Kim’s not so dumb: she’s sexy… and knows it

“Most girls are aware of their sexuality, unless they’re incredibly dub”. So says rock’s latest female contender, pint-sized pouty Kim Wilde.

Twenty-year-old Kim, wearing mauve spiky heels, patched jeans and an original teddy’s boy coat, was in Sydney last week for a hectic round of promotional meetings with the media. “If I appear sexy on my film clips it’s not because I try to be. That’s just the way I am”, she said. Diminutive Kim – she’s 162cms tall – has had an unusually successful career, particularly when you consider she has never performed live, and her phenomenal chart success in England, Europe and Australia has all happened in the past six months.

Having left art school last year, Kim went straight into a recording studio to record her first single, Kids in America. Following the film clip being produced, Kim found herself with a Top Ten hit, demands for high profile publicity and a ready-made market for more recordings. Since then she has scored another hit and her third record is selling so many copies that it looks like going to Number One right around Europe.

“It all seems to be happening so fast”, she told me. “The only place it’s not happening for me at the moment is in America. I’m going to concentrate on the rest of the world first, and then we’ll go for America – possibly next year. We haven’t done anything live yet, but I hope that comes early next year. We have to get a band together first though.”

Kim has loads of experienced people guidinge her career and they include her father, Marty Wilde. Marty was one of the English pop idols who erupted at the start of the sixties. Like most of them he faded into pop obscurity, concentrating on extensie cabaret work when he stopped churning out the sugar-coated. I listened to my father’s advice on certain things pertaining to the industry”, Kim says. “But I never listen to him or anybody else when it comes to doing my own presentation. I’m pretty stubborn and would prefer to do it my way. After all, they mightn’t be around one day.”

Kim Wilde, dubbed the Brigid Bardot of rock, is insistent that she is a performer and “not just a singer”. “The performance on my film clips is just as important to me as my singing. When I get on the road next year, it’s going to be a life dream come true.”