Natalie Bassingthwaighte (born 1 September 1975) is an Australian actress, singer, and television personality. She is the former lead vocalist of electro-pop band Rogue Traders, author of a book for teenage girls and host of So You Think You Can Dance Australia. She is perhaps best known for the role of Izzy Hoyland on the soap opera Neighbours from 2003 to 2007, which gained her nominations for the TV Week Gold Logie. Her debut album 1000 Stars debuted at number 1 on 1 March 2009.
Before being cast in Neighbours, Bassingthwaighte had starred in a few television roles, including All Saints, Home and Away, Heartbreak High, The Lost World and So you think you can dance. Bassingthwaighte's character, Izzy Hoyland on Neighbors had an evil streak and often caused trouble, including having an affair with a married man. She left the show in late-2006 to focus on her singing career and joined the Rogue Traders, and returned briefly in March 2007 for a two-week guest stint that was filmed in London where Rogue Traders were touring at the time.
In 2007, Bassingthwaighte filmed a role in the low-budget Australian horror film, Prey, directed by George T. Miller. Set in the Outback of Western Australia, Prey follows a group of six young people lured into the desert by a local character, whose master needs fresh victims to consume. In 2004, Bassingthwaighte filmed a role in the low-budget Australian movie, When Darkness Falls, directed by Rohan Spong. She played the character of Jinx de Luxe and sang the Marilyn Monroe song, "Every Baby Needs a Da Da Daddy," onscreen.
In 2010 she will played a major role in Channel Nine's Underbelly:The Golden Mile.
Bassingthwaighte has performed in many musicals, mostly with a rock flavour including RENT, Footloose she has several times over the past years toured as Sandy in Grease, against Craig McLachlan and Miguel Ayesa, who was her castmate in RENT. Most Grease productions were 'Arena Spectaculars' with many big names presented, instead of focusing on the lead actors. Before joining Rogue Traders, Bassingthwaighte had recorded her own demos that were to be sent out to record labels. Bassingthwaighte described the style of the music as acoustic rock.
From late 2004 to mid 2008 she was the lead singer of an Australian electro-rock group, The Rogue Traders, a band which had limited success before she joined. The Rogue Traders achieved great success with their album Here Come The Drums, which spawned five hit singles: "Voodoo Child", "Way to Go!", "Watching You", "We're Coming Home" and "In Love Again". The success of Rogue Traders led to their third album, titled Better in the Dark and was released on the 13 October 2007 in Australia, later in Europe and America which was well received. Better in the Dark spawned two hit singles: "Don't You Wanna Feel" and "I Never Liked You". A third single, "What You're On", reached a lowly position of #30 and spent only 7 weeks in the charts. A fourth single was to be released despite the poor performance of their last single. It would have been released if Natalie would continue with the band. It was confirmed by James Ash to be "On Your Way To The Disco".
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