THE LATEST FOX

“She’s the second best-known woman in Britain--after Margaret Thatcher. Really. There was a poll.”

That’s how an RCA Records rep described 20-year-old Samantha Fox, whose debut album, “Touch Me,” just hit 80 on the Billboard pop chart. (Her single, “Touch Me (I Want Your Body),” is No. 27.)

Ed Strait, product director of Jive Records (a division of RCA), explains her appeal: “She’s the girl next door--who happens to pose topless.”

Indeed, it was Fox’s breasts--not her vocal cords--that made her famous: When she was 16, her mom submitted her photo to the London Sun--famed for its topless Page 3 girls. Three years of Page 3 exposure followed, along with TV guest shots, her own clothing line (a nice irony!), wine bar, etc. And she presented 79,000 to Bob Geldof for African hunger relief--on behalf of Bare-Aid. In Europe, her chest is also her biggest calling card, with lots of busty magazine covers.

But you won’t see that kind of PR campaign here, at least not from Jive records. “We’ve had calls from Playboy--things like that. But we don’t actively solicit that kind of thing,” said Strait, who added that, at this point, her American image is one of “a cute girl with (strategically) torn blue jeans.”