Courtney Love
Acting • Born 1964-07-09
Biography
Courtney Michelle Love (née Harrison; born July 9, 1964) is an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and actress. A figure in the alternative and grunge scenes of the 1990s, her career has spanned four decades. She rose to prominence as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the alternative rock band Hole, which she formed in 1989. Love has drawn public attention for her uninhibited live performances and confrontational lyrics, as well as her highly publicized personal life following her marriage to Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. In 2020, NME named her one of the most influential singers in alternative culture of the last 30 years. Born to countercultural parents in San Francisco, Love had an itinerant childhood, but was primarily raised in Portland, Oregon, where she played in a series of short-lived bands and was active in the local punk scene. After briefly being in a juvenile hall, she spent a year living in Dublin and Liverpool before returning to the United States and pursuing an acting career. She appeared in supporting roles in the Alex Cox films Sid and Nancy (1986) and Straight to Hell (1987) before forming the band Hole in Los Angeles with guitarist Eric Erlandson. The group received critical acclaim from underground rock press for their 1991 debut album, produced by Kim Gordon, while their second release, Live Through This (1994), was met with critical accolades and multi-platinum sales. In 1995, Love returned to acting, earning a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance as Althea Leasure in Miloš Forman's The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), which established her as a mainstream actress. The following year, Hole's third album, Celebrity Skin (1998), was nominated for three Grammy Awards. Love continued to work as an actress into the early 2000s, appearing in big-budget pictures such as Man on the Moon (1999) and Trapped (2002), before releasing her first solo album, America's Sweetheart, in 2004. The subsequent several years were marred with publicity surrounding Love's legal troubles and drug relapse, which resulted in a mandatory lockdown rehabilitation sentence in 2005 while she was writing a second solo album. That project became Nobody's Daughter, released in 2010 as a Hole album but without the former Hole lineup. Between 2014 and 2015, Love released two solo singles and returned to acting in the network series Sons of Anarchy and Empire. In 2020, she confirmed she was writing new music. Love has also been active as a writer; she co-created and co-wrote three volumes of a manga, Princess Ai, between 2004 and 2006, and wrote a memoir, Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love (2006). Description above from the Wikipedia article Courtney Love, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Filmography
84 credits
Basquiat
Movie • 1996
Big Pink
The People vs. Larry Flynt
Movie • 1996
Althea Leasure
Beat
Movie • 2000
Joan Vollmer Burroughs
Man on the Moon
Movie • 1999
Lynne Margulies
Trapped
Movie • 2002
Cheryl
Feeling Minnesota
Movie • 1996
Rhonda the Waitress
Straight to Hell
Movie • 1987
Velma
Kurt & Courtney
Movie • 1998
Self
Sid and Nancy
Movie • 1986
Gretchen
200 Cigarettes
Movie • 1999
Lucy
The Righteous Babes
Movie • 1998
Self (archive footage)
Not Bad for a Girl
Movie • 1995
Self
Meet Me in the Bathroom
Movie • 2022
Self (archive footage)
Hit So Hard
Movie • 2012
Self
Club Vatican
Movie • 1984
Julie Johnson
Movie • 2001
Claire
Kalvøyafestivalen - 50 år siden første riff
Movie • 2021
Self (archive footage)
Arianne Phillips: Dressing the Part
Movie • 2021
Self
Inside the Golden Statue
Movie • 1998
Self
Cobain: Montage of Heck
Movie • 2015
Self
Hole: Live at The Metro (Chicago, 1994)
Movie • 1995
No Alternative Girls
Movie • 1994
Herself
Bob and the Monster
Movie • 2011
Herself
1991: The Year Punk Broke
Movie • 1992
Self
Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson
Movie • 2005
Self
The Return of Courtney Love
Movie • 2006
Self
Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal's Caligula
Movie • 2005
Caligula
The Young Blood Chronicles
Movie • 2014
The Head Bitch In Charge
The Long Home
Movie
Pearl
Franca: Chaos and Creation
Movie • 2016
Self
Tapeheads
Movie • 1988
Norman's Spanker (uncredited)
Menendez: Blood Brothers
Movie • 2017
Kitty Menendez
Mayor of the Sunset Strip
Movie • 2003
Self
Sunset Strip
Movie • 2012
Self
The Dark Night of the Soul
Movie • 2010
Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond
Movie • 2017
Self
J.T. LeRoy
Movie • 2019
Sasha
Author: The JT LeRoy Story
Movie • 2016
Herself
Bounce: Behind The Velvet Rope
Movie • 2001
Tower of Song: A Memorial Tribute to Leonard Cohen
Movie • 2018
Self - Performer
(This Is Known as) The Blues Scale
Movie • 2004
Self
A Midsummer's Nightmare
Movie • 2017
L7: Pretend We're Dead
Movie • 2017
Self
Hole: MTV Unplugged
Movie • 1995
Lead Vocals, Guitar
Welcome to My Castle!
Movie • 2007
Self
Clara Bow: Discovering the "It" Girl
Movie • 1999
Narrator (voice)
Last Party 2000
Movie • 2001
Self
James Blunt: One Brit Wonder
Movie • 2023
Self (archive footage)
Hole - Live Through This
Movie • 1994
I Hate Myself and I Want to Die
Movie • 2023
Self (archive footage)
The AGFA Mystery Mixtape Vault
Movie • 2020
(archive footage)
Hole: The Electric Factory
Movie • 1999
Broken English
Movie • 2026
Self
Hole: Garbadge Man
Movie • 1992
Herself
Hole: Live at Club Lingerie (Hollywood, 1990)
Movie • 1990
Herself
Hole: Live at The Lemon Grove (Exeter, 1991)
Movie • 1991
Herself
Hole: Miss World
Movie • 1994
Herself
Hole: Doll Parts
Movie • 1994
Herself
Hole: Violet
Movie • 1995
Herself
Antiheroine
Movie • 2026
Self
Doll Crafting with Dame Darcy & Courtney Love
Movie • 1997
Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten
Movie • 2007
Friday Night with Jonathan Ross
TV • 2001
Self - Guest
The View
TV • 1997
Self
E! True Hollywood Story
TV • 1996
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
TV • 1992
Alan Carr: Chatty Man
TV • 2009
Self
The Oscars
TV • 1953
Self
Empire
TV • 2015
Elle Dallas
Behind the Music
TV • 1997
Self
The Graham Norton Show
TV • 2007
Self
Revenge
TV • 2011
White Gold
Sons of Anarchy
TV • 2008
Ms. Harrison
MTV Video Music Awards
TV • 1984
Self
Saturday Night Live
TV • 1975
Self - Musical Guest
RuPaul's Drag Race
TV • 2009
Self - Guest Judge
The Russell Brand Show
TV • 2006
Self
Comedy Central Roasts
TV • 2003
Self
Keeping Up with the Kardashians
TV • 2007
Self
Never Mind the Buzzcocks
TV • 2021
Self - Guest Team Captain
The Osbournes
TV • 2002
Self
Elle Style Awards
TV • 1997
Self
Elle Style Awards
TV • 1997
Self - Winner
Late Show with David Letterman
TV • 1993
Self - Guest/Musical Guest