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POP STAR BRINGS RUSSIAN HEAT TO JACKIE GLEASON
"Who is Leonid Brezhnev?" The answer: "A minor political figure
in the Pugacheva era".
So who is Pugacheva? So who is Pugacheva?
The mere question is blasphemy to many Russians, for Alla Pugacheva is not only the biggest star in Russian pop, but she may well be the biggest star in pop, period.
At 50, Pugacheva has reportedly sold more than 140 million albums - almost as many as the Beatles or Michael Jackson - most of them in the former Soviet Union and Russia.
But Pugacheva, who makes her first South Florida appearance tonight at the Jackie Gleason Theater in Miami Beach, is little known in the United States.
She's on a mission to change that through a series of U.S. concerts, most of them in Russian immigrant enclaves.
In the meantime, however, Pugacheva continues to reign supreme in her homeland - as she has for 25 years.
It isn't just her music, a Russian mix of pop, rock and torch songs. It's also Pugacheva herself, whose fiery red locks and matching temperament set her apart from the crowd.
Although Pugacheva was never a dissident, her suggestive love songs and sexy stage demeanor offered a great contrast to the staidness of Soviet-era officials.
Pugacheva was also the first bona fide Russian pop star in the way she lived.
She's had four husbands, for example, and has aggressively marketed herself - there are shoes, perfume and even an unauthorized biography (a first for Russia) that carry her name.
She is, former music critic Artyom Troitsky told The New York Times, "the most popular human being in Russia."
As if to corroborate, in 1991 Pugacheva became the National Artist of the USSR, the highest honor an artist could achieve in the old Soviet Union. And last year, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin awarded her a medal for "service to the fatherland," Russia's highest civilian award.
At the time, Yeltsin joked that he would be remembered as "one of the political leaders of the era of Pugacheva." A year later, his prediction has come true.
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