Born
Courtney Michelle Harrison in San Francisco on July 9, 1964, Courtney
Love was apparently wired from birth to be a free spirit and all-around
wild child.
Her
youth was spent wandering through hippie communes with her mother,
therapist Linda
Carroll who at various times introduced the young Courtney
to four different stepfathers.
Later
traveling through the UK & Ireland via a trust fund set up
by her grandmother, (children's book author Paula
Fox), she subsequently returned to the states to play in
such bands as Babes In Toyland and Faith No More.
Eventually,
she started her own band, Hole, and married Nirvana singer Kurt
Cobain in 1992.
Following
Cobain's suicide in 1994, Love's own career skyrocketed. Her image
also changed from that of rocker chick to Hollywood starlet, gaining
the attention of movie studios who cast her in critically acclaimed
films such as Feeling Minnesota, and in the controversial
hit, The
People vs. Larry Flynt, opposite
Woody Harrelson for
which she earned a New York Film Critics Award and a Golden Globe
nomination.
By
2001, her band had disbanded, and Hollywood stopped calling. But
Love's wild child days were far from over.
In
the past several years, she has often made headline news related
to assault or drug charges, with intermittent other court
appearances related to unpaid legal bills.
Her solo album, America's Sweetheart was released in February
2004, when a reviewer spoke of the pop icon's antics as "part
Lucrezia Borgia and part Judy-Garland-meets-Janis-Joplin... there
is still only one Courtney Love."
Soon
after, Love lived up to her bad girl image with back-to-back court
appearances one for drug possession, and another for assault
following an attack with a whiskey bottle on musician Kristin
King when Love discovered the female rocker in her boyfriend's
home.
Sentenced
to three year probation until March 2007, Love was ordered by
a Los
Angeles judge to spend six
months in a live-in rehabilitation center in September 2005
for using drugs during her probation.
On
the cover of
Pop Magazine.
In
2006, however, the unsinkable Courtney Love has staged a comeback
with the release of a new CD entitled How Dirty Girls Get Clean,
and a new book entitled Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney
Love.
In
late 2006, Love appeared
in a nude photo spread in the British fashion magazine, Pop
in anticipation of her new book tour beginning in November 2006. That same year Love started recording what was going to be her second solo album, How Dirty Girls Get Clean, which included an anti-cocaine song entitled "Loser Dust", during her time in rehab.
Reuniting with Hole in 2010, the album was released as Nobody's Daughter spinning off a hit alternative single, "Skinny Little Bitch". Shortly after, the band embarked on a world tour and continue to play at various venues worldwide through 2012.
More about Courtney Love around the Web:
Courtney
Love - Wikipedia - A biography covering her music and
film career, and history of court battles, with related links.
Courtney
Love - Force of Nature - Archived BBC profile of the singer/actress
- covering her early career, life of with Kurt Colbain, and her
offstage antics with links to current news and related Web sites.