Toni Basil

[www.doyouremember.co.uk]

Female singer who had a one hit wonder with 'Hey Mickey'. Guess who bought it lol

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[Seventies Child]

Re: Toni Basil

I still love this song!

[Trickyvee]

Re: Toni Basil

Me too. It's probably the first pop song I have a real memory of. When I hear it I'm take back to a fairground I visited as a child where it was always playing.

[stevef]

Re: Toni Basil

Yeah and she was about 38 when she did the song! She started off in acting during the 60's, with probably her most well known movie being 'Easy Rider' alongside the late Dennis Hopper R.I.P., Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson.

[George 1978]

I was racking my brains as to whether I actually started a thread about Toni Basil on here in the past myself, but now I have found this one, I don't need to... Watching her perform Mickey, I used to think that she was around 16-18 when she performed it in 1982, but as she was born in around 1943, I couldn't believe it myself - it is so sobering and almost shocking to realise that Toni Basil was close to 40 when she was performing like a teenager! I know she wasn't taking the Mickey as such... Mind you, look at Tina Turner when she perfoermed! And now, Toni Basil is over 80! Where has the time gone? It is sobering for example that Shakin' Stevens is in his 70s now. You think that pop stars from the past don't grow old, and that they remain around 25-30 years old for the rest of their lives.

It's amazing watching the Mickey video on YouTube - we were in an era of Fame, pink leggings, legwarmers and Jane Fonda keep-fit videos - Basil was doing cartwheels and handstands in an almost empty white studio like a teenage schoolgirl despite being close to middle-age, and she was also wearing a cheerleaders' outfit as well which wouldn't have stood out in an episode of Glee had she been around 15 years younger. It just shows you how long ago it was since Toni Basil did her thing - I ordered a Basil CD in 2020, and I ordered two of them by mistake and so I posted the other one to a friend in Wales as a Christmas present. She mentioned that she never heard of her as it was before her time - Mickey was in the charts six years before she was born which is understandable.

I like to think that Basil was playing a character who was indeed around 16-18 years of age.

[Richard1978]

Toni was usually a chorographer & I guess kept in trim for arranging dance routines.