Vanity (singer)

Vanity began entering local beauty pageants before moving to Toronto, where she modeled. She won the Miss Niagara Hospitality title in 1977[7] and went on to compete for Miss Canada in 1978. At age 17, she moved to New York City to further her career. She signed with Zoli Model Agency. However, because she was short in stature, her modeling career was limited to commercials and photo shoots and included no runway work. Vanity appeared in ads for Pearl Drops toothpaste, before completing a modeling stint in Japan.

In 1980, she had a small role in the horror movie Terror Train, which was filmed in Montreal a year earlier. She then went to Toronto to film the lead role in the B-movie Tanya's Island. At the time of both film roles, she was billed as D. D. Winters. She met Prince when she was Rick James' date at the American Music Awards.[8] Prince renamed her Vanity, as he considered her to be the female form of himself. After learning that Vanity could sing, Prince asked her to become the lead singer of the girl group Vanity 6.[8] "Prince created the whole Vanity Six image. It bothered me at the time. I lied and said it was the image I wanted. I did it because he told me I had to do it. If I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t get paid. I got into it. I wanted the old Diana Ross image," she said.[6] Vanity 6 recorded one album, and had some success internationally with the single "Nasty Girl". Vanity then left the group (and Prince's organization), and signed with Motown Records as a solo artist in 1984. She released two albums for Motown in the mid-1980s, and had mild success on the US pop and R&B charts with a handful of singles.

After her music career started, as Vanity she starred in a number of movies, including The Last Dragon (1985), which featured her underground hit "7th Heaven." In 1986 she starred in Never Too Young to Die opposite John Stamos. She went on to appear in 52 Pick-Up and 1988's Action Jackson, her highest profile role, in which she starred opposite Carl Weathers, Craig T. Nelson, and Sharon Stone. From the mid–1980s to the early–1990s, Vanity guest–starred on numerous TV shows. She played a villain who tortured Nancy Allen's character in the 1990 TV movie Memories of Murder, guest-starred in an episode of Miami Vice's third season, and in 1992 appeared in an episode of Highlander: The Series. She also appeared in Friday the 13th: The Series in the episode entitled "Mesmer's Bauble". She appeared nude in Playboy in April 1988.

In early 1992, Vanity became a born-again Christian, and explained in several interviews that she would not take any more sexualized roles. Her roles in 1992's Lady Boss and Highlander: The Series had Matthews play different kinds of characters. Simultaneously, she renounced her stage name Vanity and reverted to Denise once again. She traveled extensively throughout the South with her friend/agent Benjamin Jimerson-Phillips, giving her testimony of conversion to Jesus Christ. In 1994, Matthews was hospitalized for three months for near-fatal kidney failure from a drug overdose. She recalled later that after being rushed to the hospital, doctors said she had three days to live while on life support. Her friend Benjamin Jimerson-Phillips was by her hospital bedside. Later it was revealed, he was the one who notified Prince by Western Union Telegram that she had been hospitalized. She stated that Jesus appeared to her at this time and spoke to her, saying that if she promised to abandon her Vanity persona, he would save her. Upon her recovery, she fully ended her performing career and devoted herself to being a born-again Christian. In 1995, she said, "When I came to the Lord Jesus Christ, I threw out about 1,000 tapes of mine— every interview, every tape, every video, everything."[14] Jimerson-Phillips stated: "I was there at her apartment at The Grand in Sherman Oaks, when she just started dumping things down the incinerator. I grabbed some of the items including a painting titled Tailspin, by famed artist Olivia; a cassette hand painted by Prince of unreleased music; and an assortment of other items I didn’t want to see go into the trash. I even had to go down to the office and ask them to retrieve her gold album she had thrown away." She stated that she had chosen not to receive any further revenue from her work as Vanity, and cut off all ties with Hollywood and her former life in show business.[15] After a kidney transplant in 1997, she dedicated the rest of her life full-time to Christ. She made speaking engagements at churches across the United States and worldwide. In 2010, she released her autobiography, Blame It On Vanity: Hollywood, Hell and Heaven, in which she thanks Jimerson.[16]

Due to kidney problems from her 10-year crack cocaine addiction,[12] Matthews had to undergo peritoneal dialysis five times a day (each session was 20 minutes long).[10][15][17] Matthews underwent a kidney transplant in 1997, but her health worsened in 2015 after she was diagnosed with sclerosing encapsulating peritonitis, an inflammatory condition of the peritoneum-a membrane which lines the inner abdomen and the abdominal organs. Matthews died in a Fremont, California, hospital on February 15, 2016, from kidney failure, aged 57.[18] Matthews left much of her estate to her church. A dying wish of hers was to have her ashes scattered over the coast of Hawaii, and for her loved ones to celebrate her life with festivities and "no tears".[5]

• Wild Animal (1984)
• Skin on Skin (1986)

• Vanity 6 (1982)

• 1982: 1999, Prince; "Free" (backing vocals)
• 1982: What Time Is It?, The Time; "The Walk"[22] (spoken vocals)
• 1986: El DeBarge, El DeBarge; "Secrets of the Night" (backing vocals)

Vanity appeared in seven released music videos:

• 1982: "Nasty Girl", "He's So Dull" and "Drive Me Wild"
• 1984: "Pretty Mess"
• 1985: "7th Heaven" (video clips were from the movie The Last Dragon)
• 1986: "Under the Influence"
• 1988: "He Turned Me Out", a song performed by The Pointer Sisters from the soundtrack of Action Jackson. Vanity's co-star in the movie, Carl Weathers, appears alongside her in the video.

• 1985: The Last Dragon; "7th Heaven"
• 1988: Action Jackson; "Undress", "Faraway Eyes", and "Shotgun" with David Koz and featuring vocalist Kareem