Courtney Love

Courtney Love, born Courtney Michelle Harrison on July 9, 1964 in San Francisco, California, is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actress whose career has spanned more than four decades, beginning in the early 1980s and continuing to the present day. Raised in a tumultuous, itinerant childhood and later in Portland, Oregon, she endured early encounters with the juvenile justice system, which introduced her to the punk and alternative music that would shape her artistic voice. After brief stints in Dublin, Liverpool, and various strip clubs, she returned to the United States and entered the film world with supporting roles in Alex Cox’s Sid and Nancy (1986) and Straight to Hell (1987), demonstrating an early talent for on‑screen performance. In 1989 she founded the band Hole, acting as lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist; the group’s raw, confrontational sound and her unapologetic lyrics quickly earned a reputation in the burgeoning grunge scene. Their debut album Pretty on the Inside (1991) and the critically acclaimed Live Through This (1994) propelled them to mainstream success, while Love’s highly publicized marriage to Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and his subsequent death added a tragic, media‑obsessed narrative to her legacy. Despite personal upheavals, she earned a Golden Globe nomination for her role as Althea Leasure in The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) and continued to release music, including the multi‑platinum Celebrity Skin (1998) and solo albums such as America’s Sweetheart (2004). Throughout the 2000s and 2010s she remained a cultural icon, appearing in television series like Sons of Anarchy, publishing a memoir, co‑creating the manga Princess Ai, and championing LGBTQ and anti‑bullying causes, all while maintaining a fiercely independent artistic spirit that continues to influence generations of musicians and performers.