RSS 2.0 FeedFebruary 17, 2011, Bellmore Life
Kennedy grad: Going Gaga over Grammy award
GAGA OVER GRAMMY: Kennedy High School graduate Nicole Ehrlich earned a Grammy award on Sunday for her short form music video “Bad Romance” starring Lady Gaga.
Nicole Erhlich, a 1993 graduate of Kennedy High School, won a Grammy award for her short form music video “Bad Romance” featuring Lady Gaga.
Ms. Ehrlich, a vice-president at Universal Music Group/Interscope/Geffen/
A&M, told Bellmore Life of her Grammy win, “It was spectacular. This is certainly the cherry on top of a sundae.”
While unable to attend the Grammys in Los Angeles due to her work schedule, she did share her win with her family in New York. “It was a wonderful win,” said Nicole’s mother, Beverly.
Ms. Ehrlich called her high school years at Kennedy “the greatest high school experiences.” She was president of her senior class, and paid particular homage to her basketball teacher, the late Rick Hamilton. “His death was unbelievably sad for me,” she said. “He changed my life, he was always there for me,” adding, “He was like my second father.”
She said he believed in her abilities. “He gave me a little extra confidence,” even as she said that she felt quite confident as a teen going through high school.
“Mr. Hamilton will always be a part of my life,” she said.
Growing up in a family that loved entertainment, whether music, film or the theater, she said they pushed the creative envelope from “opera to The Doors.”
From that fertile ground came an interest in film. “I like to make things,” she told Bellmore Life. In Spanish class, for example, she and her friends made a video as a class project rather than write a paper.
“I was really fortunate in high school to be with such a supportive group of friends,” she continued. “Everyone seemed so open-minded then,” she said, which was conducive to exploring her budding talents in the arts, especially video.
It lead to her winning Best Young Media Artist at the Utah Short Film Festival, and Best Experimental Film at the New Orleans Film Festival, both at the age of 17, once she began attending Smith College.
Of Lady Gaga, she would not say much due to contractual obligations. But she did say of the current subject of her videos that “I am inspired by her every single day. I get to feel her presence in my life.”
Besides working with Lady Gaga, she has worked on music videos, TV specials, documentaries, live concerts, commercials and photo shoots with such artists as Beyonce, Snoop Dogg, The Cure, Blink-182, Quincy Jones, Mary J. Blige, Rufus Wainwright, Nelly Furtado, Timbaland, Enrique Iglesias and Weezer, to name a few.
She demurred on her Grammy win, saying instead that in her work as director and creative producer she is only trying to “make sure she can actualize everyone’s vision of what they want to see” in the finished work.
Bellmore Life congratulates her on this pinnacle of her career.
