50 facts about Courtney Love

Learn 50 things about Courtney Love, an alternative rock singer, songwriter, musician, actress, and visual artist.

1. Courtney Love was born as Courtney Michelle Harrison on July 9, 1964.

2. Courtney Love is an American alternative rock singer, songwriter, musician, actress, and visual artist.

3. Prolific in the punk and grunge scenes of the 1990s as the frontwoman of Hole, Love became a fixture in alternative music, drawing public attention for her uninhibited stage presence and confrontational lyrics, as well as her highly publicized personal life following her marriage to Kurt Cobain.

4. The daughter of psychotherapist Linda Carroll and publisher Hank Harrison, Love mainly grew up in Portland, Oregon, where she was in a series of short-lived bands before landing roles in films by British cult director Alex Cox.

5. After forming Hole in 1989, Love received substantial attention from underground rock press for the group's debut album, produced by Kim Gordon, while their second release, Live Through This (1994), lent her a more high-profile renown, receiving critical accolades and going multi-platinum.

6. In 1995, she returned to acting, earning a Golden Globe Nomination for her performance in Miloš Forman's The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996).

7. Shortly after, Hole's third release, Celebrity Skin (1998), earned Love recognition as a mainstream musician, and was nominated for multiple Grammy Awards.

8. Courtney Love continued to work as an actress, appearing in big-budget pictures such as Man on the Moon (1999) and Trapped (2002), and released her first solo album, America's Sweetheart, in 2004.

9. In 2010, she released Nobody's Daughter under the Hole moniker with a reformed band.

10. Courtney Love debuted a new solo single in early 2014, and also saw a return to acting after being cast in the FX series Sons of Anarchy, the Fox series Empire, and the ABC series Revenge.

11. On December 1, 2014, it was announced that Love would be touring with Lana Del Rey as an opening act for Del Rey's Endless Summer Tour in 2015.

12. In addition to music and film, Love has had ventures in modeling and visual art, and has advocated for victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence, AIDS research.

13. She has one daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, from her marriage to Kurt Cobain.

14. Courtney Love was born Courtney Michelle Harrison in San Francisco, California, to psychotherapist Linda Carroll (née Risi) and Hank Harrison, a publisher who briefly managed the Grateful Dead.

15. Love's mother is the daughter of novelist Paula Fox and an unidentified father, who is rumored to be Marlon Brando.

16. Courtney Love is of Cuban, Welsh, Irish, German, and English descent.

17. Her parents divorced in 1969 and her father's custody was withdrawn after her mother alleged that he had fed LSD to Love as a toddler.

18. In 1970, her mother moved the family to the rural community of Marcola, Oregon, where they lived on a commune.

19. Courtney Love was legally adopted by her stepfather, Frank Rodriguez, with whom her mother had Love's two half-sisters and adopted a brother; another male half-sibling died in infancy of a heart defect when Love was ten.

20. Courtney Love attended elementary school in Eugene, where she struggled academically and had trouble making friends, though was described as a "creative" child.

21. At age nine, she was diagnosed with mild autism.

22. In 1972, Love's mother divorced Rodriguez and moved the family to New Zealand, where she enrolled Love at Nelson College for Girls, but Love was ultimately sent back to live in Portland, Oregon, with her former stepfather and numerous family friends.

23. Courtney Love auditioned for the The Mickey Mouse Club at age twelve, only to be rejected after reading a Sylvia Plath poem for her audition, and also took a film class in Portland with then-unknown director Gus Van Sant.

24. At age fourteen, Love was arrested for shoplifting a T-shirt and was sent to Hillcrest Correctional Facility. She spent the following several years in foster care before becoming legally emancipated at age sixteen.

25. She intermittently took classes at Portland State University studying English and philosophy.

26. In 1981, Love was granted a small trust fund through her adoptive grandparents, which she used to travel to Dublin, Ireland, where her father was living. While there, she audited courses at Trinity College, studying theology for two semesters.

27. Courtney Love initially began several music projects in the 1980s, first forming Sugar Babydoll in Portland with friends Ursula Wehr and Robin Barbur.

28. Courtney Love enrolled at the San Francisco Art Institute, where she studied film with George Kuchar and was featured in one of his short films, titled Club Vatican.

29. In 1985, she submitted an audition tape for the role of Nancy Spungen in the Sid Vicious biopic Sid and Nancy (1986), and was given a minor supporting role by director Alex Cox.

30. Cox then cast her in a leading role in his following film, Straight to Hell (1987), which caught the attention of artist Andy Warhol. That year, Love appeared in an episode of Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes with Robbie Nevil in a segment titled "C'est la Vie".

31. Courtney Love also had a part in the 1988 Ramones music video for "I Wanna Be Sedated," appearing as a bride among dozens of party guests.

32. In 1989, Love taught herself to play guitar and relocated to West Hollywood, where she placed an ad in a local music zine, reading: "I want to start a band. My influences are Big Black, Sonic Youth, and Fleetwood Mac."

33. Love recruited lead guitarist Eric Erlandson; Lisa Roberts, her neighbor, as bassist; and drummer Caroline Rue. Love named the band Hole after a line from Euripedes' Medea.

34. Hole played their first show in November 1989 at Raji's after three months of rehearsal.

35. With no wave, noise rock and grindcore bands being major influences on Love, Hole's first studio album, Pretty on the Inside, captured a particularly abrasive sound and contained disturbing lyrics, described by Q magazine as "confrontational [and] genuinely uninhibited."

36. After the release of Pretty on the Inside, Love began dating Kurt Cobain and became pregnant, which temporarily put her music career on hold.

37. During Love's pregnancy, Hole recorded a cover of "Over the Edge" for a Wipers tribute album, and recorded their fourth single, "Beautiful Son", which was released in April 1993.

38. On September 8, 1993, Love and husband Kurt Cobain made their only public performance together at the Rock Against Rape benefit in Hollywood, California, performing two duets, both acoustic versions, of "Pennyroyal Tea" and "Where Did You Sleep Last Night."

39. In 2006, Love released a memoir, titled Dirty Blonde, and started recording what was going to be her second solo album, How Dirty Girls Get Clean, collaborating again with Perry and Billy Corgan in the writing and recording.

40. Courtney Love had written several songs, including an anti-cocaine song titled "Loser Dust", during her time in rehab in 2005.

41. In May 2012, Love debuted an art collection at Fred Torres Collaborations in New York titled "And She's Not Even Pretty", which contained over forty drawings and paintings by Love composed in ink, colored pencil, pastels, and watercolors.

42. She then collaborated with Michael Stipe on the track "Rio Grande" for Johnny Depp's sea shanty album Son of Rogues Gallery and also contributed guest vocals and co-wrote a track on Fall Out Boy's album, Save Rock and Roll (2013).

43. Courtney Love appeared in advertisements for Yves Saint Laurent alongside Kim Gordon and Ariel Pink.

44. In July 2014, Love landed a minor role on the final season of the FX series Sons of Anarchy which began filming in the summer.

45. On May 18, 2015, Love debuted a new single, "Miss Narcissist", released on Wavves' independent label Ghost Ramp.

46. Love possesses a contralto vocal range, and her vocal style has been described as "raw and distinctive."

47. Courtney Love has been candid about her diverse musical influences, the earliest being Patti Smith and the Pretenders, whom she discovered while in juvenile hall.

48. As a teenager, she named Flipper, Kate Bush, Soft Cell, Lou Reed, and Dead Kennedys among her favorite artists, as well as several new wave and post-punk bands, such as Echo and the Bunnymen, The Smiths, The Teardrop Explodes, Bauhaus, and Joy Division.

49. In 2009, Love performed a benefit concert for the RED Campaign at Carnegie Hall alongside Laurie Anderson, Rufus Wainwright, and Scarlett Johansson, with proceeds going to AIDS research.

50. In May 2011, she attended Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation event for victims of child abuse, rape, and domestic violence, donating six of husband Kurt Cobain's personal vinyl records for auction.

Source: Wikipedia.org