[3] De Sykes returned to the UK Top 20 a year later as a solo artist with the song "We'll Find Our Day" from Crossroads, which was featured at Meg Mortimer's wedding in the UK TV soap opera in 1975. De Sykes appeared in the show as singer "Holly Brown". She also had a starring role in the glam rock inspired film Side by Side.^[1]

De Sykes lived with Stuart Slater (born Stuart Leslie James Slater, 14 July 1945, Liverpool), lead singer of The Mojos, with whom she had two children. De Sykes and Slater wrote two UK Eurovision Song Contest entries, Co-Co's "The Bad Old Days"^[3] and Prima Donna's "Love Enough For Two" in 1978 and 1980 respectively. In 1981, she teamed up with Angus Deayton to record a parody of that year's Eurovision winner "Making Your Mind Up" by Bucks Fizz. The song "We're Doing A Send Up" by 'Brown Ale' did not make the UK Singles Chart. De Sykes and Slater had one other song in the UK final, "All Around The World" in 1983, which was performed by Slater, obstensibly as a soloist, but with five musicians, including De Sykes on keyboards and vocals. The song placed fifth of the eight submissions.

She was one of the 'Birds of Paris', a combination of backing singers, used throughout the 1970s to add vocals to a number of disco groups, and artists. The other members of the Birds of Paris included Madeline Bell, Joanne Stone, Kay Garner, Sunny Leslie, Sue Glover, Vicky Brown and Katie Kissoon.

She was once a member of Love & Kisses, a group started by Demis Roussos' producer Alec R Costandinos. She also sang with the group 'Sphinx' and with 'Voyage'.

De Sykes provided background vocals for Meat Loaf's 1984 album Bad Attitude, which included the single "Nowhere Fast".