Courtney Love

Courtney Michelle Love (born Courtney Michelle Harrison; July 9, 1964) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Love is the lead vocalist, lyricist, and rhythm guitarist for alternative rock band Hole, which she formed in 1989, and is also an actress who moved from bit parts in Alex Cox films to significant and acclaimed roles in The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) and Man on the Moon (1999). Love was married to Kurt Cobain, frontman of the grunge band Nirvana, with whom she has a daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. Throughout her career, Love's wild stage antics and subversive feminist attitude have polarized audiences and critics, with Rolling Stone once calling her "the most controversial woman in the history of rock."

Love was born in San Francisco, California, to Linda Carroll, a psychotherapist, and Hank Harrison, a publisher and brief road manager for The Grateful Dead. Love had a nomadic childhood, and as a teenager was sent to a youth correctional facility after being caught stealing. After being emancipated at age 16, Love moved to Portland, Oregon and became a part-time exotic dancer, which enabled her to travel to Japan and Taiwan. A trust fund gave her some independence, and allowed her to briefly study at Trinity College, Dublin, and to live in Liverpool. In the early 1980s, Love was a member of the bands Sugar Babydoll and the Pagan Babies before having a brief stint as lead singer of Faith No More. Love started her career as an actress with minor roles in Alex Cox films, most notably appearing in Sid and Nancy (1986), but turned her focus back to music and moved to Los Angeles in 1989 where she formed Hole with guitarist Eric Erlandson.

Originally influenced by noise rock and no wave acts, Hole went on to release several successful albums in the 1990s, most notably Live Through This (1994) and Celebrity Skin (1998). Love also popularized the fashion style "kinderwhore", characterized by torn babydoll dresses and smeared red lipstick, and received intense media attention over her 1992 marriage to Kurt Cobain, before and after his 1994 suicide. She would later gain recognition as an actress for her award-nominated performance in The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), and she continued to occasionally star in films. Love had a brief solo career, releasing America's Sweetheart (2004), and was the subject of much media attention for various drug and legal issues in the following year. In 2006, Love was sentenced to six months of lock-down rehab and achieved sobriety thereafter. In 2009, Love re-emerged and reformed Hole with new members, releasing a fourth album, Nobody's Daughter (2010).

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