Courtney Love

Courtney Love

Courtney Love (born July 9 1964) is an American rock musician and Golden Globe-nominated actress, best-known as lead singer for the now-defunct alternative rock band Hole and for her two-year marriage to Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. Rolling Stone has called Love "the most controversial woman in the history of rock."

Biography

Early life

Courtney Love was born on July 9, 1964, at 2:08 p.m., in San Francisco, California, where her parents first met and married. Her mother, Linda Carroll (born Risi), and father, Hank Harrison, had known each other only a few months when Carroll became pregnant.

Love's biological family broke apart rapidly while she was still very young. During a child custody case following Love's parents' divorce, both her mother and one of her girlfriends presented letters to the court implying her father had given the child, then four years old, LSD. Harrison denies this allegation and has passed polygraph tests; however, these allegations led to full custody being awarded to Love's mother.

Love then spent a troubled childhood with her mother as she wandered through three husbands and as many hippie communes in Oregon, and various schools including a boarding school in Nelson, New Zealand. Before arriving in New Zealand, Love had been left in the United States with a therapist, while her mother, the new husband and her half-sisters went on ahead; when she was sent for, Love was sent to the boarding school in Nelson.

While in boarding school, Love wrote poetry, joined a Bay City Rollers fan club, and, at the age of 12 (once back in the U.S., ostensibly), applied to join the Mickey Mouse Club; she was rejected after reading a poem by Sylvia Plath at the audition.

By the time she was a teenager, Love had stolen a Kiss t-shirt from Woolworth's, and, when no family surfaced to claim responsibility, Love spent the next three years shuttling between foster families and detainment facilities. No placement was ever permanent. Love would later tell biographer Poppy Z. Brite that she was turned on to punk rock during this time by a social worker in the juvenile hall who gave her three records: The Pretenders, Squeeze, and Nevermind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols.

At 15, Love emancipated herself from her family and travelled around the U.S., England and Republic of Ireland, living on a trust fund established for her by her mother's adoptive parents. During her time in England, Love met, befriended and moved in with musician Julian Cope in his Toxteth, Liverpool home, and became a regular face at rock shows.

Eventually, she would head back to the states, ending up in Portland, Oregon, still avidly pursuing music. Love's first rock musician boyfriend was Rozz Rezabek of the Portland band band Theatre of Sheep, who had an affair with her while she was still underage. Though the two wrote each other copious love letters, Love has said in many interviews that he did not take her virginity; she claims her first sexual encounter was a one-night stand with Michael Mooney, a sometimes-guitarist for Echo & the Bunnymen and later to Spiritualized. Mooney denies this ever happened.

In her late teens, Love came in and out of foster homes and state facilities. She worked sporadically in Japan, Taiwan, Guam, Los Angeles and Alaska as a stripper, a job she returned to at several points in her life before becoming famous. She later told Liz Evans of The Guardian that this job provided her with a great deal of creative inspiration.

Writing songs has a lot to do with your sexuality…I danced for a while and just being around that made me aware of what people use. And if you grow up being blessed with a certain beauty or a certain intelligence that enhances your beauty, you can get into a better position in life. Stripping can be really powerful... it’s how I got a guitar. It’s how I had a band.

Early musical career

Love began her professional music career with a brief stint as the lead singer of Faith No More, until she was kicked out of the band sometime around 1985. Keyboardist Roddy Bottum described the band at the time as "democratic", saying that Love's dominating personality did not fit in. The two artists have remained friends.

At age 22, Love moved back to Portland, then on to Los Angeles, California in 1987 with fellow musician Kat Bjelland, beginning a period in which Love would form bands with Bjelland only to be ousted by her from each. The pair first formed a band in L.A. with Jennifer Finch called Sugar Baby Doll (alternately Sugar Babylon). Love and Bjelland later formed a band called The Pagan Babies in San Francisco, with Diedre Schletter on drums and Janis Tanaka on bass. The band recorded a demo of four tracks, then ejected Love and renamed themselves Italian Whorenuns. Lastly, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Bjelland started what ultimately would become her longest-running band, Babes in Toyland: Courtney briefly played bass, but was kicked out of this group as well.

Love had more early success as an actress, appearing as the best friend of Nancy Spungen in Alex Cox's Sid Vicious biopic Sid and Nancy in 1986, and in Cox's Straight to Hell in 1987, as well as some small roles on television episodes. Love has also appeared in the music video for The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated", dressed as a bride and being carried away by a man at the end of the song.

In 1989, Love taught herself to play guitar and set out to form her own band. To do so, she placed an ad in an issue of Flipside, to which Eric Erlandson replied. Love and Erlandson co-founded Hole and are the only two members to remain constant throughout the band's history. The group made their first gig in November 1989, after three months of rehearsal, and quickly started releasing singles on the Long Beach, California independent label Sympathy for the Record Industry. The band's debut album Pretty on the Inside was released in early 1991 on Caroline Records and was produced by Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and Don Fleming of the band Gumball. It sold well for an independent release and received ecstatic reviews in the influential British alternative music press.

Love and marriage

Love met Kurt Cobain at an L7/Butthole Surfers concert in 1991, and they eventually fell in love in October/November 1991. Love and Cobain were married on Waikiki Beach, Hawaii on February 24, 1992. On August 18 of that year, the couple's daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, was born. The public image of the new Love-Cobain family was tarnished by a 1992 article in Vanity Fair entitled "Strange Love," in which it was alleged that Love had continued using heroin in the early stages of pregnancy. As a result, Child Welfare Services briefly investigated the Cobains' fitness as parents, removing Frances Bean from their custody for a short period. Love claims to this day that she was misquoted, saying she told author Lynn Hirschberg that she'd stopped using the drug once she learned she was pregnant.

On April 5, 1994, a week before the release of Hole's breakthrough album Live Through This, Kurt Cobain died by shotgun wound to the head in his home in Seattle, Washington, ruled a suicide by authorities. Love read his alleged suicide note to assembled, mourning fans at a memorial service in Seattle a few days after his body was found. Clearly crying, she interrupted the note frequently to express her anger and sorrow ("Kurt, the worst crime I can think of is for you to just continue being a rock star when you fucking hate it, just fucking stop"), even inciting the crowd to call him an "asshole" for leaving everyone behind. On the audio recording that day you can hear the crowd obey. Finally, Love implored Nirvana fans not to listen to Cobain's infamous final words, "It's better to burn out than fade away," a lyric cribbed from Neil Young's "My My, Hey Hey."

Live Through This tour (1994)

The band was struck by disaster again when bassist Kristen Pfaff died of an apparent heroin overdose on June 16, 1994, just two months after Cobain's death and the new album's release.

A few months later, Love told MTV's Kurt Loder, "you know...people go back to work. This is what I do. I gotta make a living." Hole recruited 21-year-old bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur (a recommendation of Billy Corgan's) to fill in for Pfaff, and took Hole on the road, appearing for the first time since Cobain's death at the Reading Festival in England. The band's performance was written up by famous broadcaster John Peel in The Guardian:

Courtney's first appearance backstage certainly caught the attention. Swaying wildly and with lipstick smeared on her face, hands and, I think, her back, as well as on the collar of her dress, the singer would have drawn whistles of astonishment in Bedlam. After a brief word with supporters at the foot of the stage, she reeled away, knocking over a wastebin, and disappeared. Minutes later she was onstage giving a performance which verged on the heroic...Love steered her band through a set which dared you to pity either her recent history or that of the band...the band teetered on the edge of chaos, generating a tension which I cannot remember having felt before from any stage."

Meanwhile, Live Through This was a commercial and critical success. Rolling Stone, Spin and Village Voice all declared it "Album of the Year", and by November the record was certified gold. By April 1995, it went platinum.

Hole next embarked on a tour opening for Nine Inch Nails, where Love received a death threat before the first show began. When advised against playing, Love responded "it's from a girl, it's bullshit...besides, if someone were to shoot me onstage, what a nice footnote to rock'n'roll history."

At a show in Pittsburgh, during the Lollapalooza tour, a shotgun shell was thrown onstage. "Is this what you want? Thanks. Goodbye," she said, and the band simply left the stage. At another show, Love hurled her guitar at a concertgoer, telling a reporter later "He kept yelling, 'Who's your next victim?' and then named all these rock-star guys I've been involved with or allegedly involved with...it was just so hard to concentrate hearing all those names. Sometimes they hold up T-shirts with pictures of Kurt on them. They abuse me, I abuse them."

Celebrity Skin era (1996-2000)

Love received considerable acclaim for her role as Larry Flynt's wife, Althea, in Miloš Forman's 1996 film The People vs. Larry Flynt, opposite Woody Harrelson as Flynt. She received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Drama. During this time she met and began dating Edward Norton, a relationship which would become her longest yet. The two were engaged, but ultimately broke up.

In 1998, Hole released Celebrity Skin. Rolling Stone gave the album four stars, saying "the album teems with sonic knockouts that make you see all sorts of stars. It's accessible, fiery and intimate – often at the same time. Here is a basic guitar record that's anything but basic." Celebrity Skin went on to go multiplatinum, and topped "Best of Year" lists at Spin, the Village Voice, and other periodicals. Erlandson was still the lead guitarist, and now there were Melissa Auf Der Maur's backup vocals and bass, but drummer Patty Schemel was replaced by a session drummer during the recording. There have been conflicting reports from the band members over whether this was due to drug problems or enmity between Schemel and the album's producer, Michael Beinhorn.

Around this time, Love created with Fender's low-price sub-brand Squier her personal line of guitars, Vista Venus (as Cobain did in 1994, doing the design of his Fender Jag-Stang). The instrument featured a shape inspired by Mercury, Stratocaster and Rickenbacker's solidbodies and had a single-coil and a humbucker pickup. In an early 1999 interview, Love said about the Venus: "I wanted a guitar that sounded really warm and pop, but which required just one box to go dirty (...) And something that could also be your first band guitar. I didn't want it all teched out. I wanted it real simple, with just one pickup switch. Because I think that cultural revolutions are in the hands of guitar players". She also declared, "my Venus is better than the Jag-Stang". The Squier Vista Venus model is currently discontinued, as is the Jag-Stang as of 2006.

Hole toured Australia in 1999 to support the album, then hit the U.S. on an ultimately failed co-headlining tour with Marilyn Manson. The two bands often mocked each other on stage. Hole eventually dropped off the tour, citing their obligation to pay 50% of Manson's staging costs as a major reason. The singers of both bands told MTV there was no personal animosity, and they were happy to end the tour. Hole finished off the year's dates with Imperial Teen opening.

In May 2000, Love spoke in New York at the Digital Hollywood online entertainment conference, giving a speech criticizing the major American record labels. The speech was then reproduced on the news site Salon.com, and was, at the time, their most popular article to date. In the speech, Love accused the major labels of devising a corrupt system of recording contracts to make the labels millions, while the band itself "may as well be working at a 7-Eleven."

With Hole fallen into disarray, Love attempted to begin a "punk rock femme supergroup" called Bastard during summer/autumn of 2001, enlisting Schemel, Veruca Salt frontwoman Louise Post, and bassist Gina Crosley, whom Post recommended. Though a demo was completed, the project never reached fruition: conflicts between Love and Crosley, then between Love and replacement bassist Corey Parks from Nashville Pussy, reportedly led to the group's demise. On May 24th, 2002, Hole announced their breakup amid continuing litigation with Universal Music Group.

Going solo (2001-2004)

"I need to be saved," Love told Rolling Stone magazine writer Neil Strauss during an interview in May, 2004. "I need to be fucking saved."

A year before, Love's life had begun a downward spiral, the rocker ending up nearly bankrupt, with a series of criminal and drug charges, eventually court-ordered into rehab.

On October 2nd, 2003, Love was arrested in Los Angeles while breaking several windows to enter her then-boyfriend, manager and producer Jim Barber's home. Barber did not press charges (Love says the home was paid for by her), but the police charged her with being under the influence of a controlled substance. Released on bail, just four hours later Love was rushed to a hospital to be treated for an accidental overdose of Oxycontin. Eight days later, on October 10th, Love's daughter Frances Cobain was taken by the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services and placed with her grandmother, Wendy O'Connor. When O'Connor and Love fought at a court hearing, it escalated until the two were slapping each other. Custody of Frances was moved to Frank Rodriguez, Courtney's former stepfather.

Authorities then ordered a 72-hour hospital evaluation of Love's health, but the singer walked from the facility, claiming she was ready to head directly to rehab. When Love didn't attend rehab, her lawyer issued a statement that they may move to have the police department's toxicology reports re-examined. In public appearances, Love protested her arrest, denying all charges, describing the drugs found on her as "one expired Percocet and one Ambien". The police report, however, alleged possession of Oxycontin and Hydrocodone without prescription. A urine test would later reflect cocaine use.

Love pleaded not guilty to the drug charges, calling them "retarded", and told many magazines that she wasn't on narcotics. The tabloids, however, speculated via unnamed sources that she was constantly partying and a negligent mother, and by early December Love had voluntarily checked herself into a California rehab center.

April 16th, 2004 - Love claimed to have been swindled out of forty million dollars by a fiduciary institution and various corrupt individuals, and left nearly bankrupt.

On February 4th, 2004, People magazine speculated Love had "one week to live."

In 2003, Love pleaded not guilty to felony drug charges related to possession of painkillers. In February of 2004, an arrest warrant was issued for Love after she failed to appear at a preliminary hearing. The warrant was subsequently rescinded when she appeared in court on February 18. She released her first solo album, America's Sweetheart, just eight days earlier, on February 10. The album was a commercial flop and received a mixed reaction from critics. Spin called it a "jawdropping act of artistic will", while Rolling Stone proclaimed "For people who enjoy watching celebrities fall apart, America's Sweetheart should be more fun than an Osbournes marathon." The record was re-recorded and finished at a difficult time, while Love was either fresh from or still undergoing drug rehab, and in its first three months the album sold about 86,000 copies, according to Nielsen Soundscan.

Early on the morning of March 19, 2004, Love was arrested in New York City for allegedly throwing a microphone stand and hitting a man on the head. Earlier in the night, appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman, Love stepped up on the talk show host's desk saying "oh, Drew [Barrymore], you've had it", and flashed her breasts at Letterman.

On her fortieth birthday, July 9, 2004, Love missed a scheduled court appearance relating to an attempted break-in at a boyfriend's house and was found in contempt of court. Her attorney later said she missed the appearance due to a gynaecological problem. Later in the month she appeared in court and was sentenced to an 18-month probation and drug rehabilitation program.

In January 2005, Love regained the custody of her daughter that she had lost in October 2003, after completing a state-enforced rehabilitation program and enduring a probational period. Child welfare authorities alluded to drug addiction when responding to the press on the matter, though they didn't comment directly.

On August 19, 2005, Love admitted using drugs in violation of her probation terms. She was ordered into a 28-day drug treatment program by a judge who initially said "my belief was that you need to go to the county jail." This program was also violated, and on September 21 she was sentenced to 6 months in lock down rehab.

Present day (2005-Present)

In June 2005, three months after being released from court-ordered drug rehabilitation, Love started recording her second solo LP, titled Nobody's Daughter. She began writing the new material during rehab. Song titles include "My Bedroom Walls", "Pacific Coast Highway", "Sunset Marquis", and an anti-cocaine rant named "Loser Dust", among others. Former 4 Non Blondes singer Linda Perry is producing the record. Long time friend Billy Corgan has also assisted Love in writing and recording some tracks. A documentary about the making of the record, entitled The Return of Courtney Love, was filmed, written and produced by Will Yapp and aired on British TV network More4 on September 27, which resulted in leaking of sound clips of some of the songs off of Nobody's Daughter. The first entire song to be available for downloading was "Never Go Hungry Again", recorded in a rough acoustic version during an interview for The Times in November.

On February 3, 2006, Love was released from house arrest and issued the following statement: "I would just like to thank the court for allowing me these ninety days... [It] helped me deal with a very gnarly drug problem, which is behind me... I've just been playing guitar and taking care of my daughter. I want to [take this opportunity] to let the community know I'm doing great... I've been really inspired and have remained inspired."

Love has released a memoir/diary collection book, Dirty Blonde, in October 2006, and her sophomore album is slated for a fall release. She also collaborated with DJ Milky and Ai Yazawa to make the manga Princess Ai.

She currently lives in Los Angeles with her daughter.

She also has an official MySpace page and blogs frequently at MoonWashedRose.com.

Awards

• L.A. Outfest: Grand Jury Award - Outstanding Actress in a Feature Film, Julie Johnson, 2001
• Chicago Film Critics Association Awards: Most Promising Actress, The People Vs. Larry Flynt, 1997
• Golden Satellite Awards: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture - Drama, The People Vs. Larry Flynt, 1997
• Boston Society of Film Critics Awards: Best Supporting Actress, The People Vs. Larry Flynt, 1996
• New York Film Critics Circle Awards: Best Supporting Actress, The People Vs. Larry Flynt, 1996

Controversy

Family history

Love is estranged from her parents, writer Hank Harrison and therapist Linda Carroll, both of whom have spoken publicly about the lack of a relationship with their daughter.

Estrangement runs through Love's family background: Carroll was adopted by an Italian-American couple at birth, retaining no contact with her birth father or her birth mother, whom she later discovered was the well-known children's writer Paula Fox (herself also adopted). Carroll penned an autobiography titled Her Mother's Daughter, released in 2006, about her dysfunctional relationship with both adoptive mother and elder daughter.

Conflicting news stories began to appear in August 2003 regarding Love's family tree, some of them remarking that Love's mother, Linda Carroll, had taken DNA tests, and that the results proved that Carroll's father was actor Marlon Brando. The news reports implied this disclosure would appear in Carroll's then-forthcoming memoir. Later that month, however, a spokeswoman for Carroll's publisher, Doubleday, told the New York Daily News, "There was nothing in Linda Carroll's book proposal about Marlon Brando, nor will there be anything in the book about him. I've spoken to her and she has told me that there is no truth to the suggestion that she is related to Marlon Brando." The story bears a significant possibility of truth: Carroll's mother Paula Fox did, by most accounts, have an affair with Brando, but since that time the truth has yet to be confirmed publicly by any of the parties involved.

Cobain conspiracy theories

Since Cobain's death, conspiracy theories have speculated that he was murdered at Love's instigation. The theory gained media attention with the release of Nick Broomfield's documentary Kurt & Courtney in 1998. Kurt & Courtney featured interviews with, among others, Love's father Hank Harrison as well as private investigator Tom Grant, who both believe Cobain may have been murdered and want the case re-opened. The film also included an interview with punk singer and media sideshow El Duce (real name Eldon Wayne Hoke), who claimed that Love offered him $50,000 to kill Cobain. El Duce's band The Mentors was most famous as a paid spectacle on 1980s talk show Hot Seat, where El Duce appeared alongside guitarist "Sickie Wifebeater", wearing a black hood and inciting the audience by claiming to endorse rape, drugs and illegitimate children. As the film goes on, Broomfield notes he has "come to a stage where I wondered how much of anything anyone had been telling me was true". By the end, Broomfield felt the evidence wasn't there to prove a conspiracy, telling an interviewer in 1998, "I think that he committed suicide. I don't think that there's a smoking gun. And I think there's only one way you can explain a lot of things around his death. Not that he was murdered, but that there was just a lack of caring for him."

Other media coverage

Love has often been noted in the press for her behavior, including cursing at paparazzi and a sometimes physical disagreement with Cobain's alleged former girlfriend, folksinger Mary Lou Lord. Love also received attention when she posed nude for British magazines Q in 2003 and Pop in 2006.

In August 2005, tabloid papers such as News of the World began reporting that Love became pregnant during an affair with British actor and comedian Steve Coogan. Coogan's spokeswoman, alongside Love's publicists, discredited the story as "nonsense", but later Love admitted in an interview with Pop Magazine the relationship (if not the pregnancy) had occurred.

Trivia

• Love's first marriage in 1989 was brief. She married the lead singer of The Leaving Trains, Falling James Moreland "as a joke": the marriage was annulled in court soon after, and their relationship became acrimonious. Before that, Moreland would produce Hole's first single, Retard Girl.
• On September 21, 2002, MTV2 aired 24 Hours of Love, a live special that Love hosted. For the special, Love took control of MTV2's airwaves for 24 hours, playing a selection of videos that she wanted to see, taking calls from viewers, and inviting guests into the studio.
• In 2004, Love worked with manga artists Ai Yazawa, Misaho Kujiradou and DJ Milky (pen name of TOKYOPOP CEO Stu Levy) to create her personal series, Princess Ai, in Japan.
• Love has been a Nichiren Buddhist since age 24, on and off, and introduced Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson to the faith. Love is known for having had experiences with Tibetan Buddhism (after reading Sogyal Rinpoche's The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying during the period Cobain died, she decided to give him a Tibetan funeral. Love also spent two weeks meditating and participating of ceremonies for Green Tara at Namgyal temple in Ithaca, New York, and left part of her husband's ashes for making deity statues named tsatsas) and Baptist Evangelicalism after it, but returned to her original faith in 2005, during her latest stint in rehab. Until late 1990s, Love was part of Nichiren Shoshu, the Buddhist branch to which she introduced Erlandson, but since 2005, she practices with the lay organization Soka Gakkai International (SGI). Love has also been a known practitioner of yoga, particularly the kundalini and ashtanga schools.
• In her early career, Love adopted a "kinderwhore" look, which she was accused of having imitated after Kat Bjelland. Love stated that the look was inspired by Christina Amphlett of 1980s rock group Divinyls. Love's style has since evolved toward more sophisticated designer labels.
• Love used to have three tattoos during her early career. Two of them are still visible: a vine of four-leafed clovers on her left ankle, and a small letter "K" (which stands for Kurt) on the top of the abdomen. The third one was placed on the right side of her upper back, and it first was an artwork including a star in the middle of a vine, but later changed to a big angel.
• Is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church

Discography

Albums

With Hole

• Pretty on the Inside (1991)
• Live Through This (1994, Platinum)
• Ask for It (EP) (1995)
• My Body, the Hand Grenade (B-sides & Rarities) (1997)
• The First Session (EP) (1997)
• Celebrity Skin (1998, Platinum)

Solo

• America's Sweetheart (2004)
• Nobody's Daughter (2007 - yet exact release date not certain)

Singles

With Hole

• Retard Girl (1990)
• Dicknail (1991)
• Teenage Whore (1991)
• Beautiful Son (1993) UK #54
• Miss World (1994) US Modern Rock #13 UK #64
• Doll Parts (1995) US #58 UK #16
• Violet (1995) US Modern Rock #29 UK #17
• Softer, Softest (1995) US #32
• Gold Dust Woman (1996) US #31
• Celebrity Skin (1998) US #85 UK #19
• Malibu (1998) US #81 UK #22
• Awful (1999) US Modern Rock #13 UK #42
• Be a Man (2000)

Solo

• Mono (2004) US Rock Singles #18 UK #41
• Hold On To Me (2004) US Rock Singles #39
• Samantha (2007)

Filmography

• Sid and Nancy (1986)
• Straight to Hell (1987)
• Tapeheads (1988)
• 1991: The Year Punk Broke (1992) (documentary)
• Tank Girl (1995) (as executive music producer)
• Basquiat (1996)
• Feeling Minnesota (1996)
• The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)
• Not Bad for a Girl (1996) (documentary) (also co-producer)
• Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's (1997) (documentary)
• Kurt & Courtney (1998) (documentary)
• 200 Cigarettes (1999)
• Man on the Moon (1999)
• Beat (2000)
• Bounce: Behind the Velvet Rope (2000) (documentary)
• Julie Johnson (2001)
• Last Party 2000 (2001) (documentary)
• Trapped (2002)
• Mayor of the Sunset Strip (2003) (documentary)
• (This Is Known As) The Blues Scale (2004) (documentary)
• Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal's Caligula (2005) (short film)
• Lovelace (2008) (announced)

External links

• Courtney Love's Official homepage
• Courtney Love's Fansite
• Courtney Love's Myspace
• Courtney Love at IMDb
• Full coverage of Courtney Love's legal troubles, from Court TV