Daughter of an opera singer, Pat Benatar first studied opera at Juilliard before dropping out to marry her high school sweetheart. Together they moved to New York, but the two soon separated. In the hope of living happily ever after, she remembered her earlier dream of becoming a professional singer and started trying hard to realize it. At night, Benatar worked as a singing waitress. During the day, she knocked at the doors of record companies with her demo tape ( 样带 ) . For three years, she was met with nothing but rejections ( 拒绝 ) from record companies. These record companies were fond of her voice but they said that she was too feminine ( 女性的 ) for the style of music she performed. Then, on Halloween night 1977, Benatar gave a performance dressed as a modern vampire ( 吸血鬼 ). The audience went wild . This experience led Benatar to change her looks. In her later performances, she usually wore black tights and a short black top. The new style made her performances more popular, and gave her a chance to work for Chrysalis Records. Her first single, Heartbreaker, headed the Top 40 charts, as did several of her other songs. Benatar won four Grammy Awards for Best Rock Vocal performance, from 1980 to 1983. Benatar was also the winner of three American Music Awards: Favorite Female Pop/Rock Vocalist of 1981 and 1983, and Favorite Female Pop/Rock Video Artist of 1985. In 2010, Pat Benatar wrote a book, Bet w een a Heart and a Rock Place, discussing her early life and success in the music business.