Kathleen Brennan

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Kathleen Brennan was born in Johnsburg, Illinois, as noted by musician Tom Waits in the song of the same name.

She is Waits' wife and musical collaborator. The two met in 1980 during the filming of the Francis Ford Coppola film One From the Heart. Waits was composing the original soundtrack for the film along with vocal accompanist Crystal Gayle. Brennan worked at the film's studio, named American Zoetrope, as a script analyst. They have 3 children.

Waits said this in a radio interview in 1988: "We met on New Year's Eve at a party in Hollywood. I was leaving the next day. I was moving to New York City and I was never coming back here to the Los Angeles area ever again. That was what I said. But I'd said that before. So we met on New Year's and then I left. I was gone for about four months and then I got a call to do One from the Heart. I came back and I got a little office with a piano in it and I was writing songs and Kathleen was working at Zoetrope. She was a story analyst. Somebody told her to go down and knock on my door and she did and I opened the door and there she was and that was it. That was it for me. Love at first sight. Love at second sight." They were married on August 10, 1980, reportedly at the Always Forever Wedding Chapel, open 24 hours a day.

Although Brennan stays out of the public eye, many of Tom Waits' songs since their marriage credit her as co-writer. Waits has said: "She doesn't like the limelight, but she's an incandescent presence on all songs we work on together."

Brennan is also a painter, contributing one of her paintings to the sleeve insert for Waits' album The Black Rider.

Brennan lives in California with her husband and three children.