Coordinates	12°2′36″N77°1′42″N
background color	#FFC94B
Name	Hollywood
Native name
Nickname	Tinseltown,The Entertainment Capital of the World
Settlement type	District of Los Angeles
Total type
Established title2	Incorporated
Established date2	1903
Motto
Pushpin map	United States Los Angeles Central
Pushpin label position	right
Pushpin map caption	Location within Central Los Angeles
Pushpin mapsize	250
Pushpin map1	United States Los Angeles Western
Pushpin label position1	left
Pushpin map caption1	Location within Western Los Angeles
Pushpin mapsize1	250
Coordinates region	US-CA
Subdivision type	Country
Subdivision name	United States
Subdivision type1	State
Subdivision name1	:California
Subdivision type2	County
Subdivision name2	County of Los Angeles
Subdivision type3	City
Subdivision name3	City of Los Angeles
Subdivision name4
Parts style
Parts
P2
Leader title	City Council
Leader name	Eric Garcetti, Tom LaBonge
Leader title1	State Assembly
Leader name1	Mike Feuer (D), Vacant
Leader title2	State Senate
Leader name2	Curren Price (D), Gilbert Cedillo (D)
Leader title3	U.S. House
Leader name3	Xavier Becerra (D), Diane Watson (D), Henry Waxman (D)
Established date
Area footnotes
Area total sq mi	24.96
Area water percent
Elevation footnotes
Elevation min ft
Population as of	2000
Population total	123435
Population density sq mi	4945
Postal code type	ZIP Code
Postal code	90027, 90028, 90029, 90038, 90046, 90068
Area code	323
Footnotes	}}

Hollywood is a district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word ''Hollywood'' is often used as a metonym of American cinema. Today, much of the movie industry has dispersed into surrounding areas such as the Westside neighborhood, and the San Fernando and Santa Clarita Valleys, but significant auxiliary industries, such as editing, effects, props, post-production, and lighting companies remain in Hollywood, as does the backlot of Paramount Pictures.

On February 16, 2005, California Assembly Members Jackie Goldberg and Paul Koretz introduced a bill to require California to keep specific records on Hollywood as if it were independent, although it is not the typical practice of the City of Los Angeles to establish specific boundaries for districts or neighborhoods. For this to be done, the boundaries were defined. The bill was unanimously supported by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles City Council. Assembly Bill 588 was approved by the Governor of California on August 28, 2006, and now the district of Hollywood has official borders. The border can be loosely described as the area east of West Hollywood, south of Mulholland Drive, Laurel Canyon, Cahuenga Boulevard, and Barham Boulevard, and the cities of Burbank and Glendale, north of Melrose Avenue and west of the Golden State Freeway and Hyperion Avenue. This includes all of Griffith Park and Los Feliz – two areas that were hitherto considered separate from Hollywood by most Angelenos. The population of the district, including Los Feliz, as of the 2000 census was 123,436 and the median household income was $33,409 in 1999.

As a district within the Los Angeles city limits, Hollywood does not have its own municipal government. There was an official, appointed by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, who served as an honorary "Mayor of Hollywood" for ceremonial purposes only. Johnny Grant held this position from 1980 until his death on January 9, 2008. However, no replacement has ever been named after Grant's death.

History

In 1853, one adobe hut stood in Nopalera, named for the Mexican ''nopal'' cactus indigenous to the area. By 1870, an agricultural community flourished in the area with thriving crops of many common and exotic varieties. The area was known to these residents as the Cahuenga Valley, after the pass in the Santa Monica Mountains immediately to the north. Soon thereafter, land speculation led to subdivision of the large plots and an influx of homeowners.

In spite of the area's short history, it has been filled with events driven by optimistic progress. The name Hollywood was coined by H. J. Whitley, the "Father of Hollywood". Whitley arranged to buy the E.C. Hurd ranch and disclosed to him his plans for the land. They agreed on a price and Hurd agreed to sell at a later date. Before Whitley got off the ground with Hollywood, plans for the new town had spread to General Harrison Gray Otis, Mr Hurd's wife, Mrs. Daeida Wilcox, and numerous others through the mill of gossip and land speculation.

Daeida learned of the name Hollywood from her neighbor in Holly Canyon (now Lake Hollywood), Ivar Weid, a prominent investor and friend of Whitley's. She recommended the same name to her husband, H. H. Wilcox. On February 1, 1887, Harvey filed a deed and map of property he sold with the Los Angeles County Recorder's office. Harvey wanted to be the first to record it on a deed. The early real-estate boom busted that same year, yet Hollywood began its slow growth.

By 1900, the region had a post office, newspaper, hotel, and two markets. Los Angeles, with a population of 102,479 lay east through the vineyards, barley fields, and citrus groves. A single-track streetcar line ran down the middle of Prospect Avenue from it, but service was infrequent and the trip took two hours. The old citrus fruit-packing house would be converted into a livery stable, improving transportation for the inhabitants of Hollywood.

The famous Hollywood Hotel, the first major hotel in Hollywood, was opened in 1902, by H. J. Whitley, then President of the Los Pacific Boulevard and Development Company, of which he was a major shareholder. Having finally acquired the Hurd ranch and subdivided it, Whitley built the hotel to attract land buyers, and was eager to sell these residential lots among the lemon ranches lining the foothills. Flanking the west side of Highland Avenue, the structure fronted on Prospect Avenue, which, still a dusty, unpaved road, was regularly graded and graveled. The Hotel was to become internationally known and was the center of the civic and social life and home of the stars for many years. His company was developing and selling one of the early residential areas, the Ocean View Tract. Whitley did much to promote the area. He paid many thousands of dollars for electric lighting, including bringing electricity and building a bank, as well as a road into the Cahuenga Pass. The lighting ran for several blocks down Prospect Avenue. Whitley's land was centered on Highland Avenue.

Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality on November 14, 1903. The vote was 88 for incorporation and 77 against. On January 30, 1904, the voters in Hollywood decided, by a vote of 113 to 96, for the banishment of liquor in the city, except when it was being sold for medicinal purposes. Neither hotels nor restaurants were allowed to serve wine or liquor before or after meals.

By 1910, because of an ongoing struggle to secure an adequate water supply, town officials voted for Hollywood to be annexed into the City of Los Angeles, as the water system of the growing city had opened the Los Angeles Aqueduct and was piping water down from the Owens River in the Owens Valley. Another reason for the vote was that Hollywood could have access to drainage through Los Angeles' sewer system. With annexation, the name of Prospect Avenue was changed to Hollywood Boulevard and all the street numbers in the new district changed. For example, 100 Prospect Avenue, at Vermont Avenue, became 6400 Hollywood Boulevard; and 100 Cahuenga Boulevard, at Hollywood Boulevard, changed to 1700 Cahuenga Boulevard.

Motion picture industry

Filmmaking in the greater Los Angeles area preceded the establishment of filmmaking in Hollywood. The Biograph Company filmed the short film ''A Daring Hold-Up in Southern California'' in Los Angeles in 1906. The first studio in the Los Angeles area was established by the Selig Polyscope Company in Edendale, with construction beginning in August 1909.

Prolific director D. W. Griffith was the first to make a motion picture in Hollywood. His 17-minute short film ''In Old California'', which was released on March 10, 1910, was filmed entirely in the village of Hollywood for the Biograph Company. Although Hollywood banned movie theaters—of which it had none—before annexation that year, Los Angeles had no such restriction. The first film by a Hollywood Studio, Nestor Motion Picture Company, was shot on October 26, 1911. The Whitley home was used as its set, and the unnamed movie was filmed in the middle of their groves on the corner of Whitley Ave and Hollywood Boulevard by directors Al Christie and David and William Horsley.

Various producers and filmmakers moved bases from the east coast to escape punitive licensing from the Motion Picture Patents Company.

The first studio in Hollywood was established by the New Jersey–based Centaur Co., which wanted to make westerns in California. They rented an unused roadhouse at 6121 Sunset Boulevard at the corner of Gower, and converted it into a movie studio in October 1911, calling it Nestor Studio after the name of the western branch of their company. The first feature film made specifically in a Hollywood studio, in 1914, was ''The Squaw Man'', directed by Cecil B. DeMille and Oscar Apfel, and was filmed at the Lasky-DeMille Barn among other area locations.

By 1911, Los Angeles was second only to New York in motion picture production, and by 1915, the majority of American films were being produced in the Los Angeles area. Four major film companies – Paramount, Warner Bros., RKO and Columbia – had studios in Hollywood, as did several minor companies and rental studios. Hollywood had begun its dramatic transformation from sleepy suburb to movie production capital. The residential and agrarian Hollywood Boulevard of 1910 was virtually unrecognizable by 1920 as the new commercial and retail sector replaced it. The sleepy town was no more, and, to the chagrin of many original residents, the boom town could not be stopped.

1920s–1940s

By 1920, Hollywood had become world-famous as the center of the United States film industry. In 1918, HJ Whitley commissioned architect A.S. Barnes to design Whitley Heights as a Mediterranean-style village on the steep hillsides above Hollywood Boulevard, and it became the first celebrity community. The neighborhood is roughly bordered on the north and east by Cahuenga Boulevard, on the west by Highland Avenue, and on the south by Franklin Avenue. Among Whitley Heights' many famous residents have been Rudolph Valentino, Barbara Stanwyck, W.C. Fields, Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, William Powell. Tyrone Power, Gloria Swanson, Rosalind Russell, Judy Garland, and Marlene Dietrich.

From the 1920s to the 1940s, a large percentage of transportation to and from Hollywood was by means of the ''red cars'' of the Pacific Electric Railway.

Modern Hollywood

On January 22, 1947, the first commercial television station west of the Mississippi River, KTLA, began operating in Hollywood. In December of that year, ''The Public Prosecutor'' became the first network television series to be filmed in Hollywood. In the 1950s, music recording studios and offices began moving into Hollywood. Other businesses, however, continued to migrate to different parts of the Los Angeles area, primarily to Burbank. Much of the movie industry remained in Hollywood, although the district's outward appearance changed.

In 1952, CBS built CBS Television City on the corner of Fairfax Avenue and Beverly Boulevard, on the former site of Gilmore Stadium. CBS's expansion into the Fairfax District pushed the unofficial boundary of Hollywood farther south than it had been. CBS's slogan for the shows taped there was "From Television City in Hollywood..."

During the early 1950s the famous Hollywood Freeway was constructed from Four Level Interchange interchange in downtown Los Angeles, past the Hollywood Bowl, up through Cahuenga Pass and into the San Fernando Valley. In the early days, streetcars ran up through the pass, on rails running along the central median.

The famous Capitol Records Building on Vine St. just north of Hollywood Boulevard was built in 1956. The building houses offices and recording studios, which are not open to the public, but its circular design looks like a stack of vinyl records.

The now derelict lot at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Serrano Avenue was once the site of the illustrious Hollywood Professional School (1935-1984), whose alumni reads like a Hollywood Who's Who of household "names". Many of these former child stars attended a "farewell" party at the commemorative sealing of a time capsule buried on the lot.

The Hollywood Walk of Fame was created in 1958 as a tribute to artists and other significant contributors within the entertainment industry. Official groundbreaking occurred on February 8, 1960, and the first star to be permanently installed was that of director Stanley Kramer (not Joanne Woodward, as commonly related). A detailed history of the Walk can be found in the Walk of Fame main article. Honorees receive a star based on their achievements in motion pictures, live theatre, radio, television, and/or music, as well as their charitable and civic contributions.

During the 1980s, Hollywood was the heart of a new Hard rock movement known as Glam metal. The most known Hollywood glam metal and hard rock bands include Mötley Crüe, Poison, RATT, W.A.S.P, Quiet Riot, Guns N' Roses and Van Halen. These bands were notorious for their debauched and promiscuous lifestyle of late-night parties, drug and alcohol abuse, casual sex and backstage groupie antics. A haven for the pulsating music scene of the time, Hollywood also saw a number of popular bands from different genres emerge, such as Jane's Addiction, Metallica and various others.

In 1985, the Hollywood Boulevard Commercial and Entertainment District was officially listed in the National Register of Historic Places protecting important buildings and ensuring that the significance of Hollywood's past would always be a part of its future.

In June 1999, the Hollywood extension of the Los Angeles County Metro Rail Red Line subway opened, running from Downtown Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley, with stops along Hollywood Boulevard at Western Avenue, Vine Street and Highland Avenue.

The Kodak Theatre, which opened in 2001 on Hollywood Boulevard at Highland Avenue, where the historic Hollywood Hotel once stood, has become the new home of the Oscars.

While motion picture production still occurs within the Hollywood district, most major studios are actually located elsewhere in the Los Angeles region. Paramount Pictures is the only major studio still physically located within Hollywood. Other studios in the district include the aforementioned Jim Henson (formerly Chaplin) Studios, Sunset Gower Studios, and Raleigh Studios.

While Hollywood and the adjacent neighborhood of Los Feliz served as the initial homes for all of the early television stations in the Los Angeles market, most have now relocated to other locations within the metropolitan area. KNBC began this exodus in 1962, when it moved from the former NBC Radio City Studios located at the northeast corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street to NBC Studios in Burbank. KTTV (purchased by FOX) pulled up stakes in 1996 from its former home at Metromedia Square on Sunset Boulevard to relocate to the FOX Studio lot in West Los Angeles. KABC-TV moved from its original location at ABC Television Center (now branded The Prospect Studios) just east of Hollywood to Glendale in 2000, though the Los Angeles bureau of ABC News still resides at Prospect and still serves as an ABC Network studios facility. After being purchased by 20th Century Fox in 2001, KCOP left its former home on La Brea Avenue to join KTTV on the Fox lot. The CBS Corporation-owned duopoly of KCBS-TV and KCAL-TV moved from its longtime home at CBS Columbia Square on Sunset Boulevard to a new facility at CBS Studio Center in Studio City. KTLA and KCET, both located on Sunset Boulevard, are the last broadcasters (television or radio) with Hollywood addresses. However, KCET has since sold its studios on Sunset and plans to move to another location.

In addition, Hollywood once served as the home of nearly every radio station in Los Angeles, all of which have now moved into other communities, especially Burbank, but a fair number also relocated to Wilshire Center and Miracle Mile district with the latter being home to many TV production companies including Mark Goodson and the E! network. KNX was the last station to broadcast from Hollywood, when it left CBS Columbia Square for a studio in the Miracle Mile in 2005. While Hollywood was home to several foreign-language radio stations, they too moved to many of the same areas as their English language counter-parts. In fact, today, not a single L.A. market radio station has operations in Hollywood.

In 2002, a number of Hollywood citizens began a campaign for the district to secede from Los Angeles and become, as it had been a century earlier, its own incorporated municipality. Secession supporters argued that the needs of their community were being ignored by the leaders of Los Angeles. In June of that year, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors placed secession referendums for both Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley on the ballots for a "citywide election." To pass, they required the approval of a majority of voters in the proposed new municipality as well as a majority of voters in all of Los Angeles. In the November election, both referendums failed by wide margins in the citywide vote.

Hollywood is served by several neighborhood councils, including the Hollywood United Neighborhood Council (HUNC) and the Hollywood Studio District Neighborhood Council. These two groups are part of the network of neighborhood councils certified by the City of Los Angeles Department of Neighborhood Empowerment. Neighborhood Councils cast advisory votes on such issues as zoning, planning, and other community issues. The council members are voted in by stakeholders, generally defined as anyone living, working, owning property, or belonging to an organization within the boundaries of the council.

Revitalization

After many years of serious decline, when many Hollywood landmarks were threatened with demolition, Hollywood is now undergoing rapid gentrification and revitalization with the goal of urban density in mind. Many developments have been completed, typically centered on Hollywood Boulevard. The Hollywood and Highland complex (site of the Kodak Theater) has been a major catalyst for the redevelopment of the area. In addition, numerous fashionable bars, clubs, and retail businesses have opened on or surrounding the boulevard, returning Hollywood to a center of nightlife in Los Angeles. Many older buildings have also been converted to lofts and condominiums. The W Hollywood Hotel is now open at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine.

Hollywood neighborhoods and communities

Cahuenga Pass

Hollywood Hills

*Beachwood Canyon

*Hollywood Heights

*Laurel Canyon

*Mount Olympus

*Nichols Canyon

*Outpost Estates

*Sunset Hills

*Whitley Heights

East Hollywood

*Little Armenia

*Thai Town

*Virgil Village

Melrose District

Melrose Hill

Sierra Vista

Spaulding Square

Yucca Corridor.

Government

Fire services

Los Angeles Fire Department operates four fire stations – Station 27, 41, 52, and 82 – in the area.

County representation

The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services operates the Hollywood-Wilshire Health Center in Hollywood.

Federal representation

The United States Postal Service operates the Hollywood Post Office, the Hollywood Pavilion Post Office, and the Sunset Post Office.

Demographics

As of the 2000 census, there were 210,777 people residing in the Community Plan Area of Hollywood. The population density was 8,443 people per square mile (3,261/km²). The racial makeup of the community was 59.84% White (47.27% White Non-Hispanic), 9.44% Asian, 0.13% Pacific Islander, 4.28% Black, 0.62% Native American, 19.10% from other races, and 6.59% from two or more races. 34.51% of the population were Hispanic of any race. 49.63% of the population was foreign born; of this, 46.24% came from Latin America, 32.73% from Asia, 17.80% from Europe and 3.23% from other parts of the world.

Education

Students who live in Hollywood are zoned to schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The area is within Board District 4. As of 2008 Marlene Canter represents the district. Canter announced that she will not seek re-election after her term expires in June 2009.

Elementary schools:

Cheremoya Elementary School

Vineyard Street Elementary School

Ramona Elementary School

Gardner Elementary School

Valley View Elementary School

Grant Elementary School

Selma Ave. Elementary School

Middle schools:

Le Conte Middle School

Bancroft Middle School

Hollywood High School and Helen Bernstein High School are public high schools in the Hollywood area.

Christ the King Elementary School is a private school in the area.

For many years, the motion picture Industry had its own private Industry-run institution for child actors, the Hollywood Professional School (1935-1984).

Public libraries

The Will and Ariel Durant Branch and the Frances Howard Goldwyn – Hollywood Regional Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library are in Hollywood.

Landmarks

Barnsdall Art Park

Capitol Records Tower

CBS Columbia Square

Charlie Chaplin Studios

Cinerama Dome

Crossroads of the World

Earl Carroll Theatre

El Capitan Theatre

Frederick's of Hollywood

Gibson Amphitheatre

Gower Gulch

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Grauman's Egyptian Theatre

Guitar Center

Hollywood & Western Building

Hollywood and Highland Center

Hollywood and Vine

Hollywood Bowl

Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Hollywood Heritage Museum

Hollywood High School

Hollywood Palladium

Hollywood Masonic Temple

Hollywood Sign

Hollywood Walk of Fame

Hollywood Wax Museum

KCBS-TV

KCET

Knickerbocker Hotel

Kodak Theatre

KTLA

Pantages Theatre

Paramount Pictures

Ripley's Believe It Or Not! Odditorium

Rock 'n' Roll Ralphs

Roosevelt Hotel

Runyon Canyon Park

Sunset Gower Studios

Sunset Strip

The Laugh Factory

The Magic Castle

The Prospect Studios

Universal Studios Hollywood

Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre

Whitley Heights

Special events

The Academy Awards are held in late February/early March (since 2004) of each year, honoring the preceding year in film. Prior to 2004, they were held in late March/early April. Since 2002, the Oscars have been held at their new home at the Kodak Theater at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue.

CINECON Classic Film Festival & Exposition (Annual timing is five days—connected to Labor Day weekend) Classic film memorabilia, expert presentations, author signings, and movie screenings with celebrity guests.

The annual Hollywood Christmas Parade: The 2006 parade on Nov. 26 was the 75th edition of the Christmas Parade. The parade goes down Hollywood Boulevard and is broadcast in the LA area on KTLA, and around the United States on Tribune-owned stations and the WGN superstation.

See also

Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments in Hollywood

2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike

Cinema of the United States

Hollywood cerise

Hollywood Pictures

Hollywood Principle

Hollywood Subway

Hollywood Walk of Fame

History of cinema

List of Hollywood novels

List of movie-related topics

List of movies set in Los Angeles

List of television shows set in Los Angeles

West Hollywood, California

References

;Notes

External links

AboutHollywood.com – Top Hollywood Area Resource

Category:California culture Category:Communities on U.S. Route 66 Category:Hollywood Category:Neighborhoods in Los Angeles, California Category:Populated places established in 1853 Category:Film production districts

af:Hollywood ar:هوليوود، كاليفورنيا ast:Hollywood az:Hollivud bn:হলিউড zh-min-nan:Hollywood map-bms:Hollywood be:Галівуд be-x-old:Галівуд bg:Холивуд bs:Hollywood br:Hollywood ca:Hollywood cs:Hollywood cy:Hollywood da:Hollywood de:Hollywood et:Hollywood el:Χόλυγουντ es:Hollywood eo:Holivudo eu:Hollywood fa:هالیوود، کالیفرنیا fo:Hollywood fr:Hollywood fy:Hollywood ga:Hollywood gv:Hollywood gl:Hollywood ko:할리우드 hi:हॉलीवुड hr:Hollywood io:Hollywood id:Hollywood is:Hollywood it:Hollywood he:הוליווד jv:Hollywood kn:ಹಾಲಿವುಡ್ ka:ჰოლივუდი sw:Hollywood, California la:Ruscisilva lv:Holivuda lb:Hollywood (Kalifornien) lt:Holivudas li:Hollywood hu:Hollywood mk:Холивуд, Лос Анџелес, Калифорнија ml:ഹോളിവുഡ് mr:हॉलिवूड xmf:ჰოლივუდი ms:Hollywood my:ဟောလိဝုဒ် nl:Hollywood ne:हलिवुड ja:ハリウッド no:Hollywood nn:Hollywood oc:Hollywood ps:هاليووډ pl:Hollywood pt:Hollywood ksh:Hollywood ro:Hollywood ru:Голливуд sq:Hollywood scn:Hollywood simple:Hollywood sk:Hollywood sl:Hollywood sr:Холивуд sh:Hollywood fi:Hollywood sv:Hollywood ta:ஹாலிவுட் tt:Голливуд te:హాలీవుడ్ th:ฮอลลีวูด tr:Hollywood uk:Голлівуд vi:Hollywood vo:Hollywood war:Hollywood yi:האליוואד zh-yue:荷里活 bat-smg:Huolėvods zh:好莱坞

The ''Hollywood Star'' was an idiosyncratic gossip tabloid published on an erratic schedule in Hollywood, California by William Kern, who wrote much of the magazine under the pseudonym "Bill Dakota." Published in a newspaper format (and sold in newsracks), it appeared in 1976, and had stopped publishing by 1981. In 1979, it adopted a smaller magazine format which lasted two issues, as ''Hollywood "Confidential" Star Magazine.'' thumb|left| Hollywood Star Magazine, vol. 1 no. 1, 1979.Inspired by ''Confidential'' and other gossip magazines of the 1950s, ''The Hollywood Star'' had a homosexual subtext (Kern's other mid-70s paper was called ''Gayboy'') and printed nude photos and sexually-oriented gossip with a frankness that had rarely if ever been seen in gossip magazines. In addition to naming stars who were gay or bisexual, for example, the magazine published lists of male celebrities based on whether they were circumcised. One issue had a red-letter headline reading "Walt Disney was Homosexual: Editor Reveals Facts!," the cover story included an affidavit from Dakota, attesting that he had been paid to perform a sex act with Disney. Charles Manson went on record with Dakota about various celebrities that he had been involved with, allegedly leading Frank Sinatra to threaten Dakota (as one of Sinatra's daughters had been named by Manson).

References

Category:Defunct magazines of the United States Category:Defunct newspapers of California

Coordinates	12°2′36″N77°1′42″N
name	Jennifer Aniston
birth name	Jennifer Joanna Aniston
birth date	February 11, 1969
birth place	Sherman Oaks, California
occupation	Actress
years active	1989–present
spouse	Brad Pitt (2000–05)
parents	John Aniston, Nancy Dow }}

Jennifer Joanna Aniston (born February 11, 1969) is an American actress, film director, and producer. She gained worldwide recognition in the 1990s for portraying Rachel Green in the television sitcom ''Friends'', a role which earned her an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Aniston has also enjoyed a successful Hollywood film career. She gained critical acclaim for her performances in the independent films ''She's the One'' (1996), ''Office Space'' (1999), ''The Good Girl'' (2002) and ''Friends with Money'' (2006). She has had her greatest commercial successes with the films ''Bruce Almighty'' (2003), ''The Break-Up'' (2006), ''Marley & Me'' (2008), ''Just Go with It'' (2011), and ''Horrible Bosses'' (2011). Aniston has been selected for a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012.

Early life

Jennifer Aniston was born in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles to actors John Aniston and Nancy Dow. Her father is Greek and a native of Crete. Her mother was born in New York City of Scottish-Canadian and Italian descent. Aniston has two half-brothers, John Melick, her maternal older half-brother, and Alex Aniston, her younger paternal half-brother. Aniston's godfather was actor Telly Savalas, one of her father's best friends. As a child, Aniston lived in Greece for one year with her family. They later relocated to New York City. Aniston attended the Rudolf Steiner School in New York, and graduated from Manhattan's Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. She worked in Off Broadway productions such as ''For Dear Life'' and ''Dancing on Checker's Grave'', and supported herself with several part-time jobs, which included working as a telemarketer, waitress, and bike messenger. In 1989, Aniston moved to Los Angeles, California.

Career

Television

Aniston was cast in her first television role in 1990, starring as a regular on the short-lived series ''Molloy'' and in the TV movie ''Camp Cucamonga''. She also co-starred in ''Ferris Bueller'', a television adaptation of the 1986 hit movie ''Ferris Bueller's Day Off''. The series, however, was quickly canceled. Aniston then appeared in two more failed television comedy series, ''The Edge'' and ''Muddling Through'', and guest-starred on ''Quantum Leap'', ''Herman's Head'', and ''Burke's Law''. After the string of canceled shows, along with her appearance in the critically derided 1992 horror film, ''Leprechaun'', Aniston reportedly considered giving up acting.

Aniston's plans changed, however, after auditioning for ''Friends'', a sitcom that was set to debut on NBC's 1994–1995 fall lineup. The producers of the show originally wanted Aniston to audition for the role of Monica Geller, but Courteney Cox was considered to be better suited to the role. Thus, Aniston was cast as Rachel Green. She was also offered a spot as a featured player on ''Saturday Night Live'', but turned it down to do ''Friends''. She played the character of Rachel from 1994 until the show ended in 2004.

The program was successful and Aniston, along with her co-stars, gained world-wide reputation among television viewers. Aniston received a salary of $1 million per episode for the last two seasons of ''Friends'', as well as five Emmy nominations (two for Supporting Actress, three for Lead Actress), including a win for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. According to the ''Guinness World Book of Records'' (2005), Aniston (along with her female costars) became the highest paid TV actress of all time with her $1 million-per-episode paycheck for the tenth season of ''Friends''.

In 2007, Aniston guest starred in an episode of Courteney Cox Arquette's series ''Dirt'', playing Arquette's rival, Tina Harrod. She appeared in the third episode of Season 3 of NBC's ''30 Rock'' playing Liz Lemon's old college roommate who stalks Jack Donaghy. On July 16, 2009, Aniston received an Emmy nomination in the category of Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her role on ''30 Rock''. Aniston was a guest star on the Season 2 premiere of ABC's sitcom ''Cougar Town'', playing a psychiatrist.

Film

While appearing on ''Friends'', Aniston also started segueing into film roles. She made her film debut in 1992's ''Leprechaun'', which was negatively reviewed by critics, but was commercially successful and gained a cult following. Following a four year hiatus from cinema, Aniston returned to film work in 1996, when she played supporting roles in the independent films ''Dream for an Insomniac'', and ''She's the One'', alongside Edward Burns and Cameron Diaz. Aniston's first starring vehicle was the film ''Picture Perfect'' (1997), in which she starred opposite Kevin Bacon and Jay Mohr. While the film received mixed reviews, Aniston's performance was more warmly received, with many critics suggesting that she had screen presence. During the second half of the 1990s she starred in several films such as the ensemble romantic film '''Til There Was You'' (1997) with Dylan McDermott and Sarah Jessica Parker, ''The Thin Pink Line'' (1998), the animated feature ''The Iron Giant'' (1999), and the critically acclaimed comedy ''Office Space'' (1999). She gained critical acclaim for her performances in ''The Object of My Affection'' (1998), a comedy-drama about a woman who falls for a gay man (played by Paul Rudd), and in the low-budget 2002 film ''The Good Girl'', playing an unglamorous cashier in a small town. The latter film opened in relatively few theaters—under 700 in total—taking $14M in the U.S. box office.

Aniston's biggest box office success to date was her appearance in 2003's ''Bruce Almighty'', in which she played the live-in girlfriend of Jim Carrey's title character. Aniston then starred in the 2004 film ''Along Came Polly'' opposite Ben Stiller. In late 2005, Aniston appeared in two major studio films, ''Derailed'' and ''Rumor Has It…''. In 2006, Aniston appeared in the low-budget drama ''Friends with Money'', which was first shown at the Sundance Film Festival and received a limited release. Aniston's next film, ''The Break-Up'', which was released on June 2, grossed approximately $39.17 million during its opening weekend, despite lukewarm reviews. In 2006, Aniston directed a hospital emergency room-set short film called ''Room 10'', starring Robin Wright Penn and Kris Kristofferson as part of ''Glamour'''s Reel Moments film series. Aniston noted that she was inspired to direct by actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who also directed a short film in 2006.

On December 25, 2008, ''Marley & Me'', in which Aniston starred alongside Owen Wilson, was released. It set a record for the largest Christmas Day box office ever with $14.75 million in ticket sales. It earned a total of $51.7 million over the four-day weekend and placed #1 at the box office, a position it maintained for two weeks. The total worldwide gross was $242,717,113. Her next film in wide release, ''He's Just Not That into You'', where she starred opposite Ben Affleck, opened in February 2009. The movie made $27.5 million, ranking #1 at the box office in its opening weekend. While the film received mixed reviews, Aniston, along with Affleck, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Jennifer Connelly, were often praised by critics as being the stand-outs in the film.

In March 2010, Aniston appeared in ''The Bounty Hunter'', which costarred Gerard Butler. While the film received scathing reviews from critics, it was a modest box office success, garnering over $130 million worldwide. A lukewarm box-office reception greeted her next film, ''The Switch'', in which she co-starred with Jason Bateman. The film's opening weekend drew what ''The Hollywood Reporter'' dubbed "a dispiriting $8.4 million". The film has received generally mixed reviews, with review site Metacritic showing 13 out of 30 critics delivering a positive verdict.

As of June 20, 2010, Aniston's movies have grossed more than $1 billion in the United States and over $1.7 billion worldwide. Aniston's ''Just Go with It'', with Adam Sandler, was released on Valentine's Day weekend in 2011. The story is about a plastic surgeon, played by Sandler, who asks his office manager, played by Aniston, to pose as his wife, to prove his honesty to his much younger girlfriend, played by Brooklyn Decker.

Also in 2011, Aniston starred in the comedy movie ''Horrible Bosses'', with Colin Farrell, Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jamie Foxx, directed by Seth Gordon. The film focuses on a trio of employees who plot to murder their titular tyrannical supervisors. Aniston played one of the bosses, a sexually aggressive dentist who harasses Charlie Day's character. Aniston has signed to star in ''Wanderlust'' with Paul Rudd, who she co-starred with in the 1998 movie ''The Object of My Affection'' and also ''Friends''. The script, which has been bought by Universal Pictures, was written by Rudd, Ken Marino, and David Wain with the latter also directing the film and will be produced by Judd Apatow. The movie tells the story of a married couple who join a commune after losing their money and deciding modern life is not for them.

Other work

Aniston has appeared in various commercials and music videos. In 1996, she was in Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers music video for "Walls". In 2001, Aniston was in Melissa Etheridge's music video for "I Want To Be In Love". She was cast in a Heineken commercial which was later banned due to branding issues. Aniston has also been in commercials for L'Oreal hair products. In 1994, Microsoft invited Aniston, along with ''Friends'' co-star Matthew Perry, to shoot a 30-minute promotional advertisement for their new operating system, Windows 95. Along with Brad Pitt and Brad Grey, CEO of Paramount Pictures, Aniston founded the film production company Plan B Entertainment in 2002, although she and Grey withdrew in 2005. In 2008, she and partner Kristin Hahn formed the production company Echo Films.

Aniston worked for over a year on a new perfume, which was released on July 21, 2010, at Harrods in London. Original plans called for the perfume to be named ''Lolavie by Jennifer Aniston'', but to avoid confusion with a similarly named perfume, the name was changed to simply ''Jennifer Aniston''. In an interview following the launch, Aniston said that she would also like to create a fragrance for men.

Since 2007, Aniston has worked in a publicity campaign for the drink SmartWater; on March 7, 2011, she released a YouTube video, titled "Jennifer Aniston Goes Viral", for SmartWater, tripling online interest in the product within 24 hours of the release.

Philanthropy

Aniston is a supporter of Friends of El Faro, a grassroots non-profit organization that helps raise money for Casa Hogar Sion, an orphanage in Tijuana, Mexico. She has appeared in many TV commercials for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, which she supports. She also hosted September 2008's Stand Up to Cancer show.

In the "It Can't Wait" campaign to free Burma, Aniston directed and starred in a video.

On April 14, 2007, Aniston received GLAAD's Vanguard Award for her contributions to increased visibility and understanding of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. On Earth Day 2010, she joined Courteney Cox, Woody Harrelson, Ben Stiller and others in "The Cove PSA: My Friend is..." an effort to stop the slaughter of dolphins and protect the Japanese people from the toxic levels of mercury found in dolphin meat. Other charities that Aniston has supported include AmeriCares, Clothes Off Our Back, Feeding America, EB Medical Research Foundation, Project A.L.S., OmniPeace, and Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.

Aniston donated $500,000 to Doctors Without Borders, Haitian health care provider Partners in Health and AmeriCares, and also participated in the megastar-studded Hope for Haiti Now telethon.

Personal life

Aniston dated her ''Ferris Bueller'' TV costar Charlie Schlatter in 1990, and briefly dated musician Adam Duritz in 1995. From 1995 to 1998, she was romantically involved with actor Tate Donovan and the couple were reportedly engaged.

In May 1998, she began dating actor Brad Pitt. They married on July 29, 2000, in a private wedding ceremony in Malibu. For a few years, their marriage was considered the rare Hollywood success. However, the couple announced their separation on January 6, 2005. Aniston, however, filed for divorce on March 25, 2005. It was finalized on October 2, 2005. During this period there was intense speculation in the media that Pitt had been unfaithful to Aniston with his ''Mr. & Mrs. Smith'' co-star, Angelina Jolie.

In the following months, the public's reaction towards the divorce was reported in the press. The story became the headline news of media shows such as ''Entertainment Tonight'' and ''Access Hollywood'', and made the front-pages of tabloid magazines for years, continuing till this day. 'Team Aniston' and 'Team Jolie' T-shirts appeared, with 'Team Aniston' shirts out-selling the 'Team Jolie' shirts 4:1. Aniston revealed that her divorce prompted her to reach out to her mother, Nancy, from whom she was estranged for nearly a decade. They initially became estranged when Nancy spoke about her daughter on a television show and later wrote a book entitled, ''From Mother and Daughter to Friends: A Memoir'' (1999). Aniston has also stated she was devastated by the death of her longtime therapist, whose work helped make her separation from Pitt easier. Aniston said her relationship with Pitt, which she does not regret, was "seven very intense years together" and that "it was a beautiful, complicated relationship."

After her divorce, Aniston began a relationship with actor Vince Vaughn, with whom she costarred in ''The Break-Up''. Relationship troubles were reported in September 2006, followed by a confirmed split in December of that year. In February 2008, she began dating singer John Mayer.

Aniston has had two septoplasties to correct her deviated septum—one which was incorrectly done in 1994 and the second in January 2007.

Aniston is the godmother of Coco Riley Arquette, the daughter of her good friends, actors Courteney Cox and David Arquette.

In 2007, ''Forbes'' rated Aniston as one of the top 10 richest women in entertainment and estimated her net worth to be about $110 million.

In the media

''Forbes'' listed Aniston as the 10th richest woman in the entertainment industry for 2007. Aniston was also included in the annual Star Salary Top 10 of trade magazine ''The Hollywood Reporter'' for 2006. According to ''Forbes'', in October 2007, Aniston was the top-selling celebrity face of the entertainment industry. She was also Hollywood's most profitable actress. Aniston has been on the ''Forbes'' Celebrity 100 list, based on "earnings and fame", every year since 2001, topping the list in 2003. For the year of 2008, ''Forbes'' listed Aniston's earnings as $27 million. In 2005, Aniston became the first-ever GQ Woman of the Year. She has appeared on ''People''s annual list of The Most Beautiful every year since 1995, and came in at #1 in 2004. In 2006, Aniston also topped ''People''s Best Dressed List. She has been a regular on FHM's 100 Sexiest Women list since 1996, ranking at #81 in 2010, #24 in 2009 and #27 in 2008. In 2011 ''The Telegraph'' reported the most sought after body parts of the rich and famous revealed by two Hollywood plastic surgeons who carried out a survey among their patients to build up the picture of what the perfect woman would look like. Under the category of the most sought after body shape Aniston was voted in the top three alongside Gisele Bundchen and Penelope Cruz. Although Aniston disliked the hairstyle she wore during her first two years on ''Friends'', "The Rachel" became and remains very popular among women.

Salary

Friends

Season One: $22,500 per episode.

Season Two: $38,000 per episode

Season Three: $75,000 per episode

Season Four: $85,000 per episode

Season Five: $100,000 per episode

Season Six: $125,000 per episode

Season Seven: $750,000 per episode

Season Eight: $750,000 per episode

Season Nine: $1,000,000 per episode

Season Ten: $1,000,000 per episode

Film

Picture Perfect (1997): $2,000,000

Rock Star (2001): $3,000,000

Along Came Polly (2004): $5,000,000

Rumour Has It... (2005): $8,000,000

The Break-Up (2006): $8,000,000

Marley & Me (2008): $8,000,000

The Bounty Hunter (2010): $8,000,000

The Switch (2010): $8,000,000

Just Go with It (2011): $10,000,000

Horrible Bosses (2011): $6,000,000

Wanderlust (2011): $8,000,000

Filmography

+ Film
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1993		Tory Reding
1996	''She's the One''	Renee Fitzpatrick
1996	''Dream for an Insomniac''	Allison
1997	'''Til There Was You''	Debbie
1997		Kate Mosley
1998	''''	Clove
1998	''Waiting for Woody''	Herself	Short film
1998	''The Object of My Affection''	Nina Borowski
1999	''Office Space''	Joanna	Cult hit
1999	''''	Annie Hughes	Voice only
2001		Emily Poule
2002	''''	Justine Last	Independent film
2003	''Bruce Almighty''	Grace Connelly
2003		Herself	Cameo appearance
2004	''Along Came Polly''	Polly Prince
2005		Lucinda Harris
2005	''Rumor Has It...''	Sarah Huttinger
2006	''Friends with Money''	Olivia	Independent film
2006	''''	Brooke Meyers
2008		Jenny Grogan
2009		Beth Murphy
2009		Sue Claussen	Independent film. Also Executive Producer
2009	''Love Happens''	Eloise Chandler
2009	''Journey to Sundance''	Herself	Documentary
2010	''''	Nicole Hurly
2010	''''	Kassie Larson	Also Executive Producer
2011	''Just Go with It''	Katherine Murphy
2011	''Horrible Bosses''	Dr. Julia Harris
2011		Linda	Post-production

+ Television
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1990	''Molloy''	Courtney	Main role
1990	''Camp Cucamonga''	Ava Schector	Television movie
1990–1991		Jeannie Bueller
1992–1993	''''	Various characters	Main role
1994	''Muddling Through''	Madeline Drego Cooper	Main role
1994–2004	''Friends''	Rachel Green	236 episodes; one of the six main roles
2004		Herself – Hostess	Documentary

+ Television guest appearances
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1992		Kiki Wilson	"Nowhere to Run" (Season 5, Episode 4)
1992–1993	''Herman's Head''	Suzie Brooks	"Twisted Sister" (Season 1, Episode 25) "Jay Is for Jealousy" (Season 3, Episode 8)
1994	''Burke's Law''	Linda Campbell	"Who Killed the Beauty Queen?" (Season 1, Episode 4)
1995	''The Larry Sanders Show''	Herself	"Conflict of Interest" (Season 4, Episode 10)
1998		CPA Suzanne	"Follow the Clams?" (Season 1, Episode 17)
1998		Herself	"Ellen: A Hollywood Tribute: Part 2" (Season 5, Episode 20)
1998	''Disney's Hercules''	Galatea (Voice)	"Dream Date" (Season 1, Episode 27)
1999	''South Park''	Mrs. Stevens – Choir Teacher (Voice)	"Rainforest Shmainforest" (Season 3, Episode 1)
2003	''Freedom: A History of Us''	Jessie Benton	"Wake Up America " (Season 1, Episode 4)
2003	''King of the Hill''	Pepperoni Sue/Stephanie (Voice)
2007		Tina Harrod	"Ita Missa Est" (Season 1, Episode 13)
2008	''30 Rock''	Claire Harper	"The One with the Cast of Night Court" (Season 3, Episode 3)
2010	''Cougar Town''	Glenn
2011	''Kickin' It''	Laura	Recurring role (3 episodes)

+ Video games
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1996	''Steven Spielberg's Director's Chair''	Laura	Voice

Director

Year	Title	Notes
2006	''Room 10''	Short Film
2012	''Project Five''	TV Movie

Producer

Year	Title	Notes
2008		Executive producer
2010		Executive producer
2011	''The Goree Girls''	Producer

Awards and nominations

Aniston has won multiple awards during her career, and has been recognized for her work in both television and movie productions.

Year	Award	Category	Title of work	Result
1996	American Comedy Awards	Funniest Supporting Female Performer in a TV Series	Friends
1996	Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series	Friends
1997	Kid's Choice Awards	Favorite Television Actress	Friends
1999	American Comedy Awards	Funniest Supporting Female Performer in a TV Series	Friends
1999	Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series	Friends
1999	Kid's Choice Awards	Favorite Television Actress	Friends
2000	Emmy Awards	Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series	Friends
2000	Satellite Awards	Best Performance by an Actress in a Series, Comedy or Musical	Friends
2000	Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series	Friends
2000	TV Guide Awards	Editor's Choice
2000	Kid's Choice Awards	Favorite Television Actress	Friends
2001	American Comedy Awards	Funniest Supporting Female Performer in a TV Series	Friends
2001	Emmy Awards	Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series	Friends
2001	Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series	Friends
2001	People's Choice Awards	Favorite Female Television Performer	Friends
2001	Aftonbladet TV Prize, Sweden	Best Foreign TV Personality – Female	Friends
2002	Emmy Awards	Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series	Friends
2002	Golden Globe Awards	Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television	Friends
2002	Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series	Friends
2002	Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series	Friends
2002	People's Choice Awards	Favorite Female Television Performer	Friends
2002	Hollywood Film Festival	Actress of the Year
2002	Teen Choice Awards	Choice TV Actress – Comedy	Friends
2002	Aftonbladet TV Prize, Sweden	Best Foreign TV Personality – Female	Friends
2002	Kid's Choice Awards	Favorite Television Actress	Friends
2003	Emmy Awards	Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series	Friends
2003	Golden Globe Awards	Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy	Friends
2003	Satellite Awards	Best Performance by an Actress in a Series, Comedy or Musical	Friends
2003	Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series	Friends
2003	Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series	Friends
2003	Independent Spirit Awards	Best Female Lead	The Good Girl
2003	Satellite Awards	Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical	The Good Girl
2003	Online Film Critics Society	Best Actress	The Good Girl
2003	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Movie Actress – Drama/Action Adventure	The Good Girl
2003	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Movie Liplock	The Good Girl
2003	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Movie Liar	The Good Girl
2003	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Movie Actress – Comedy	Bruce Almighty
2003	Teen Choice Awards	Choice TV Actress – Comedy	Friends
2003	People's Choice Awards	Favorite Female Television Performer	Friends
2003	Aftonbladet TV Prize, Sweden	Best Foreign TV Personality – Female	Friends
2003	Logie Awards	Most Popular Overseas TV Program	Friends
2003	Kid's Choice Awards	Favorite Television Actress	Friends
2004	Emmy Awards	Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series	Friends
2004	Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series	Friends
2004	Logie Awards	Most Popular Overseas Star	Friends
2004	Logie Awards	Most Popular Overseas TV Program	Friends
2004	MTV Movie Awards	Best Kiss	Bruce Almighty
2004	MTV Movie Awards	Best Dance Sequence	Along Came Polly
2004	People's Choice Awards	Favorite Female Television Performer	Friends
2004	Teen Choice Awards	Choice TV Actress – Comedy	Friends
2004	Aftonbladet TV Prize, Sweden	Best Foreign TV Personality – Female	Friends
2004	Kid's Choice Awards	Favorite Television Actress	Friends
2005	ShoWest Convention Awards	Female Star of the Year
2005	TV Land Awards	Little Screen/Big Screen Star
2006	TV Land Awards	Most Memorable Kiss	Friends
2006	TV Land Awards	Little Screen/Big Screen Star
2006	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Movie Chemistry (shared with Vince Vaughn)	The Break-Up
2006	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Movie Actress – Comedy	The Break-Up
2007	People's Choice Awards	Favorite Female Movie Star
2007	People's Choice Awards	Favorite On-Screen Match-Up	The Break-Up
2007	TV Land Awards	Little Screen/Big Screen Star
2007	TV Land Awards	Break Up That Was So Bad It Was Good	Friends
2007	GLAAD Media Awards	Vanguard Award
2007	CineVegas International Film Festival	Best Short Film	Room 10
2009	Emmy Awards	Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series	30 Rock
2009
2009	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Movie Actress – Comedy	Marley & Me
2009	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Movie Actress – Comedy	He's Just Not That Into You
2009	Kid's Choice Awards	Favorite Movie Actress	Marley & Me
2010	People's Choice Awards	Favorite Movie Actress
2011	MTV Movie Awards	Best Female Performance	Just Go With It
2011	Spike Guys' Choice Awards	Decade of Hotness

References

External links

Category:1969 births Category:20th-century actors Category:21st-century actors Category:Actors from Los Angeles, California Category:Actors from New York City Category:American people of Greek descent Category:American people of Italian descent Category:American people of Scottish descent Category:American film actors Category:American television actors Category:American voice actors Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actress Golden Globe (television) winners Category:Emmy Award winners Category:English-language film directors Category:Female film directors Category:Film directors from California Category:Film directors from New York City Category:film producers from California Category:Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School alumni Category:GLAAD Media Awards winners Category:Living people Category:Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:People from Hollywood Category:People from Manhattan Category:People from Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles Category:Waldorf school alumni

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Coordinates	12°2′36″N77°1′42″N
name	Sir Paul McCartneyMBE
birth name	James Paul McCartney
background	solo_singer
alt	Black-and-white image of McCartney, in his sixties, holding an electric bass. He wears a black buttoned-up suit jacket with black pants.
birth name	James Paul McCartney
born	June 18, 1942Liverpool, England
instrument	Vocals,Bass guitar,guitar, piano, organ, mellotron, keyboards, drums, ukulele, mandolin, recorder
genre	Rock, pop, psychedelic rock, experimental rock, rock and roll, hard rock, classical music
occupation	Musician, singer-songwriter, record producer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, film producer, painter, activist, businessman
years active	1957–present
label	Hear Music, Apple, Parlophone, Capitol, Columbia, Concord Music Group, EMI, One Little Indian, Vee-Jay
associated acts	The Quarrymen, The Beatles, Wings, The Fireman, Linda McCartney, John Lennon, Denny Laine
website
notable instruments	Höfner 500/1Rickenbacker 4001SGibson Les PaulEpiphone TexanEpiphone CasinoFender EsquireFender Jazz BassYamaha BB1200 BassWal 5-String BassMartin D-28 }}

Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE (born 18 June 1942) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles (1960–1970) and Wings (1971–1981), McCartney is the most commercially successful songwriter in the history of popular music, according to ''Guinness World Records''.

McCartney gained worldwide fame as a member of The Beatles, alongside John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. McCartney and Lennon formed one of the most influential and successful songwriting partnerships and wrote some of the most popular songs in the history of rock music. After leaving The Beatles, McCartney launched a successful solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda Eastman, and singer-songwriter Denny Laine. McCartney is listed in ''Guinness World Records'' as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100 million singles in the United Kingdom.

BBC News Online readers named McCartney the "greatest composer of the millennium", and BBC News cites his Beatles song "Yesterday" as the most covered song in the history of recorded music—by over 2,200 artists—and since its 1965 release, has been played more than 7,000,000 times on American television and radio according to the BBC. Wings' 1977 single "Mull of Kintyre" became the first single to sell more than two million copies in the UK, and remains the UK's top selling non-charity single. Based on the 93 weeks his compositions have spent at the top spot of the UK chart, and 24 number one singles to his credit, McCartney is the most successful songwriter in UK singles chart history. As a performer or songwriter, McCartney was responsible for 31 number one singles on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart in the United States, and has sold 15.5 million RIAA certified albums in the US alone.

McCartney has composed film scores, classical and electronic music, released a large catalogue of songs as a solo artist, and has taken part in projects to help international charities. He is an advocate for animal rights, for vegetarianism, and for music education; he is active in campaigns against landmines, seal hunting, and Third World debt. He is a keen football fan, supporting both Everton and Liverpool football clubs. His company MPL Communications owns the copyrights to more than 3,000 songs, including all of the songs written by Buddy Holly, along with the publishing rights to such musicals as ''Guys and Dolls'', ''A Chorus Line'', and ''Grease''. McCartney is one of the UK's wealthiest people, with an estimated fortune of £475 million in 2010.

Childhood

McCartney was born in Walton Hospital in Liverpool, England, where his mother, Mary (née Mohan), had worked as a nurse in the maternity ward. He has one brother, Michael, born 7 January 1944. McCartney was baptised Roman Catholic but was raised non-denominationally: his mother was Roman Catholic and his father James, or "Jim" McCartney, was a Protestant turned agnostic.

In 1947, he began attending Stockton Wood Road Primary School. He then attended the Joseph Williams Junior School and passed the 11-plus exam in 1953 with three others out of the 90 examinees, thus gaining admission to the Liverpool Institute. In 1954, while taking the bus from his home in the suburb of Speke to the Institute, he met George Harrison, who lived nearby. Passing the exam meant that McCartney and Harrison could go to a grammar school rather than a secondary modern school, which the majority of pupils attended until they were eligible to work, but as grammar school pupils, they had to find new friends.

In 1955, the McCartney family moved to 20 Forthlin Road in Allerton. Mary McCartney rode a bicycle to houses where she was needed as a midwife, and an early McCartney memory is of her leaving when it was snowing heavily. On 31 October 1956, Mary McCartney died of an embolism after a mastectomy operation to stop the spread of her breast cancer. The early loss of his mother later connected McCartney with John Lennon, whose mother Julia died after being struck by a car when Lennon was 17.

McCartney's father was a trumpet player and pianist who had led Jim Mac's Jazz Band in the 1920s and encouraged his two sons to be musical. Jim had an upright piano in the front room that he had bought from Epstein's North End Music Stores. McCartney's grandfather, Joe McCartney, played an E-flat tuba. Jim McCartney used to point out the different instruments in songs on the radio, and often took McCartney to local brass band concerts. McCartney's father gave him a nickel-plated trumpet, but when skiffle music became popular, McCartney swapped the trumpet for a £15 Framus Zenith (model 17) acoustic guitar. As he was left-handed, McCartney found right-handed guitars difficult to play, but when he saw a poster advertising a Slim Whitman concert, he realised that Whitman played left-handed with his guitar strung the opposite way to a right-handed player. McCartney wrote his first song ("I Lost My Little Girl") on the Zenith, and also played his father's Framus Spanish guitar when writing early songs with Lennon. He later learned to play the piano and wrote his second song, "When I'm Sixty-Four". On his father's advice, he took music lessons, but since he preferred to learn 'by ear' he never paid much attention to them.

McCartney was heavily influenced by American Rhythm and Blues music. He has stated that Little Richard was his idol when he was in school and that the first song he ever sang in public was "Long Tall Sally", at a Butlins holiday camp talent competition.

Musical career

1957–1960

At the age of 15, McCartney met John Lennon and The Quarrymen at the St. Peter's Church Hall fête in Woolton on 6 July 1957. He formed a close working relationship with Lennon and they collaborated writing many songs. Harrison joined the group in early 1958 as lead guitarist, followed in early 1960 by Lennon's art school friend, Stuart Sutcliffe on bass. By May 1960, they had tried several new names, including "Johnny and the Moondogs" and "The Silver Beetles", playing a tour of Scotland under that name with Johnny Gentle. They finally changed the name of the group to "The Beatles" in mid-August 1960 and recruited Pete Best at short-notice to become their drummer for an imminent engagement in Hamburg.

1960–1970: The Beatles

From August 1960, The Beatles were booked by Allan Williams, to perform at a club in Hamburg. During extended stays over the next two years, The Beatles performed as a resident group in a number of Hamburg clubs. On returns to Liverpool they played at the Cavern club. Prior to the end of the residency, Sutcliffe left the band, so McCartney, reluctantly, became The Beatles' bass player. The Beatles recorded their first published musical material in Hamburg, performing as the backing group for Tony Sheridan on the single "My Bonnie". This recording later brought the Beatles to the attention of a key figure in their subsequent development and commercial success, Brian Epstein, who became their next manager. Epstein eventually negotiated a record contract for the group with Parlophone in May 1962. After replacing Best with Ringo Starr on drums, The Beatles became popular in the UK in 1963 and in the US in 1964. In 1965, they were each appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). After performing concerts, plays, and tours almost non-stop for a period of nearly four years, and giving more than one thousand four hundred live performances internationally, The Beatles gave their last commercial concert at the end of their 1966 US tour. They continued to work in the recording studio from 1966 until their break-up in 1970. In the eight years from 1962 to 1970, the group had released twenty-four UK singles and twelve studio albums, often released in different configurations in the USA and other countries (see discography).

Since 1970

After the break-up of The Beatles, McCartney continued his musical career, in solo work as well as in collaborations with other musicians. After releasing his solo album ''McCartney'' in 1970, he worked with Linda McCartney to record the album ''Ram'' in 1971. Later the same year, the pair were joined by guitarist Denny Laine and drummer Denny Seiwell to form the group Wings, which was active between 1971 and 1981 and released numerous successful singles and albums (see discography). McCartney also collaborated with a number of other popular artists including Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Eric Stewart, and Elvis Costello. In 1985, McCartney played "Let It Be" at the Live Aid concert in London, backed by Bob Geldof, Pete Townshend, David Bowie, and Alison Moyet.

In 1989, he joined forces with fellow Merseysiders including Gerry Marsden of Gerry and the Pacemakers and Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood to record a new version of Ferry Cross the Mersey (originally recorded 25 years earlier by Gerry and the Pacemakers) to generate money for the appeal fund of the Hillsborough disaster, which occurred on 15 April that year and in which 96 Liverpool F.C. fans died as a result of their injuries.

The 1990s saw McCartney venture into orchestral music, and in 1991 the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society commissioned a musical piece by McCartney to celebrate its sesquicentennial.

He collaborated with Carl Davis to release ''Liverpool Oratorio''; involving the opera singers Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sally Burgess, Jerry Hadley and Willard White, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the choir of Liverpool Cathedral. The Prince of Wales later honoured McCartney as a Fellow of The Royal College of Music and Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music (2008). Other forays into classical music included ''Standing Stone'' (1997), ''Working Classical'' (1999), and ''Ecce Cor Meum'' (2006). It was announced in the 1997 New Year Honours that McCartney was to be knighted for services to music, becoming Sir Paul McCartney. In 1999, McCartney was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist and in May 2000, he was awarded a Fellowship by the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters. The 1990s also saw McCartney, Harrison, and Starr working together on Apple's ''The Beatles Anthology'' documentary series.

Having witnessed the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks from the JFK airport tarmac, McCartney took a lead role in organising The Concert for New York City. In November 2002, on the first anniversary of George Harrison's death, McCartney performed at the Concert for George. He has also participated in the National Football League's Super Bowl, performing in the pre-game show for Super Bowl XXXVI and headlining the halftime show at Super Bowl XXXIX.

McCartney has continued to work in the realms of popular and classical music, touring the world and performing at a large number of concerts and events; on more than one occasion he has performed again with Ringo Starr. In 2008, he received a BRIT award for Outstanding Contribution to Music and an honorary degree, Doctor of Music, from Yale University. The same year, he performed at a concert in Liverpool to celebrate the city's year as European Capital of Culture. In 2009, he received two nominations for the 51st annual Grammy awards, while in October of the same year he was named songwriter of the year at the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Awards. On 15 July 2009, more than 45 years after The Beatles first appeared on American television on ''The Ed Sullivan Show'', McCartney returned to the Ed Sullivan Theater and performed atop the marquee of ''Late Show with David Letterman''. McCartney was portrayed in the 2009 film ''Nowhere Boy'', about Lennon's teenage years, by Thomas Sangster.

On 2 June 2010, McCartney was honoured by Barack Obama with the Gershwin Prize for his contributions to popular music in a live show for the White House with performances by Stevie Wonder, Lang Lang and many others.

McCartney's enduring popularity has helped him schedule performances in new venues. He played three sold out concerts at newly-built Citi Field in Queens, New York (built to replace the Shea Stadium) in July 2009. On 18 August 2010, McCartney opened the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

McCartney has been touring since 2001 with guitarists Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray, Paul "Wix" Wickens on keyboards and drummer Abe Laboriel, Jr.

There are plans for an upcoming Paul McCartney tribute album with recordings of McCartney songs by Kiss, Garth Brooks, Billy Joel, B.B. King and others.

Creative outlets

During the 1960s, McCartney was often seen at major cultural events, such as the launch party for the ''International Times'' and at The Roundhouse (28 January and 4 February 1967 respectively). He also delved into the visual arts, becoming a close friend of leading art dealers and gallery owners, explored experimental film, and regularly attended movie, theatrical and classical music performances. His first contact with the London avant-garde scene was through John Dunbar, who introduced him to the art dealer Robert Fraser, who in turn introduced McCartney to an array of writers and artists. McCartney later became involved in the renovation and publicising of the Indica Gallery in Mason's Yard, London—John Lennon first met Yoko Ono at the Indica. The Indica Gallery brought McCartney into contact with Barry Miles, whose underground newspaper, the ''International Times'', McCartney helped to start. Miles would become ''de facto'' manager of the Apple's short-lived Zapple Records label, and wrote McCartney's official biography, ''Many Years From Now'' (1997).

While living at the Asher house, McCartney took piano lessons at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, which The Beatles' producer Martin had previously attended. McCartney studied composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Luciano Berio. McCartney later wrote and released several pieces of modern classical music and ambient electronica, besides writing poetry and painting. McCartney is lead patron of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, an arts school in the building formerly occupied by the Liverpool Institute for Boys. The 1837 building, which McCartney attended during his schooldays, had become derelict by the mid-1980s. On 7 June 1996, Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the redeveloped building.

Electronic music

After the recording of "Yesterday" in 1965, McCartney contacted the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in Maida Vale, London, to see if they could record an electronic version of the song, but never followed it up. When visiting John Dunbar's flat in London, McCartney would take along tapes he had compiled at Jane Asher's house. The tapes were mixes of various songs, musical pieces and comments made by McCartney that he had Dick James make into a demo record for him. Heavily influenced by John Cage, he made tape loops by recording voices, guitars, and bongoes on a Brenell tape recorder, and splicing the various loops together. He reversed the tapes, sped them up, and slowed them down to create the effects he wanted, some of which were later used on Beatles' recordings, such as "Tomorrow Never Knows". McCartney referred to the tapes as "electronic symphonies".

In the spring of 1966 McCartney rented a ground floor and basement flat from Ringo Starr at 34 Montagu Square, to be used as a small demo studio for spoken-word recordings by poets, writers (including William S. Burroughs) and avant-garde musicians. The Beatles' Apple Records then launched a sub-label, Zapple with Miles as its manager, ostensibly to release recordings of a similar aesthetic, although few releases would ultimately result as Apple and The Beatles slid into business and personal difficulties.

In 1995, McCartney recorded a radio series called "Oobu Joobu" for the American network Westwood One, which he described as being "wide-screen radio". During the 1990s, McCartney collaborated with Youth of Killing Joke under the name The Fireman, and released two ambient electronic albums: ''Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest'' (1993) and ''Rushes'' (1998). In 2000, he released an album titled ''Liverpool Sound Collage'' with Super Furry Animals and Youth, utilising the sound collage and musique concrète techniques that fascinated him in the mid-1960s. In 2005, he worked on a project with bootleg producer and remixer Freelance Hellraiser, consisting of remixed versions of songs from throughout his solo career which were released under the title ''Twin Freaks''. The Fireman's third album ''Electric Arguments'' was released on 25 November 2008. Unlike the first two Fireman albums, this one was more song-based in its structure. McCartney told ''L.A. Weekly'' in a January 2009, "Fireman is improvisational theatre ... I formalise it a bit to get it into the studio, and when I step up to a microphone, I have a vague idea of what I’m about to do. I usually have a song, and I know the melody and lyrics, and my performance is the only unknown."

Film

McCartney was interested in animated films as a child, and later had the financial resources to ask Geoff Dunbar to direct a short animated film called ''Rupert and the Frog Song'', in 1981. McCartney was the producer, he wrote the music and the script, and also added some of the character voices. McCartney wrote and starred in the 1984 film ''Give My Regards to Broad Street''. The film and soundtrack featured the popular hit "No More Lonely Nights", and the album reached No.1 in the UK, but the film did not do well commercially or critically. Roger Ebert awarded the film a single star and wrote, "You can safely skip the movie and proceed directly to the sound track." Dunbar worked again with McCartney on an animated film about the work of French artist Honoré Daumier, in 1992, which won both of them a Bafta award. They also worked on Tropic Island Hum, in 1997. In 1995, McCartney made a guest appearance in the Lisa the Vegetarian episode of The Simpsons, and directed a short documentary about The Grateful Dead.

In May 2000, McCartney released ''Wingspan: An Intimate Portrait'', a retrospective documentary that features behind-the-scenes films and photographs that Paul and Linda McCartney (who had died in 1998) took of their family and bands. Interspersed throughout the 88 minute film is an interview by Mary McCartney with her father. Mary was the baby photographed inside McCartney's jacket on the back cover of his first solo album, ''McCartney'', and was one of the producers of the documentary.

Painting

In 1966, McCartney met art gallery-owner Robert Fraser, whose flat was visited by many well-known artists. McCartney met Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Peter Blake, and Richard Hamilton there, and learned about art appreciation. McCartney later started buying paintings by Magritte, and used Magritte's painting of an apple for the Apple Records logo. He now owns Magritte's easel and spectacles.

McCartney's love of painting surfaced after watching artist Willem de Kooning paint, in Kooning's Long Island studio. McCartney took up painting in 1983. In 1999, he exhibited his paintings (featuring McCartney's portraits of John Lennon, Andy Warhol, and David Bowie) for the first time in Siegen, Germany, and included photographs by Linda. He chose the gallery because Wolfgang Suttner (local events organiser) was genuinely interested in his art, and the positive reaction led to McCartney showing his work in UK galleries. The first UK exhibition of McCartney's work was opened in Bristol, England with more than 50 paintings on display. McCartney had previously believed that "only people that had been to art school were allowed to paint"—as Lennon had.

In October 2000, Yoko Ono and McCartney presented art exhibitions in New York and London. McCartney said, "I've been offered an exhibition of my paintings at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool where John and I used to spend many a pleasant afternoon. So I'm really excited about it. I didn't tell anybody I painted for 15 years but now I'm out of the closet."

As an artist, Paul McCartney designed a series of six postage stamps issued by the Isle of Man Post on 1 July 2002. According to BBC News, McCartney seems to be the first major rock star in the world who is also known as a stamp designer.

Writing and poetry

When McCartney was young, his mother read him poems and encouraged him to read books. McCartney's father was interested in crosswords and invited the two young McCartneys (Paul and his brother Michael) to solve them with him, so as to increase their "word power". McCartney was later inspired—in his school years—by Alan Durband, who was McCartney's English literature teacher at the Liverpool Institute. Durband was a co-founder and fund-raiser at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, where Willy Russell also worked, and introduced McCartney to Geoffrey Chaucer's works. McCartney later took his A-level exams, but passed only one subject—Art.

In 2001 McCartney published 'Blackbird Singing', a volume of poems, some of which were lyrics to his songs, and gave readings in Liverpool and New York City. Some of them were serious: "Here Today" (about Lennon) and some humorous ("Maxwell's Silver Hammer"). In the foreword of the book, McCartney explained that when he was a teenager, he had "an overwhelming desire" to have a poem of his published in the school magazine. He wrote something "deep and meaningful", but it was rejected, and he feels that he has been trying to get some kind of revenge ever since. His first "real poem" was about the death of his childhood friend, Ivan Vaughan.

In October 2005, McCartney released a children's book called ''High in the Clouds: An Urban Furry Tail''. In a press release publicising the book, McCartney said, "I have loved reading for as long as I can remember", singling out ''Treasure Island'' as a childhood favourite. McCartney collaborated with author Philip Ardagh and animator Geoff Dunbar to write the book.

Contact with fellow ex-Beatles

John Lennon

Although McCartney's post-Beatles relationship with John Lennon was troubled, they became close again briefly in 1974 and even played together for the only time since The Beatles split (see A Toot and a Snore in '74). In later years, the two grew apart again. McCartney would often call Lennon, but was never sure of what sort of reception he would get, such as when McCartney once called Lennon and was told, "You're all pizza and fairytales!" McCartney understood that he could not just phone Lennon and only talk about business, so they often talked about cats, baking bread, or babies. According to May Pang, during Lennon's "Lost Weekend" with her they planned to visit McCartney in New Orleans, where McCartney was recording the ''Venus and Mars'' album, but Lennon went back to Ono the day before the planned visit after Ono said she had a new cure for Lennon's smoking habit.

In a 1980 interview, Lennon said that the last time he had seen McCartney was when they had watched the episode of ''Saturday Night Live'' (May 1976) in which Lorne Michaels had made his $3,000 cash offer to get Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr to reunite on the show. McCartney and Lennon had seriously considered going to the studio, but were too tired. This event was fictionalised in the 2000 television film ''Two of Us''. His last telephone call to Lennon, which was just before Lennon and Ono released ''Double Fantasy'', was friendly. During the call, Lennon said (laughing) to McCartney, "This housewife wants a career!" which referred to Lennon's househusband years, while looking after Sean Lennon. In 1984, McCartney said this about the phone call: "Yes. That is a nice thing, a consoling factor for me, because I do feel it was sad that we never actually sat down and straightened our differences out. But fortunately for me, the last phone conversation I ever had with him was really great, and we didn't have any kind of blow-up." Linda McCartney, speaking in the same 1984 interview stated: "I know that Paul was desperate to write with John again. And I know John was desperate to write. Desperate. People thought, well, he's taking care of Sean, he's a househusband and all that, but he wasn't happy. He couldn't write and it drove him crazy. And Paul could have helped him... easily."

;Reaction to Lennon's murder On the morning of 9 December 1980, McCartney awoke to the news that Lennon had been murdered outside his home in the Dakota building in New York. Lennon's death created a media frenzy around the surviving members of The Beatles. On the evening of 9 December, as McCartney was leaving an Oxford Street recording studio, he was surrounded by reporters and asked for his reaction to Lennon's death. He was later criticised for what appeared, when published, to be an utterly superficial response: "It's a drag". McCartney explained, "When John was killed somebody stuck a microphone at me and said: 'What do you think about it?' I said, 'It's a dra-a-ag' and meant it with every inch of melancholy I could muster. When you put that in print it says, 'McCartney in London today when asked for a comment on his dead friend said, "It's a drag."' It seemed a very flippant comment to make." McCartney was also to recall: }} In 1983, McCartney said: }} In a ''Playboy'' interview in 1984, McCartney said that he went home that night and watched the news on television—while sitting with all his children—and cried all evening.

McCartney carried on recording after the death of Lennon but did not play any live concerts for some time. He explained that this was because he was nervous that he would be "the next" to be murdered. This led to a disagreement with Denny Laine, who wanted to continue touring and subsequently left Wings, which McCartney disbanded in 1981. Also in June 1981, six months after Lennon's death, McCartney sang backup on George Harrison's tribute to Lennon, "All Those Years Ago", which also featured Ringo Starr on drums. McCartney would go on to record "Here Today", a tribute song to Lennon.

George Harrison

In 1977, Harrison had this to say about working with McCartney: "There were a lot of tracks though where I played bass...because what Paul would do, if he's written a song, he'd learn all the parts for Paul and then come in the studio and say, 'Do this.' He'd never give you the opportunity to come out with something. Paul would always help along when you'd done his ten songs—then when he got 'round to doing one of my songs, he would help. It was silly. It was very selfish, actually." While being interviewed circa 1988, Harrison said McCartney had recently mentioned the possibility of the two of them writing together, to which Harrison laughed, "I've only been there about 30 years in Paul's life and it's like now he wants to write with me."

In September 1980, Lennon said of Harrison and McCartney's working relationship: "I remember the day [Harrison] called to ask for help on "Taxman", one of his bigger songs. I threw in a few one-liners to help the song along, because that's what he asked for. He came to me because he could not go to Paul, because Paul would not have helped him at that period." Despite this statement, McCartney did contribute to the song, playing the track's guitar solo.

In late 2001, McCartney learned that Harrison was losing his battle with cancer. Upon Harrison's death on 29 November 2001, McCartney told ''Entertainment Tonight'', ''Access Hollywood'', ''Extra'', ''Good Morning America'', ''The Early Show'', ''MTV'', ''VH1'' and ''Today'' that George was like his "baby brother". Harrison spent his last days in a Hollywood Hills mansion that was once leased by McCartney. On the day Harrison died, McCartney said, "George was a fantastic guy...still laughing and joking...a very brave man...and I love him like...he's my brother." While guesting on ''Larry King Live'' alongside Ringo Starr, McCartney said of the last time he saw Harrison, "We just sat there stroking hands. And this is a guy, and, you know, you don't stroke hands with guys, like that, you know it was just beautiful. We just spent a couple of hours and it was really lovely it was like...a favourite memory of mine." On the first anniversary of Harrison's death, McCartney played Harrison's "Something" on a ukulele at the Concert for George.

Personal relationships

One of McCartney's first girlfriends, in 1959, was called Layla, a name he remembers being unusual in Liverpool at the time. Layla was slightly older than McCartney and used to ask him to baby-sit with her. Julie Arthur, another girlfriend, was Ted Ray's niece.

Dot Rhone

McCartney's first serious girlfriend in Liverpool was Dot Rhone, whom he met at the Casbah club in 1959. McCartney chose clothes and make-up for Rhone, and he paid for her to have her hair styled like Brigitte Bardot's. When McCartney first went to Hamburg with The Beatles, he wrote to Rhone regularly, and she accompanied Cynthia Lennon to Hamburg when The Beatles played there again in 1962. The couple had a three-year relationship, and were due to marry until Rhone's miscarriage.

Jane Asher

McCartney first met the British actress Jane Asher on 18 April 1963, when a photographer asked them to pose together at a Beatles performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The two began a relationship and McCartney took up residence with Asher at her parents' house at 57 Wimpole Street London, where he lived for nearly three years before the couple moved to McCartney's own house in St. John's Wood. McCartney wrote several songs while at the Ashers', including "Yesterday" and several inspired by Asher, among them "And I Love Her", "You Won't See Me", and "I'm Looking Through You". McCartney and Asher had a five-year relationship, and they planned to marry, but Asher broke off the engagement when she discovered McCartney had become involved with another woman, Francie Schwartz. However, Schwartz stated that McCartney and Asher had already broken up before the incident.

Linda McCartney

In 1969, McCartney married American photographer Linda Eastman, whom he described as the woman who gave him "the strength and courage to work again" after the break-up of The Beatles. The pair had met previously at a 1967 Georgie Fame concert at The Bag O'Nails club, during her UK assignment to take photographs of "Swinging Sixties" musicians in London. Paul and Linda were both vegetarian and supported the animal rights organisation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. They had four children—Linda's daughter Heather (who was adopted by Paul), Mary, Stella and James—and remained married until Linda's death from breast cancer in 1998.

Heather Mills

In 2002, McCartney married Heather Mills, a former model and anti-landmines campaigner. The couple had a child, Beatrice, in 2003. They separated in May 2006 and were divorced in May 2008. Widespread animosity towards McCartney's wives was reported in 2004. "They [the British public] didn't like me giving up on Jane Asher", McCartney said. "I married a New York divorcee with a child, and at the time they didn't like that."

Nancy Shevell

McCartney has been dating New Yorker Nancy Shevell since November 2007. She is a member of the board of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority as well as vice president of a family-owned transportation conglomerate which owns New England Motor Freight. On 6 May 2011, it was reported that McCartney would wed Shevell.

Lifestyle

Drugs

McCartney's introduction to drugs started in Hamburg, Germany. The Beatles had to play for hours, and they were often given "Prellies" (Preludin) by German customers or by Astrid Kirchherr (whose mother bought them). McCartney would usually take one, but Lennon would often take four or five.

McCartney remembered getting "very high" and giggling when The Beatles were introduced to cannabis by Bob Dylan in New York, in 1964. McCartney's use of cannabis became regular, and he was quoted as saying that any future Beatles' lyrics containing the words "high", or "grass" were written specifically as a reference to cannabis, as was the phrase "another kind of mind" in "Got to Get You into My Life". John Dunbar's flat at 29 Lennox Gardens, in London, became a regular hang-out for McCartney, where he talked to musicians, writers and artists, and smoked cannabis. In 1965, Barry Miles introduced McCartney to hash brownies by using a recipe for hash fudge he found in the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook. During the filming of ''Help!'', he occasionally smoked a spliff in the car on the way to the studio during filming, which often made him forget his lines. ''Help!'' director Dick Lester said that he overheard "two beautiful women" trying to cajole McCartney into taking heroin, but he refused.

McCartney's attitude about cannabis was made public in the 1960s, when he added his name to an advertisement in ''The Times'', on 24 July 1967, which asked for the legalisation of cannabis, the release of all prisoners imprisoned because of possession, and research into marijuana's medical uses. The advertisement was sponsored by a group called Soma and was signed by 65 people, including The Beatles, Epstein, RD Laing, 15 doctors, and two MPs.

McCartney was introduced to cocaine by Robert Fraser, and it was available during the recording of ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band''. He admitted that he used the drug multiple times for about a year but stopped because of the unpleasant comedown.

In 1967, on a sailing trip to Greece (with the idea of buying an island for the whole group) McCartney said everybody sat around and took LSD, although McCartney had first taken it with Tara Browne, in 1966. He took his second "acid trip" with Lennon on 21 March 1967 after a studio session. McCartney was the first British pop star to openly admit using LSD, in an interview in the now-defunct "Queen" magazine. His admission was followed by a TV interview in the UK on ITN on 19 June 1967, and when McCartney was asked about his admission of LSD use, he said:

McCartney was not arrested by Norman Pilcher's Drug Squad, as had been Donovan, and several members of the Rolling Stones. In 1972, however, police found cannabis plants growing on his Scottish farm.

On 16 January 1980, Wings went to Tokyo for 11 concerts in Japan. As McCartney was going through customs, officials found 7.7 ounces (218.3 g) of cannabis in his luggage. He was arrested and taken to a Tokyo prison while the Japanese government decided what to do. McCartney had been previously denied a visa to Japan (in 1975) because he had been convicted twice in Europe for possession of cannabis. Public figures called for McCartney to be put on trial for drug-smuggling. Had he been convicted, he would have faced up to seven years in prison. The Wings Japanese tour was cancelled and the other members of Wings left Japan. After ten days in jail, McCartney was released and deported. He was told that he would not be welcome in Japan again, although a decade later he played a concert in Tokyo. In 1984, Paul and Linda McCartney were both arrested for possession of cannabis.

In an interview in 2004 he stated the he no longer smoked marijuana, He also admitted to taking Heroin, LSD and Cocaine but said his drug use was never excessive.

Meditation

On 24 August 1967, McCartney met the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the London Hilton, and later went to Bangor, in North Wales, to attend a weekend 'initiation' conference, at which time he and the other Beatles learned Transcendental Meditation (TM). "The whole meditation experience was very good and I still use the mantra. . . I find it soothing and I can imagine that the more you were to get into it, the more interesting it would get." The time McCartney later spent in India at the Maharishi's ashram was highly productive, as practically all of the songs that would later be recorded for ''The White Album'' and ''Abbey Road'' were composed there by McCartney, Lennon, or both together. Although McCartney was told that he was never to repeat the mantra to anyone else, he did tell Linda McCartney, and said he meditated a lot while he was in jail in Japan. In 2009, McCartney, along with Ringo Starr, headlined a benefit concert at Radio City Music Hall, raising three million dollars for the David Lynch Foundation to fund instruction in Transcendental Meditation for at-risk youth.

Activism

Paul and Linda McCartney became outspoken vegetarians and animal-rights activists. They said that their vegetarianism was realised when they happened to see lambs in a field as they ate a meal of lamb. McCartney has also credited the 1942 Disney film ''Bambi''—in which the young deer's mother is shot by a hunter—as the original inspiration for him to take an interest in animal rights. In his first interview after Linda's death, he promised to continue working for animal rights. In 1999, McCartney spent £3,000,000 to make sure Linda McCartney's food range remained free of GM ingredients. In 2002, McCartney gave his support to a campaign against a proposed ban on the sale of certain vitamins, herbs, and mineral products in the European Union. Following his marriage to Heather Mills, McCartney joined with her to campaign against landmines; both McCartney and Mills are patrons of Adopt-A-Minefield. In 2003, he played a personal concert for the wife of a wealthy banker and donated his one million dollar fee to the charity. He also wore an anti-landmines t-shirt on the Back in the World tour.

In 2006, the McCartneys travelled to Prince Edward Island to bring international attention to the seal hunt (their final public appearance together). Their arrival sparked attention in Newfoundland and Labrador where the hunt is of economic significance. The couple also debated with Newfoundland's Premier Danny Williams on the CNN show ''Larry King Live''. They further stated that the fishermen should quit hunting seals and begin a seal watching business. McCartney has also criticised China's fur trade and supports the Make Poverty History campaign.

McCartney has been involved with a number of charity recordings and performances. In 2004, he donated a song to an album to aid the "US Campaign for Burma", in support of Burmese Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, and he had previously been involved in the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea, Ferry Aid, Band Aid, Live Aid, and the recording of "Ferry Cross the Mersey" (released 8 May 1989) following the Hillsborough disaster.

In a December 2008 interview with ''Prospect Magazine'', McCartney mentioned that he tried to convince the Dalai Lama to become a vegetarian. In a letter to the Dalai Lama, McCartney took issue with Buddhism and meat-eating being considered compatible, saying, "Forgive me for pointing this out, but if you eat animals then there is some suffering somewhere along the line." The Dalai Lama replied to McCartney by saying his doctors advised him to eat meat for health reasons. In the interview McCartney said, "I wrote back saying they were wrong."

Football

The Beatles were advised by Epstein to make no comments about the football clubs they supported because it could alienate some fans, though it was well known that McCartney was a supporter of Everton Football Club, and that his father and relatives used to take him to matches. His allegiance later shifted to Liverpool F.C., as on 28 July 1968, The Beatles were photographed in a photographer's studio at 192–212 Gray's Inn Road, with McCartney wearing a Liverpool F.C. rosette. Linda McCartney later said: "We spent last night listening to Liverpool football team on the radio, wanting them to win so badly. Paul supports Liverpool. He was for Everton for a while because of his family — but it's all Liverpool now."

Lennon and McCartney were present to watch the 1966 FA Cup Final at Wembley, between Everton and Sheffield Wednesday, and McCartney attended the 1968 FA Cup Final (18 May 1968) which was played by West Bromwich Albion against Everton. After the end of the match, McCartney shared cigarettes and whisky with other football fans. The ex-Liverpool player, Albert Stubbins, was the only footballer shown on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover. McCartney tried to listen (on a radio) to the Liverpool v Manchester United 1977 FA Cup Final, while sailing in the Caribbean, and the video for McCartney's "Pipes of Peace" (in 1983) recreated the 1915 football game played between German and British troops during World War I, at Christmas.

At the end of the live version of "Coming Up" recorded in Glasgow in 1979 (later to become a US number one single) the crowd begins to sing "Paul McCartney!" until McCartney takes over and changes the chant to "Kenny Dalglish!", referring to the current Liverpool and Scotland striker. At the same concert, Gordon Smith, former football player who played for Rangers and Brighton & Hove Albion, met the McCartneys, and later accepted an invitation to visit their home in East Sussex in 1980. Smith later said that McCartney was "thrilled I knew Kenny Dalglish", to which Linda added: "I like Gordon McQueen of Man United", and Smith replied, "I know him too."

McCartney attended the 1986 FA Cup Final between Liverpool and Everton, and in 1989, he contributed to the Ferry Cross the Mersey charity single that was recorded to aid victims of the Hillsborough Disaster, which happened during a match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. McCartney performed at the Liverpool F.C. Anfield stadium on 1 June 2008, as a part of Liverpool's European Capital of Culture year. Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters sang with McCartney on "Band on the Run", and played drums on "Back in the U.S.S.R.". Ono and Olivia Harrison attended the concert, along with Ken Dodd, and the former Liverpool F.C. football manager Rafael Benítez.

In an interview in 2008, McCartney ended speculation about his allegiance when he said:

"Here's the deal: my father was born in Everton, my family are officially Evertonians, so if it comes down to a derby match or an FA Cup final between the two, I would have to support Everton. But after a concert at Wembley Arena I got a bit of a friendship with Kenny Dalglish, who had been to the gig and I thought 'You know what? I am just going to support them both because it's all Liverpool and I don't have that Catholic-Protestant thing.' So I did have to get special dispensation from the Pope to do this but that's it, too bad. I support them both. They are both great teams, but if it comes to the crunch, I'm Evertonian."

In 2010, there was heavy speculation surrounding McCartney that he was to head up a consortium launching a take-over bid for struggling Charlton Athletic. Links between the club and the famous musician go a long way back with Charlton's famous supporters anthem – Valley, Floyd Road – using the tune and a number of lyrics from the Wings song "Mull of Kintyre".

Business

McCartney is one of Britain's wealthiest musicians, with an estimated fortune of £750 million ($1.2 billion) in 2009, although Justice Bennett, in his judgement on McCartney's divorce case found no evidence that McCartney was worth more than £400 million. In December 1998, he was approached to purchase a stake in Everton Football Club by former school friend Bill Kenwright who wished to put a consortium together but McCartney chose to decline the offer. In addition to his interest in Apple Corps, McCartney's MPL Communications owns a significant music publishing catalogue, with access to over 25,000 copyrights. McCartney earned £40 million in 2003, making him Britain's highest media earner. This rose to £48.5 million by 2005. In the same year he joined the top American talent agency Grabow Associates, who arrange private performances for their richest clients. Northern Songs was established in 1963, by Dick James, to publish the songs of Lennon/McCartney.

The Beatles' partnership was replaced in 1968 by a jointly held company, Apple Corps, which continues to control Apple's commercial interests. Northern Songs was purchased by Associated Television (ATV) in 1969, and was sold in 1985 to Michael Jackson. For many years McCartney was unhappy about Jackson's purchase and handling of Northern Songs.

MPL Communications is an umbrella company for McCartney's business interests, which owns a wide range of copyrights, as well as the publishing rights to musicals. In 2006, the Trademarks Registry reported that MPL had started a process to secure the protections associated with registering the name "Paul McCartney" as a trademark. The 2005 films, ''Brokeback Mountain'' and ''Good Night and Good Luck'', feature MPL copyrights.

In April 2009, it was revealed that McCartney, in common with other wealthy musicians, had seen a significant decline in his net worth over the preceding year. It was estimated that his fortune had fallen by some £60m, from £238m to £175m. The losses were attributed to the ongoing global recession, and the resultant decline in value of property and stock market holdings.

Critique, recognition and achievements

McCartney is listed in ''The Guinness Book Of Records'' as the most successful musician and composer in popular music history with sales of 100 million singles and 60 gold discs, "Sir Paul McCartney became the Most Successful Songwriter who has written/co written 188 charted records, of which 91 reached the Top 10 and 33 made it to No.1 totalling 1,662 weeks on the chart (up to the beginning of 2008)."

In the US, McCartney has achieved thirty-two number-one singles on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, including twenty-one with The Beatles, one as a co-writer on Elton John's cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", nine solo, with Wings or other collaborators, and one as the composer of "A World Without Love", a number one single for Peter and Gordon. In the UK, McCartney has been involved in more number-one singles than any other artist under a variety of credits, although Elvis Presley has achieved more as a solo artist. McCartney has twenty four number-one singles in the UK, including seventeen with the Beatles, one solo, and one each with Wings, Stevie Wonder, Ferry Aid, Band Aid, Band Aid 20 and one with "The Christians et all". McCartney is the only artist to reach the UK number one as a soloist ("Pipes of Peace"), duo ("Ebony and Ivory" with Stevie Wonder), trio ("Mull of Kintyre", Wings), quartet ("She Loves You", The Beatles), quintet ("Get Back", The Beatles with Billy Preston), and as part of a musical ensemble for charity (Ferry Aid).

McCartney was voted the "Greatest Composer of the Millennium" by BBC News Online readers and McCartney's song "Yesterday" is thought to be the most covered song in history with more than 2,200 recorded versions and according to the BBC, "The track is the only one by a UK writer to have been aired more than seven million times on American TV and radio and is third in the all-time list. Sir Paul McCartney's Yesterday is the most played song by a British writer this century in the US." After its 1977 release, the Wings single "Mull of Kintyre" became the highest-selling record in British chart history, and remained so until 1984. (Three charity singles have since surpassed it in sales; the first to do so, in 1984, was Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in which McCartney was a participant.)

On 2 July 2005, he was involved with the fastest-released single in history. His performance of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with U2 at Live 8 was released only 45 minutes after it was performed, before the end of the concert. The single reached number six on the ''Billboard'' charts, just hours after the single's release, and hit number one on numerous online download charts across the world. McCartney played for the largest stadium audience in history when 184,000 people paid to see him perform at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on 21 April 1990.

McCartney's scheduled concert in St Petersburg, Russia was his 3,000th concert and took place in front of 60,000 fans in Russia, on 20 June 2004. Over his career, McCartney has played 2,523 gigs with The Beatles, 140 with Wings, and 325 as a solo artist. Only his second concert in Russia, with the first just the year before on Moscow's Red Square as the former Communist U.S.S.R. had previously banned music from The Beatles as a "corrupting influence", McCartney hired 3 jets, at a reported cost of $36,000 (€29,800) (£28,000), to spray dry ice in the clouds above Saint Petersburg's Winter Palace Square in a successful attempt to prevent rain.

The day McCartney flew into the former Soviet country, he celebrated his 62nd birthday, and after the concert, according to ''RIA Novosti'' news agency, he received a phone call from a fan; then-President Vladimir Putin, who telephoned him after the concert to wish him a happy birthday. In the concert programme for his 1989 world tour, McCartney wrote that Lennon received all the credit for being the avant-garde Beatle, and McCartney was known as "baby-faced", which he disagreed with. People also assumed that Lennon was the "hard-edged one", and McCartney was the "soft-edged" Beatle, although McCartney admitted to "bossing Lennon around." Linda McCartney said that McCartney had a "hard-edge"—and not just on the surface—which she knew about after all the years she had spent living with him. McCartney seemed to confirm this edge when he commented that he sometimes meditates, which he said is better than "sleeping, eating, or shouting at someone".

The minor planet 4148, discovered in 1983, was named "McCartney" in his honour.

On 18 June 2006, McCartney celebrated his 64th birthday, a milestone that was the subject of one of the first songs he ever wrote, at the age of sixteen, The Beatles' song "When I'm Sixty-Four". Paul Vallely noted in ''The Independent'': }}

Discography

Tours

Arms

Notes	Sir Paul McCartney's agent was Hubert Chesshyre, LVO, Clarenceux King of Arms
Crest	On a Wreath of the Colours A Liver Bird calling Sable supporting with the dexter claws a Guitar Or stringed Sable.
Escutcheon	Or between two Flaunches fracted fesswise two Roundels Sable over all six Guitar Strings palewise throughout counterchanged.
Motto	ECCE COR MEUM (Behold my heart)
Previous versions	}}

References

;Footnotes

;Bibliography

External links

Paul McCartney's Official Website

Paul McCartney's Animation Website

Paul McCartney Ecce Cor Meum audio Podcast

Liverpool celebrates Irish ancestry

Paul McCartney: Financial Accounts

Category:1942 births Category:English-language singers Category:English male singers Category:English multi-instrumentalists Category:English pop singers Category:English rock bass guitarists Category:English rock guitarists Category:English rock pianists Category:English rock singers Category:English singer-songwriters Category:English people of Irish descent Category:English vegetarians Category:Backing vocalists Category:20th-century classical composers Category:Apple Records artists Category:Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners Category:BRIT Award winners Category:Capitol Records artists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:Knights Bachelor Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire Category:Music from Liverpool Category:Parlophone artists Category:Mercury Records artists Category:People convicted of drug offenses Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees Category:The Beatles members Category:The Quarrymen members Category:Wings members Category:Musicians from Liverpool Category:Living people Category:Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music Category:Transcendental Meditation practitioners Category:People educated at Liverpool Institute High School for Boys Category:Silver Clef Awards winners Category:Animal rights advocates

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Coordinates	12°2′36″N77°1′42″N
Name	Shania Twain
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Eilleen Regina Edwards
Alias	Eilleen Twain (1967–1992)
Birth date	August 28, 1965
Birth place	Windsor, Ontario, Canada
Genre	Country, country Pop
Years active	1993–present
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, television personality
Label	Mercury Nashville
Website	www.shaniatwain.com }}

Shania Twain, OC (; born Eilleen Regina Edwards; August 28, 1965) is a Canadian country pop singer-songwriter. Her album ''The Woman in Me'' (1995), brought her fame and her 1997 album ''Come On Over'', became the best-selling album of all time by a female musician in any genre, and the best-selling country album of all time. It has sold over 40 million copies worldwide and is the 9th best-selling album in the U.S. Her 4th album, titled ''Up!'' was released late 2002. To date it has sold 20 million copies worldwide.

Twain has won five Grammy Awards and 27 BMI Songwriter awards. She has had three albums certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America and is the second best-selling artist in Canada, behind fellow Canadian Céline Dion, with three of her studio albums certified double diamond by the Canadian Recording Industry Association. Sometimes referred to as "The First Lady of Country Music", Twain has sold over 75 million albums worldwide and is ranked 10th best-selling artist of the Nielsen SoundScan era. She was also ranked 72nd on ''Billboard's'' "Artists of the decade" (2000–10). Most recently, Twain has her own TV series, ''Why Not? with Shania Twain'', that premiered on the OWN on May 8, 2011. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on June 2, 2011.

Early years

Shania Twain was born Eilleen Regina Edwards in Windsor, Ontario, daughter of Sharon (née Morrison) and Clarence Edwards. Her parents divorced when she was two and her mother then moved to Timmins, Ontario with Eilleen and her sisters Jill and Carrie Ann. Sharon married Jerry Twain, an Ojibwa, and they had a son together, Mark. Jerry adopted the girls, legally changing their last name to Twain. When Mark was still in diapers, the Twains adopted Jerry's baby nephew, Darryl, after Darryl's mother passed away. Because of her connection to her stepfather, in the past, people had presumed Twain's ancestry was Ojibwa, but she stated in an interview that her biological father was part Cree. Through her maternal grandfather, she is a descendant of Zacharie Cloutier. Her maternal grandmother, Eileen Pearce, emigrated from Newbridge, Kildare, Ireland.

Eilleen Twain had a hard childhood in Timmins. Her parents earned little and there was often a shortage of food in the household. Eilleen did not confide her situation to school authorities, fearing they might break up the family. In the remote, rugged community, she learned to hunt and to chop wood. Sharon and Jerry's marriage was at times stormy, and from a young age, Eilleen witnessed violent fights between them. Sharon struggled with bouts of depression. In the summer of 1979, while Jerry was at work, at Eilleen's insistence, her mother drove the rest of the family south to a Toronto homeless shelter for assistance. Sharon returned to Jerry with the children in 1981. In Timmins, Twain started singing at bars at the age of eight to try to make ends meet, often earning twenty dollars between midnight and one in the morning performing for remaining customers after the bar had finished serving. Although she expressed a dislike for singing in those bars, Twain believes that this was her own kind of performing arts school on the road. She has said of the ordeal, "My deepest passion was music and it helped. There were moments when I thought 'I hate this'. I hated going into bars and being with drunks. But I loved the music and so I survived". Twain wrote her first songs at the age of ten, ''Is Love a Rose'' and ''Just Like the Storybooks'' which were fairy tales in rhyme. She states that the art of creating, of actually writing songs, "was very different from performing them and became progressively important".

In the early 1980s, Twain spent some time working with her father's reforestation business in northern Ontario, a business that employed some 75 Ojibwe and Cree workers. Although the work was demanding and the pay low, Twain said "I loved the feeling of being stranded. I'm not afraid of being in my own environment, being physical, working hard. I was very strong, I walked miles and miles every day and carried heavy loads of trees. You can't shampoo, use soap or deodorant, or makeup, nothing with any scent; you have to bathe and rinse your clothes in the lake. It was a very rugged existence, but I was very creative and I would sit alone in the forest with my dog and a guitar and would just write songs".

Music career

Career as Eilleen Twain

At 13, Eilleen was invited to perform on CBC television's the ''Tommy Hunter Show''. While attending Timmins High and Vocational School in Timmins, she was also the singer for a local band called "Longshot" which covered Top 40 music.

After graduating from Timmins High in June 1983, Twain was eager to expand her musical horizons. After the demise of the band Longshot, Twain was approached by a cover band led by Diane Chase called "Flirt" and they toured all over Ontario. Twain also began taking singing lessons from Toronto-based coach Ian Garrett and would often clean his house in payment for her lessons. In the autumn of 1984, Twain's talents were noticed by Toronto DJ Stan Campbell who wrote about her in a ''Country Music News'' article: "Eilleen possesses a powerful voice with an impressive range. She has the necessary drive, ambition and positive attitude to achieve her goals". Campbell happened to be making an album by Canadian musician (and present-day CKTB radio personality) Tim Denis at the time and Twain was featured on the backing vocals of the song ''Heavy on the Sunshine''. Campbell later took Twain to Nashville to record some demos, which Twain found particularly difficult to finance. She became acquainted with regional country singer Mary Bailey who had had some country chart success in 1976. Bailey had seen Twain perform in Sudbury, Ontario, saying "I saw this little girl up on stage with a guitar and it absolutely blew me away. She performed Willie Nelson's "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" and Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry". Her voice reminded me of Tanya Tucker, it had strength and character, a lot of feeling. She's a star, she deserves an opportunity". Bailey later said "She sang a few songs that she had written, and I thought to myself, this kid is like nineteen years old, where does she get this? This is from a person who's lived sixty years". thumb|right|Lake Kenogami where Twain spent much time practicing in 1985. Bailey acquired the contract from Stan Campbell and Twain moved into Bailey's home on Lake Kenogami where she practiced her music every day for hours. In the fall of 1985, Bailey took Twain down to Nashville to stay with a friend, record producer Tony Migliore, who at the time was producing an album for fellow Canadian singer Kelita Haverland and Twain was featured on the backing vocals to the song ''Too Hot to Handle''. She also demo-ed songs with Cyril Rawson but the demos were without success, partly due to Twain's wish to become a rock singer, not a country artist. After five months she returned to Canada and moved in with Bailey in a flat in downtown Kirkland Lake. There she met rock keyboardist Eric Lambier and drummer Randy Yurko and formed a new band, moving three months later to Bowmanville, near Toronto. In late summer 1986 Mary Bailey arranged for Twain to meet John Kim Bell, a half Mohawk, half American conductor who had close contacts with the directors of the Canadian Country Music Association. Bell recognized Twain's ability as well as her looks and the two began secretly dating. In the fall of 1986 Twain continued to express her desire to be a pop or rock singer rather than country, which led to her falling out with Mary Bailey for two years. Twain's first break finally came on February 8, 1987, when Bell staged a fundraiser for the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation at the Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto where Twain performed with Broadway star Bernadette Peters, jazz guitarist Don Ross, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Her performance received little acclaim, but it convinced Bell, who hated pop music, that Twain should stay well away from it and concentrate on country music.

On November 1, 1987, Twain's mother and stepfather died in a car accident approximately 50 kilometres north of Wawa, Ontario. As a result Twain moved back to Timmins to take care of her younger siblings and then took them all to Huntsville, Ontario. There, she supported them by earning money performing at the nearby Deerhurst Resort.

1993–1994: ''Shania Twain''

A couple of years passed and Twain's siblings got older and moved out on their own. Twain assembled a demo tape of her songs and her Huntsville manager set up a showcase for Twain to present her material to record executives. She caught the attention of a few labels, including Mercury Nashville Records, who signed her within a few months. During this time, she changed her name to Shania, an Ojibwa word which means "on my way".

Twain's self-titled debut album was released in 1993 in North America and garnered her audiences outside of Canada. The album only reached No.67 on the US Country Albums Chart, but it gained positive reviews from critics. The album failed to sell significant copies initially, although Twain's future success generated enough interest for the album to be certified platinum six years later by the RIAA, denoting sales of over a million. The album yielded two minor hit singles in the United States with "What Made You Say That" and "Dance with the One That Brought You". The album was more successful in Europe, where Twain won Country Music Television Europe's "Rising Video Star of the Year" award.

1995–1996: ''The Woman in Me'' and her breakthrough

When rock producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange heard Twain's original songs and singing from her debut album, he offered to produce and write songs with her. After many telephone conversations, they met at Nashville's Fan Fair in June 1993. Twain and Lange became very close within just weeks. Lange and Twain either wrote or co-wrote the songs that would form her second studio album, ''The Woman in Me''. Ironically all the songs selected for ''The Woman in Me'' were rejected by Mercury Records for her first album. Record executives were stunned when they listened to the album. It was unlike anything else in country music.

''The Woman in Me'' was released in the spring of 1995. The album's first single, "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?" went to No.11 on the ''Billboard'' Country Chart. This was followed by her first Top 10 and No.1 hit single, "Any Man of Mine". Twain had further hits from the album, including the title track which peaked at No.14 and three additional No.1 hits: "(If You're Not in it for Love) I'm Outta Here!", "You Win My Love", and "No One Needs to Know". As of 2007, it had sold more than 12 million copies. The album was a quick breakthrough. Twain performed selected international venues and television shows with Nashville guitarist Randy Thomas (co-writer of the song "Butterfly Kisses") and Stanley T., formerly with the Beach Boys. Mercury Record's promotion of the album was based largely upon a series of sexy music videos.

''The Woman in Me'' won the Grammy Award for Best Country Album as well as the Academy of Country Music award for Album of the Year; the latter group also awarded Twain as Best New Female Vocalist.

Worldwide success

1997–2001: ''Come On Over''

In 1997, Twain released her follow-up album, ''Come On Over''. This was the album that would establish her as a successful crossover singer. Slowly, the album started racking up sales. It never hit the top spot, but with the multi-chart hit single "You're Still the One", sales skyrocketed. Other songs like "Don't Be Stupid", "You've Got A Way", "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!", "That Don't Impress Me Much" and "From This Moment On" joined the 12 songs that eventually saw release as singles. "From This Moment On" is a duet with singer Bryan White and there was even a pop version as well.

The album stayed on the charts for the next two years, going on to sell 40 million copies worldwide, making it the biggest-selling album of all time by a female musician. It is also the eighth biggest-selling album by any type of artist in the US and the top selling country album in history. Songs from the album won four Grammy Awards during this time, including Best Country Song and Best Female Country Performance (for "You're Still the One" and "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!") for Twain. Lange won Grammys for "You're Still the One" and "Come on Over".

Despite the album's record sales it wasn't able to top the ''Billboard'' 200, peaking at #2. In 1999, the ''Come on Over'' album was remixed for the European market as a pop album with less country instrumentation and actually gave her the big breakthrough in Europe she and her producer husband (Robert John "Mutt" Lange) were looking for. ''Come on Over'' went to number 1 on the UK album charts for 11 weeks. It became the biggest selling album of the year in Great Britain and a bestseller in other big European markets as well, selling more than one million copies in Germany and nearly 4 million in the UK alone. The songs that had finally drawn European attention to the album were the pop remixed singles "That Don't Impress Me Much", a No.3 in the UK and Top 10 hit in Germany in the summer of 1999, and "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" which peaked at No.3 in both the UK and France in autumn of that year. Additionally, the album set the record for the longest ever stay in the Top 20 of the ''Billboard'' 200, remaining in the Top 20 for 99 weeks.

Twain's mainstream pop acceptance was further helped by her appearance in the 1998 first edition of the ''VH1 Divas'' concert where she sang alongside Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Gloria Estefan and Aretha Franklin, and also by VH1's 1999 heavily aired ''Behind the Music'', which concentrated on the tragic aspects of her early life as well as her physical attractiveness and Nashville's early resistance to her bare-midriff music videos.

In 1998, Twain launched her first major concert tour, aided by her manager Jon Landau, a veteran of many large-scale tours with Bruce Springsteen. The Come on Over Tour shows were enthusiastically received by audiences around the globe and answered critics who previously speculated that she could not perform live.

In 2000, Twain was initially scheduled to release a Christmas album, but plans to release one were cancelled later in the year.

Following the success of ''Come On Over'', independent label Limelight Records released ''The Complete Limelight Sessions'' in October 2001. The album includes 16 tracks recorded in the late 1980s before Twain signed her record deal with Mercury.

2002–2004: ''Up!''

After a change in management – QPrime replaced Landau — and a two year break, Twain and Lange returned to the studio. ''Up!'' was released on November 19, 2002. About a year later, Twain kicked off the Up! Tour in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada on September 25, 2003.

''Up!'' was released with three different discs – country/acoustic (green CD), pop/rock (red CD), and world/dance (blue CD). ''Up!'' was given four out of five stars by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine, and debuted at No.1 on the ''Billboard'' albums chart, selling 874,000 in the first week alone. It remained at the top of the charts for five weeks. ''Up!'' reached No.1 in Germany, No.2 in Australia and the Top Five in the UK and France. In Germany, ''Up!'' was certified 4x platinum and stayed in the Top 100 for one and a half years.

The international music disc was remixed with Indian-style orchestral and percussion parts recorded in Mumbai, India. The new versions were produced by Simon and Diamond Duggal, brothers from Birmingham, England. They were originally invited to contribute parts to the pop version of "I'm Gonna Getcha Good!" which retained the Indian influence.

Twain's popularity in UK was reflected by numerous appearances on the long-running music show ''Top of the Pops'', performing singles from ''Come on Over'' from 1999. In 2002 an entire special show was dedicated to her on sister show TOTP2, in which Twain herself introduced some past performances of her greatest hits and new singles from ''Up!''

The first single from the album, "I'm Gonna Getcha Good!" became a top 10 country hit in the US, after debuting at an impressive No.24 after only five days of airplay; but only made the Top 40 on the pop charts. It was a much bigger hit on the other side of the Atlantic, released in a pop version, the single hit No.4 in the UK. In Australia, Germany and France the song reached the Top 15 in each case. The follow-up single "Up!" reached the Top 15 in the US country charts but failed to reach the pop Top 40.

The second European single became the mid-tempo song "Ka-Ching!" (which was never released as a single in North America) with lyrics where Twain was criticizing unchecked consumerism. The song eventually became another smash hit in the important European markets, reaching No.1 in Germany and Austria and other European countries, the UK Top 10 and the Top 15 in France. The third single from the album would be the most successful in the US. The romantic ballad "Forever and For Always" was released as a single in April 2003 and peaked at No.4 on the country chart and No.1 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and made as well the ''Billboard'' Top 20. Again success was even bigger on the other side of the Atlantic with "Forever and For Always" again reaching the Top 10 in both, the UK and Germany. Further singles were "She's Not Just a Pretty Face" a country Top 10 hit, while the last US single, "It Only Hurts When I'm Breathing", made the Top 20 on both Country and AC.

Due to the enormous European success of ''Up!'' and its first three singles, two more singles were released in the second half of 2003 with up-tempo "Thank You Baby" (#11 in the UK, Top 20 in Germany) and just before Christmas the romantic, acoustic ballad "When You Kiss Me", at least a minor hit in both territories. The title track "Up!" also saw a single release in a limited edition of European countries, such as Germany, in early 2004. In January 2008, ''Up!'' had sold 5.5 million copies in the U.S. and was certified by the RIAA as 11x platinum (the organization counts double albums as two units).

In 2003, Twain participated in the Dolly Parton tribute album ''Just Because I'm a Woman'', covering Parton's classic "Coat of Many Colors", with backing vocals by Alison Krauss. The cover peaked at No.57 on the Hot Country Songs charts as an album cut. During the Super Bowl XXXVII halftime show Twain performed two songs, "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" and "Up!"

2004–2005: ''Greatest Hits''

In 2004, she released the ''Greatest Hits'' album, with three new tracks. As of 2008, it has sold over four million copies in the U.S. The first single, the multi-format duet "Party for Two", made the country top ten with Billy Currington, while the pop version with Sugar Ray lead singer Mark McGrath made top ten in the United Kingdom and Germany. The follow-up singles, "Don't!" and "I Ain't No Quitter" did not fare as well. The former made Top 20 on Adult Contemporary, while the latter did not gain enough airplay to crack the Country Top 40.

In August 2005, she released the single "Shoes" from the ''Desperate Housewives'' soundtrack.

2006- present

At the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas on May 16, 2007, Twain said she was currently writing songs for a new album, and was doing a "lot of soul searching" and "indulging in the writing."

Twain joined Canadian singer Anne Murray on the song "You Needed Me" on Murray's ''Anne Murray Duets: Friends and Legends'' album released November 13, 2007 in Canada, and on January 15, 2008 in the U.S. On November 12, 2008 Twain made her first television appearance since her split from ex-husband Robert "Mutt" Lange, where she appeared as a surprise presenter at the 42nd CMA Awards.

In early January 2009, Internet forums were reporting that Twain was planning to make an announcement regarding her new album on January 26, 2009 but on the 22nd a spokesperson from Mercury Nashville told ''Country Weekly'' that no new album would be coming "anytime soon".

In June 2009, Twain released a letter to her fans explaining the delays in the release of her next album. In August 2009, at a conference in Timmins, Ontario, a spokesman for Twain's label said a new record from the singer is still "nowhere in sight". On August 17, 2009, EW announced that Twain would be a guest judge on ''American Idol'' in Chicago, for the show's August 30 and 31 episodes. On January 1, 2010, Twain carried the Olympic Torch through her hometown as part of the 2010 Winter Olympics torch relay.

''Why Not? with Shania Twain''; new album

In April 2010, Twain announced plans for her own TV show, entitled ''Why Not? with Shania Twain''. The show debuted on May 8, 2011 on OWN. Twain returned to ''American Idol'' as a guest mentor for a week where the top 6 contestants showcased her songs. After the conclusion of the ninth season Twain was very close to becoming a judge but ultimately it was Jennifer Lopez who got the job.

More recently, in September 2010, it was confirmed that Twain was to release her first biography, ''From This Moment On'', on May 3, 2011, and the cover work for the book was released on March 2, 2011.

On March 27, 2011, Twain was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. Following her appearance, she revealed that she is writing music and that new music will be heard soon.

In May 2011, Twain confirmed in an interview with Perez Hilton that she will release her first new single in six years, "Today Is Your Day", after the finale of ''Why Not? with Shania Twain''. Twain previewed the song in the first episode of the series. Twain worked with music producers David Foster and Nathan Chapman on the new song. In the next few months, Twain plans to return to the studio to finish her fifth studio album. "Today Is Your Day" was officially released to iTunes and country radio on June 12, 2011.

On June 8, 2011, at a press conference at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Twain announced that she will headline Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas for two years. Her show, titled ''Still the One'', will begin on December 1, 2012.

In July 2011, fellow Canadian superstar Michael Bublé confirmed in a live video chat with fans that he recorded a duet of 'White Christmas' with Twain for his 2011 Christmas album.

Endorsements and other ventures

Twain's commercial ventures outside the music industry included a series of cosmetic ads in 1999 based on "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" for Revlon. She also starred in ads for Candie's shoes and Gitano jeans, who also sponsored her 1998–1999 Come On Over Tour.

In January 2005, Twain joined Scentstories by Febreze to create a limited edition scent disc with the proceeds going to America's Second Harvest.

Late in 2005, Twain partnered COTY to produce her namesake fragrance "Shania" by Stetson. A second fragrance was released in September 2007, called "Shania Starlight".

Personal life

Twain married music producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange on December 28, 1993, and they have a son, Eja (pronounced "Asia") D'Angelo who was born on August 12, 2001. On May 15, 2008, a spokesperson for Mercury Nashville announced that Twain and Lange were separating after Lange had an affair with Twain's best friend, Marie-Anne Thiebaud. Their divorce was finalized on June 9, 2010. On December 20, 2010, Twain's manager confirmed that Twain was engaged to Swiss business executive Frederic Thiebaud, the ex-husband of Marie-Anne Thiebaud. They married on January 1, 2011 in Rincón, Puerto Rico.

Twain practices Sant Mat, which calls for daily meditation and vegetarianism.

Awards and honours

In addition to her various awards for her singles and albums, Twain has received a number of personal honours:

She was named the 1999 Entertainer of the Year by both the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association; Twain was the first non-US citizen to win the CMA award.

Twain was ranked No.7 in Country Music Television's ''40 Greatest Women of Country Music'' in 2002. In 2003, Twain was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. The city of Timmins (located in Ontario, Canada) renamed a street for her, gave her the key to the city, and built the Shania Twain Centre in her honour. On November 18, 2005, Twain was invested as an Officer in the Order of Canada. Twain was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame at the Juno Awards on March 27, 2011. On June 2, 2011, Twain received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her star is the 2,442nd Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the Category of Recording.

Discography

;Albums

1993: ''Shania Twain''

1995: ''The Woman in Me''

1997: ''Come On Over''

2002: ''Up!''

;Compilations

2001: ''The Complete Limelight Sessions''

2004: ''Greatest Hits''

See also

Music of Canada

List of best-selling music artists

References

Further reading

External links

Shania Twain official website

Category:1965 births Category:Living people Category:Canadian contraltos Category:Canadian country singer-songwriters Category:Canadian expatriates in New Zealand Category:Canadian expatriates in Switzerland Category:Canadian pop singers Category:Canadian vegetarians Category:Canadian people of English descent Category:Canadian people of First Nations descent Category:Canadian people of Irish descent Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Juno Award winners Category:Mercury Records artists Category:Musicians from Ontario Category:Officers of the Order of Canada Category:People from Timmins Category:People from Windsor, Ontario Category:World Music Awards winners Category:Canadian people of French descent

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