Faye Louise Tozer is an English singer-songwriter, dancer and actress, best known a member of British pop group Steps.
Career
Music
Steps were a pop group that had a series of charted singles between 1997 and 2001. Their name was based on the gimmick: each of their music videos were choreographed, and the dance steps were included with most of their single releases. Steps performed from May 1997 to December 2001. Steps sold over 25 million records, including 15 million albums. Since Steps split Tozer has returned to the pop charts once, duetting with Russell Watson. Their UK single "Someone Like You" charted at No. 10 in May 2002 and she joined him on his UK tour around the same time. In 2006, Tozer was featured as a guest vocalist for Plastic Cinema for two songs: "Take Me Under" and "Any Minute Now". Steps released their Ultimate Collection in 2011 which became the band's third number one album.
Film and theatre
Tozer has combined a pop career with theatre work and acting. In 2004 she made her professional musical-theatre debut in a national tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber's one-woman musical Tell Me on a Sunday. She and Patsy Palmer alternated in the role. Tozer toured with the musical Love Shack, which also featured former pop singers Jon Lee and Noel Sullivan, and soon after starred as Jubilee Climax in a production of Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens at The Venue Leicester Square in London's West End. In 2006 she toured in a production of Me and My Girl, acted in the film Lady Godiva Back in the Saddle and appeared in the charity fitness DVD The Allstar Workout. In 2007, Tozer appeared in a production of Dial M for Murder and in October began touring with the production Over the Rainbow - the Eva Cassidy Story playing Eva Cassidy. At Christmas 2007, she appeared in the pantomime Aladdin at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle. Over Christmas 2008, Tozer played alongside X Factor finalist Ray Quinn in Aladdin, at the Broadway Theatre in Peterborough. Tozer has filmed roles in the independent films Kung Fu Flid & Mixed Up. In 2010, Tozer appeared in "In The Spotlight - Songs From The Musicals" which completed a UK tour, directed by Karen Edwards and choreographed by Tom Gribby. In December 2010 she starred in Aladdin at the Grove Theatre in her home town of Dunstable. In 2011 Tozer starred alongside her fellow Steps group member Ian "H" Watkins in a UK premier tour of Rhinestone Mondays. The musical was the first Country and Western to be produced with Tozer playing the part of Annie. In 2013 Tozer starred in the musical The Tailor-Made Man at the Arts Theatre in London's West End for a limited 8-week run. She played the part of silent movie starMarion Davies. Tozer is played the role of Miss Hedge in Everybody's Talking About Jamie in London's Apollo Theatre in the West End.
Television
Tozer appeared on the fifth series of Big Star's Little Star with her son Benjamin. From September 2018 Tozer participated in the sixteenth series of Strictly Come Dancing where her professional dance partner was Giovanni Pernice. The couple were joint runners up in the final. She appeared on a celebrity special of the classic game showCatchphrase, with Sir Chris Hoy, Martine McCutcheon hosted by Stephen Mulhern all trying to guess the familiar phrases. ;*Green number indicates Faye & Giovanni were at the top of the leaderboard.
In 2002, she married her longtime Danish boyfriend Jesper Irn at the Priory Church in Dunstable, Bedfordshire. They divorced after five years. On 24 February 2009, she gave birth to her first child, named Benjamin Barrington Tozer-Smith. On 5 December 2009, Tozer married Michael Smith in a ceremony at Beamish Hall, televised on an episode of Celebrity Four Weddings.
