Compared to Madonna and Yoko Ono and vilified by none other than Camille Paglia, Courtney Love is another chameleon—punk turned glamour grrrl who set the world on its ear with her amazing portrayal of Althea Flynt in The People vs Larry Flynt.
Love had lived a lot of life in a short amount of time. Born to San Francisco hippies in 1964, Love renamed herself and traveled in the mid-80s international punk circuit, playing bit parts in the filmmaker Alex Cox’s prophetic Sid and Nancy and Straight to Hell before settling in Los Angeles and stripping for a living. In 1989 she formed the band Hole. Ironically, Hole’s album “Pretty on the Inside” was selling twice as well as husband Kurt Cobain’s band Nirvana’s debut “Bleach,” although Nirvana got all the press.
With “Smells Like Teen Spirit” from Nirvana’s second effort Nevermind, Courtney and Kurt became the gods of grunge and grappled with fame, authenticity, and drugs. Upon Cobain’s Seattle suicide by gunshot in 1994, Courtney acted out her pain publicly. When Hole lost their excellent bassist Kirsten Pfaff to a heroin overdose, Love hired Melissa Auf der Maur to play bass guitar. The world watched Courtney Love’s catharsis in the tour for Hole’s second album, appropriately titled Live Through This. The world started to listen, too, in a big way. Hole started selling records and getting the long overdue respect for Love’s songwriting, raw and powerful singing, and fearless stage diving.
Love, whose post-modern “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane” tatters had been her trademark, surprised everyone recently with a 180-degree style-switch and much-hyped “makeover.” Courtney responded by saying, “Somebody wrote, ‘How can she rock in a Versace gown?’ Well, easy, let me show you.” No one should really have been surprised, though. Courtney Love is the best at throwing the unexpected left-curve. A bundle of contradictions, she is a searcher, a doer, a thinker, a self-described “militant feminist,” who can quote Dickens or Dickenson, deconstruct Camille Paglia’s occasionally obtuse critical theory, and can hold forth on any subject from her daughter Frances Bean Cobain (whom she dotes on) to Buddhism (which she practices) to Jungian archetypes (which fascinate her) rather eloquently, punctuated of course with a healthy dose of expletives. Courtney Love has courted controversy all her life in her quest to express herself and her creativity with complete, unvarnished honesty. Her phoenix-like rise from the ashes of a traumatic and abusive childhood as well as a tragic superstar marriage to become the leader of a successful “third-wave” feminist band and a critically acclaimed actress has been awesome. Clearly, she’s one to watch!
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