Réjane Magloire

Réjane Magloire aka Reggie (28 November 1964 – October 2023) was a Congolese–American singer, model, and actress.

Biography

Réjane Magloire was born in November 1964 in Likasi, Zaïre (now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo), but grew up in New York City, United States. She studied Western classical music with heavy emphasis on opera singing. Both her parents are Haitian.

As an actress, Magloire had early exposure on television in commercials and went on to play Samantha, a member of the Short Circus, on the TV series The Electric Company^[1] from 1975 to the end of production in 1977 (she replaced Melanie Henderson). PBS stations continued airing reruns of The Electric Company through 1985.

In the early 1980’s, a producer in Belgium, named Gordon Edwards, had just produced a hit song for the pop artist Nathalie Gabay also known as Nathalie, who released the hit song “My Love Won’t Let You Down” or as it famously known in French as “ Mon Coeur Qui Craque.” Nathalie and Réjane Magloire aka Reggie, appeared on television around the same time, which is when producer Gordon Edwards had first heard of her, as she was a part of the famous group, “Indeep”. The group had a hit song called “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life”. Ultimately, the group went idle, only riding on the coat tails of their one hit wonder.

Gordon Edwards met then famous producer, Mark Kamins who had produced songs for world renowned pop star, Madonna. One day, Kamins came to Edwards with a demo that was meant for Madonna but he indicated that Madonna was not going to and had no interest to release the song. Edwards heard the demo and knew that this was going to be a hit and wanted Reggie on the song immediately. Edwards signed Reggie to record the song and to shoot a video for it. The song is “Into the Groove.” Reggie recorded the song, with intentions of releasing it, but Madonna decided to release it as a single. On July 13, 1985, Madonna performed the hit for the first time at Live Aid in front of 100,000 people. Days later, the song reached number 1 on the charts and as of today still remains as Madonnas best selling single. Gordon Edwards and Reggie had no idea she decided to keep the hit. The two had already filmed a music video for the song, set to be released not long after Live Aid. After this, record labels started to pull of out of their contracts with Reggie ultimately permanently postponing the project. In spite of the song being widely known for it being a Madonna record, Reggie’s take on the hit song is out on all streaming platforms. She later released other songs such as "Whole Lotta Love" and 'New York Liberty" which was the anthem of the WNBA. She also joined the studio-based Belgian project Technotronic and appeared on their 1991 album Body to Body. In 2005, she released the solo album Forbidden Opera (Virgin Classics/EMI Records), a fusion of opera and contemporary R&B.

In March 2024, it was revealed that Magloire had died of a heart attack in October 2023 in Cambodia.^[2]

References

External links

• Réjane Magloire at IMDb

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