Laurie Bird

Laurie Bird (September 26, 1952 – June 15, 1979) was an American actress and photographer.

Life and career

Bird's mother died when she was three. Her father, an electrical engineer, was a former sailor in the United States Navy, and worked long hours. Although she had two brothers, she more or less raised herself.

Described by Hollywood columnist Dick Kleiner as "look[ing] like an innocent Hayley Mills", Bird appeared in just three films: Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Cockfighter (1974), and a small role in Annie Hall (1977). (Archival footage of the actress in Two-Lane Blacktop is featured in the 2006 documentary Wanderlust.) Bird was the still photographer on Cockfighter and shot the cover photo for Art Garfunkel's 1977 album Watermark. She was romantically involved with her Blacktop and Cockfighter director Monte Hellman, and later with Garfunkel for several years. In Two-Lane Blacktop she played "The Girl".

In 1979 Bird committed suicide by taking an overdose of Valium in the apartment she shared with Garfunkel in New York. At Bird's funeral, her father revealed that her mother's death, previously reported as being from ovarian cancer, was also a suicide. Garfunkel referred to his relationship with Bird in the liner notes of his 1988 album Lefty.

Two-Lane Blacktop

Two-Lane Blacktop is a 1971 road movie directed by Monte Hellman, starring singer-songwriter James Taylor, the Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates, and Laurie Bird.

Esquire magazine declared the film its movie of the year for 1971, and even published the entire screenplay in its April 1971 issue, but the film was not a commercial success. The film has since become a counterculture-era cult classic. Brock Yates, organizer of the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash (better known as the Cannonball Run) cites Two-Lane Blacktop as one source of inspiration for the creation of the race, and commented on it in his Car and Driver column announcing the first Cannonball.

Two-Lane Blacktop is notable as a time capsule film of U.S. Route 66 during the pre-Interstate Highway era, and for its stark footage and minimal dialogue. As such, it has become popular with fans of Route 66. Two-Lane Blacktop has been compared to similar road movies with an existentialist message from the era, such as Vanishing Point, Easy Rider, and Electra Glide in Blue.

Two-Lane Blacktop (song)

"Two-Lane Blacktop" is a song by Rob Zombie from his Past, Present & Future compilation album. The song is loosely based on the 1971 road movie Two-Lane Blacktop directed by Monte Hellman. The song was also featured in the racing game Need for Speed: Underground in 2003 and then again in the film Venom in 2005.

Personnel

Charts

Two Lane Blacktop

Two Lane Blacktop was a hard rock band from Wellington, New Zealand who formed in 2001 and disbanded in 2003. The band wrote all its songs about movies and was named after a 1971 film directed by Monte Hellman. The members of the band were Matt Harrop on vocals and guitar, Luke Hutching on bass, Phil Smiley on drums, and Pip Brown on lead guitar and background vocals.

The band was influenced by protopunk groups such as The Stooges and The MC5, and were often compared with contemporary hard rock bands such as fellow countrymen The Datsuns.

History

The band formed in early 2001 when Harrop's then hardcore band was looking for a second guitarist. Harrop invited Brown to audition after meeting her in a documentary film class. Harrop and Brown's mutual interest in old cinema and 70's rock inspired them to form a new band and start writing songs. Smiley, a mutual acquaintance of Brown and Harrop, was asked to drum, introducing a darker feel to the sound, and another design school student, Ben Fraser, a trained jazz musician, was called in to play bass. As a member of two other local bands, Fraser didn't have enough time for the increasing workload of Two Lane Blacktop and soon left the band. Nato Hickey, bass player in the band Paselode, temporarily filled in while the band looked for a replacement. Hickey introduced the band to their future manager Dave Benge, then manager of New Zealand bands Fur Patrol and Cassette, before Hutching, lead guitarist for the band Fore Arm of Fury, was brought in on bass about one month before their first scheduled shows in Australia.