Born into showbiz

Natalie Conrad was born into show business. It was inevitable that one day she would want to follow in the footsteps of her famous parents. Her father has tried to stop her but in the end even he has had to relent. She spent her childhood in theatres and amongst the stars of stage, screen and television. Her mother Renee starred in many film and television advertisements and was the face of the famous Camay Soap Adverts. Her father is the legend that is and was Jess Conrad, the singer and the 'Golden Boy' of the early seventies. Jess saw Renee on television and it was love at first sight. The couple wed in secret because these were the days of pop culture mania and being married was considered to damage one's image with his millions of fans. One of Natalie's earlier images are those of the family's neighbour. She says, “we practically used to live in Roger Moore's house. Every year he would dress up as Father Christmas but I always knew it was Roger because I would tug his beard and there was the famous dimple in his chin.” As a child she and her sister Sacha, used to go with dad to the different theatres where he was performing. Whilst they were waiting in the dressing room they would dress up in costumes and stage make up and act in front of the mirrors. It was then that she realised that she wanted a career in the media but daddy had different ideas. He didn't realize however how persistent his young daughter was to be in pursuit of her goal. He recalls her first introduction to the stage. She was three and a half years old and had dragged her reluctant parents along to see her perform in the school ballet. Jess recalls: “she was dreadful, she bumped into people and knocked them all flat. I thought that this was the last time that she would ever want to go on stage but obviously I was wrong. When she was ten years old, I was appearing in a photo shoot for Club Med in Morocco. One evening I put her to bed but three hours later as I was watching the cabaret of Hula dancers I was flabbergasted to see Natalie dancing with them in the background – she had bribed them to let her join in.” Natalie is now set to launch herself into a career as a television presenter but she has had a long hard battle with her dad who never wanted her to go into show business. She is a beautiful young lady who has inherited her mother's good looks and her fathers dazzling smile. She is also a businesswoman who in the meantime runs her own freelance hair and make up consultancy. She started her career in hairdressing in 1985 when she trained as a junior at John Frieda's salon at the prestigious Ritz Hotel. From there she progressed to become junior to the most famous hairdresser in all of London, Nicky Clark. Nicky is the favorite hairdresser to royalty and the stars. He does most of the hairstyles for the front covers of the glossy magazines and through him she learned to do hair design for photographic shoots. This inspired her to develop her skills as a make up artist and she has a joint business with a colleague called Belleza and together they work on film and photographic sets. Natalie says: “ours was such a glamorous household and because my parents had always been on the stage or the screen they were used to having make up done every day. By the time I started working as a beauty artist, dad thought that this was a great idea and would steal my mascaras – now I keep my cosmetics under lock and key!” Natalie and her parents have been coming to Majorca for many years now. They love the island. Jess recently starred with Jasper Carrot and Robert Powell in the Robert Winsor Golf Charity, held at the Santa Ponsa Country Club which raised ninety thousand Euros to help buy equipment for the disabled children of Majorca. All of the Conrad family are involved in Charity works. Jess is a leading light at the Variety Club of Great Britain which provides Sunshine Coaches for underprivileged children and is a member of the exclusive club of the Brotherhood of Water Rats which raises money to help actors who are alone and can no longer look after themselves. Renee and Natalie help him in this work. At present the family are buying a house in Majorca and have been looking for some weeks. They could soon be joining the long list of other celebrities on the island like Peter Stringfellow. Claudia Schiffer and Michael Douglas. Natalie is single at the moment; she can never find a boyfriend of whom her father approves. He hates them all. She jokes with him and says, “It's no good dad, I'll have to stop looking because I'm never going to be able to find a boyfriend who is as good as you.”