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Famous Like Me > Actress > M > Rita MacNeil

Profile of Rita MacNeil on Famous Like Me

 
Name: Rita MacNeil  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 28th May 1944
   
Place of Birth: Big Pond, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada
   
Profession: Actress
 
 
From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia

Rita MacNeil (born May 28, 1944 in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia) is a Canadian country and folk singer. Her biggest hit, "Flying On Your Own", was a crossover Top 40 hit in 1987, although she has had hits on the country charts throughout her career.

Rita MacNeil album

She has continued to be a popular figure in Canadian music. In 1990, she was the bestselling country artist in Canada, outselling even Garth Brooks and Clint Black. She is also the only female singer ever to have three separate albums chart in the same year in Australia.

MacNeil first performed on stage in 1971, and recorded her first album, Born a Woman, in 1975. She performed at folk festivals throughout the 1970s and 1980s, culminating in her major label debut and pop breakthrough in 1987.

MacNeil is one of Canada's most unlikely music stars; she was born with a cleft palate and is significantly overweight. Although she has sometimes been subjected to fat jokes (one particularly common one is to render her name as "Eata BigMeal"), she is also widely admired for her gracious personality and her perseverance. When a newspaper columnist in Philadelphia made fun of MacNeil's weight after she sang "O Canada" at a game in the 1993 World Series, his comments caused considerable controversy in Canada. (The columnist had written that MacNeil looked like she could only be moved by forklift; MacNeil subsequently commented that if she were asked to sing the national anthem at another game, she would make being carried out onto the field by forklift a condition of her acceptance.)

MacNeil hosted a CBC television variety show, Rita and Friends, from 1994 to 1997. She also runs a tea room in her hometown of Big Pond, which has become one of Cape Breton Island's most popular tourist attractions.

She was inducted into the Order of Canada in 1992.

Discography

  • Born a Woman (1975)
  • Part of the Mystery (1981)
  • I'm Not What I Seem (1983)
  • Flying On Your Own (1987)
  • Reason to Believe (1988)
  • Now the Bells Ring (1988)
  • Rita (1989)
  • Home I'll Be (1990)
  • Thinking of You (1992)
  • Once Upon a Christmas (1993)
  • Volume 1 - Songs from the Collection (1994, greatest hits)
  • Porch Songs (1995)
  • Joyful Sounds (1996)
  • Music of a Thousand Nights (1997)
  • Full Circle (1998)
  • A Night at the Orpheum (1999)
  • Mining the Soul (2000)
  • Late December (2002)
  • Common Dream (2002)
  • The Ultimate Collection (2004, greatest hits)
  • Blue Roses (2004)

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Rita MacNeil