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Actor · Acting

Courtney Love

Born 1964-07-09
📍 San Francisco, California, USA

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 80

Antiheroine
as Self
2026
Broken English
as Self
2026
James Blunt: One Brit Wonder
as Self (archive footage)
2023
I Hate Myself and I Want to Die
as Self (archive footage)
2023
Meet Me in the Bathroom
as Self (archive footage)
2022
Kalvøyafestivalen - 50 år siden første riff
as Self (archive footage)
2021
Never Mind the Buzzcocks
as Self - Guest Team Captain
2021
Arianne Phillips: Dressing the Part
as Self
2021
The AGFA Mystery Mixtape Vault
as (archive footage)
2020
J.T. LeRoy
as Sasha
2019
Tower of Song: A Memorial Tribute to Leonard Cohen
as Self - Performer
2018
L7: Pretend We're Dead
as Self
2017
Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond
as Self
2017
A Midsummer's Nightmare
2017
Menendez: Blood Brothers
as Kitty Menendez
2017
Franca: Chaos and Creation
as Self
2016
Author: The JT LeRoy Story
as Herself
2016
Cobain: Montage of Heck
as Self
2015
Empire
as Elle Dallas
2015
The Young Blood Chronicles
as The Head Bitch In Charge
2014
Hit So Hard
as Self
2012
Sunset Strip
as Self
2012
Bob and the Monster
as Herself
2011
Revenge
as White Gold
2011
The Dark Night of the Soul
2010
Alan Carr: Chatty Man
as Self
2009
RuPaul's Drag Race
as Self - Guest Judge
2009
Sons of Anarchy
as Ms. Harrison
2008
Welcome to My Castle!
as Self
2007
Keeping Up with the Kardashians
as Self
2007
Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten
2007
The Graham Norton Show
as Self
2007
The Return of Courtney Love
as Self
2006
Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson
as Self
2005
Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal's Caligula
as Caligula
2005
(This Is Known as) The Blues Scale
as Self
2004
Comedy Central Roasts
as Self
2003
Mayor of the Sunset Strip
as Self
2003
Trapped
as Cheryl
2002
The Osbournes
as Self
2002
Last Party 2000
as Self
2001
Friday Night with Jonathan Ross
as Self - Guest
2001
Bounce: Behind The Velvet Rope
2001
Julie Johnson
as Claire
2001
Beat
as Joan Vollmer Burroughs
2000
Man on the Moon
as Lynne Margulies
1999
Clara Bow: Discovering the "It" Girl
as Narrator (voice)
1999
Hole: The Electric Factory
1999
200 Cigarettes
as Lucy
1999
The Righteous Babes
as Self (archive footage)
1998
Kurt & Courtney
as Self
1998
Inside the Golden Statue
as Self
1998
Elle Style Awards
as Self
1997
Elle Style Awards
as Self - Winner
1997
Behind the Music
as Self
1997
The View
as Self
1997
Doll Crafting with Dame Darcy & Courtney Love
1997
The People vs. Larry Flynt
as Althea Leasure
1996
Feeling Minnesota
as Rhonda the Waitress
1996
E! True Hollywood Story
1996
Basquiat
as Big Pink
1996
Hole: MTV Unplugged
as Lead Vocals, Guitar
1995
Not Bad for a Girl
as Self
1995
Hole: Live at The Metro (Chicago, 1994)
1995
Hole: Violet
as Herself
1995
Hole - Live Through This
1994
Hole: Doll Parts
as Herself
1994
Hole: Miss World
as Herself
1994
Late Show with David Letterman
as Self - Guest/Musical Guest
1993
1991: The Year Punk Broke
as Self
1992
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
1992
Hole: Garbadge Man
as Herself
1992
Hole: Live at The Lemon Grove (Exeter, 1991)
as Herself
1991
Hole: Live at Club Lingerie (Hollywood, 1990)
as Herself
1990
Tapeheads
as Norman's Spanker (uncredited)
1988
Straight to Hell
as Velma
1987
Sid and Nancy
as Gretchen
1986
MTV Video Music Awards
as Self
1984
Club Vatican
1984
The Oscars
as Self
1953