Marilyn Manson

Marilyn Manson

Manson performing at 2007's Eurockéennes.
Background information
Birth name Brian Hugh Warner
Born January 5, 1969 (1969-01-05) (age 42)
Canton, Ohio, U.S.
Genres Rock
Occupations Singer-songwriter, musician, artist, poet, film director
Instruments Vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, pan flute
Years active 1989–present
Labels Nothing, Interscope
Associated acts Marilyn Manson, Satan on Fire, Nine Inch Nails, Mrs. Scabtree, Jack Off Jill

Marilyn Manson (born Brian Hugh Warner; January 5, 1969) is an American musician and artist known for his controversial stage persona and image as the lead singer of the eponymous band, Marilyn Manson. His stage name was formed from the names of actress Marilyn Monroe and convicted murder-planner[1] Charles Manson.[2][3] He has a long legacy of being depicted in the media as a bad influence on children. The seemingly outrageous styles for which he models and the controversy surrounding his lyrics have led to his very pronounced public appeal.[4]

Contents

Early life

Marilyn Manson was born as Brian Hugh Warner in Canton, Ohio, the only child of Barb (née Wyer) and Hugh Warner.[5] Manson is of German descent on his father's side, and is a 4th cousin twice removed of Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan.[5][6] As a child, he attended his mother's Episcopalian church, though his father was Catholic.[7][8] Warner attended Heritage Christian School from first grade to tenth grade. He later transferred to Cardinal Gibbons High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Manson graduated from high school in 1987, and became a student at Broward Community College in 1990. He was working towards a degree in journalism, and was gaining experience in the field by writing music articles for a South Florida lifestyle magazine, 25th Parallel. He would soon meet several of the musicians to whom his own band would later be compared, including My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.

Career

Music

Manson formed Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids in Florida in 1989 (the name was shortened to Marilyn Manson in 1992). While with The Spooky Kids, he was involved with Jeordie White (also known as Twiggy Ramirez) and Stephen Gregory Bier Jr. (also known as Madonna Wayne Gacy) in two side-projects: Satan on Fire, a faux-Christian metal ensemble where he played bass guitar, and drums in Mrs. Scabtree, a collaborative band formed with White and then girlfriend Jessicka (vocalist with the band Jack Off Jill) as a way to combat contractual agreements that prohibited Marilyn Manson from playing in certain clubs. In the summer of 1993, the band drew the attention of Trent Reznor. Reznor produced their 1994 debut album, Portrait of an American Family and released it on his Nothing Records label. The band began to develop a cult following, which grew larger with the release of Smells Like Children in 1995. That EP yielded the band's first big MTV hit with "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)", a cover of the 1983 Eurythmics hit. Antichrist Superstar (co-produced by Trent Reznor) was an even greater success.[9]

In the US alone, three of the band's albums have been awarded platinum certification, three more gold, and the band has had three releases debut in the top ten, including two number-one albums. Manson first worked as a producer with the band Jack Off Jill. He helped name the band and produce most of the band's early recordings, and also played guitar on the song "My Cat" and had the band open most of his South Florida shows.[10] Manson later wrote the liner notes to the band's album Humid Teenage Mediocrity 1992-1995, a collection of early Jack Off Jill recordings. Manson has appeared as a guest performer on DMX's album Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood[11] and on Godhead's 2000 Years of Human Error album — the only album released on his vanity label Posthuman.[12]

Film and television

Manson at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.

Manson made his film debut in 1997, as an actor in David Lynch's Lost Highway. Since then he has appeared in a variety of minor roles and cameos, including Party Monster; then-girlfriend Rose McGowan's 1998 film Jawbreaker; Asia Argento's 2004 film The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things; Rise; and The Hire: Beat The Devil, the sixth installment in the BMW Films series. He was interviewed in Michael Moore's political documentary Bowling for Columbine discussing possible motivations for the Columbine massacre and allegations that his music was somehow a factor. He has appeared in animated form in Clone High and participated in several episodes of the MTV series Celebrity Deathmatch, becoming the show's unofficial champion and mascot; he often performed the voice for his claymated puppet, and contributed the song "Astonishing Panorama of the Endtimes" to the soundtrack album. In July 2005, Manson told Rolling Stone that he was shifting his focus from music to filmmaking - "I just don't think the world is worth putting music into right now. I no longer want to make art that other people — particularly record companies — are turning into a product. I just want to make art."

Johnny Depp reportedly used Manson as his inspiration for his performance as Willy Wonka in the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Manson himself expressed interest in playing the role of Willy Wonka in the film.[13]

He is currently working on his directorial debut, Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll, In the film, he plays Lewis Carroll, author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Rather than a web-only release, he decided to give the estimated $4.2 million budget film a conventional cinema release, originally slated for mid-2007. The film will have an original music soundtrack with previously unreleased songs.[14] Production of the film has been postponed until an undefined period following the Eat Me, Drink Me tour.[15] Manson portrayed Lars in the upcoming Slasher Splatter Sisters.[16]

Art

Manson claimed in a 2004 interview with i-D magazine to have begun his career as a watercolor painter in 1999 when he made five-minute concept pieces and sold them to drug dealers. On September 13–14, 2002, his first show, The Golden Age of Grotesque, was held at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions Centre. Art in America's Max Henry likened them to the works of a "psychiatric patient given materials to use as therapy" and said his work would never be taken seriously in a fine-art context, writing that the value was "in their celebrity, not the work".[17] On September 14–15, 2004, Manson held a second exhibition on the first night in Paris and the second in Berlin. The show was named ‘Trismegistus’ which was also the title of the center piece of the exhibit – a large, three-headed Christ painted onto an antique wood panel from a portable embalmers table.

Manson named his self-proclaimed art movement Celebritarian Corporation. He has coined a slogan for the movement: “We will sell our shadow to those who stand within it.” In 2005 he said that the Celebritarian Corporation has been "incubating for seven years" which if correct would indicate that Celebritarian Corporation, in some form, started in 1998.[18]

Celebritarian Corporation is also the namesake of an art gallery owned by Manson, called the Celebritarian Corporation Gallery of Fine Art in Los Angeles for which his third exhibition was the inaugural show. From April 2–17, 2007, his recent works were on show at the Space 39 Modern & Contemporary in Florida. 40 pieces from this show traveled to Germany's Gallery Brigitte Schenk in Cologne to be publicly exhibited from June 28 - July 28, 2007. Manson was refused admittance to Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral), when he was in the city to attend the opening night. This was, according to Manson, due to his makeup.

Manson revealed a series of twenty paintings in 2010 entitled Genealogies of Pain, an exhibition the artist collaborated on with David Lynch. The series is being showcased in Vienna's Kunsthalle gallery.[19]

Personal life

Manson made an appearance in the video game Area 51 as Edgar, a Grey Alien. His song "Cruci-Fiction In Space" is featured in a commercial for a video game, The Darkness. His likeness is also featured on the Celebrity Deathmatch video game for which he recorded a song for the soundtrack (2003). The song "Use your fist and not your mouth" was the credits score of the game Cold Fear as well as Spawn: Armageddon. Manson launched, "Mansinthe," his own brand of Swiss made absinthe, which has received mixed reviews ranging from critics who compared the drink's odor to sewage water and described the taste as being "as bad as piss"[20] to coming second to Versinthe in an Absinthe top 5[21] and winning a Gold medal at the 2008 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.[22] Prior to his relationship with Dita Von Teese, he was in a relationship with Michele Greenberg.[23] He then was engaged to actress Rose McGowan. In 2007, attention was brought to Manson's love life again when a relationship with True Blood actress Evan Rachel Wood was made public.[24] Manson and Wood reportedly maintained an on-again off-again relationship for several years. Manson proposed to Wood during a Paris stage performance in January of 2010, but the couple broke off the engagement later that year.[25] After media comments from Manson that he wears his signature black leather pants 24/7,[26] animal rights group PETA added Manson to PETA’s ‘Worst-Dressed Celebrities of 2008’.[27]

Marriage to Dita Von Teese

Manson and Dita Von Teese first met when he asked her to dance in one of his music videos. Though she was unable to, the two kept in contact. On his 32nd birthday they became a couple. He proposed on March 22, 2004 and gave her a 1930s-era, 7 carats (1,400 mg), European round-cut diamond engagement ring. On November 28, 2005, Manson and von Teese were married in a private, non-denominational ceremony in their home. A larger ceremony was held on December 3, at Gurteen Castle, in Kilsheelan, County Tipperary, Ireland, the home of their friend, Gottfried Helnwein. The wedding was officiated by surrealist film director and comic book writer Alejandro Jodorowsky.[28]

On December 30, 2006 Von Teese filed for divorce due to "irreconcilable differences."[29] ET.com and People claimed that Manson was having an extramarital affair with then 19-year-old actress Evan Rachel Wood, who is to co-star in his horror film Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll, and features in the video for his 2007 single, "Heart-Shaped Glasses."[30][31] The relationship was confirmed by Von Teese in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, "I get the impression he thinks I was unsupportive, but the truth is I wasn't supportive of his lifestyle, and someone else came along who was."[32] Manson's alcohol abuse and distant behavior were also cited as cause for the split.[33] A judgement of divorce was entered in Los Angeles Superior Court on December 27, 2007.[34]

Lawsuits

Discography

Filmography

Books

Appearances in other media

References

  1. Charles Manson Trial, 2violent.com.
  2. Manson, Marilyn (1998). The Long Hard Road out of Hell. HarperCollins. pp. 85–87. ISBN 0-06-098746-4. 
  3. "Biography for Marilyn Manson". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001504/bio. Retrieved 2008-01-12. 
  4. "Fox News Marylin Manson Interview". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkxomNoPN-Q. Retrieved 2008-01-12. 
  5. 5.0 5.1 According to his autobiography The Long Hard Road Out of Hell; "Marilyn Manson". PopularIssues.org. http://www.allaboutpopularissues.org/marilyn-manson.htm. Retrieved 2008-02-14. 
  6. "Ancestry of Marilyn Manson". Wargs.com. http://www.wargs.com/other/warnerbh.html. Retrieved 2010-09-08. 
  7. Anthony DeCurtis. "Marilyn Manson: The Beliefnet Interview". Beliefnet.com. http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Music/2001/05/Manson-Interview.aspx?p=2. Retrieved 2010-09-08. 
  8. "Marilyn Manson". Montrealmirror.com. 1997-07-24. http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/1997/072497/cover.html. Retrieved 2010-09-08. 
  9. "Dangerous Creatures: Marilyn Manson have come for your Children". Guitar World.. December, 1996. http://www.basetendencies.com/interview/GWDec96.html. Retrieved 2007-06-21. 
  10. "Manson Resumes Tour Without Hole". MTV News. March 22, 1999. http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1430051/19990322/hole.jhtml/. Retrieved 2007-06-18. 
  11. Manson Hooks Up With DMX October 23, 1998". Retrieved June 18, 2007.
  12. "Godhead Biography". MTV News.. 1999-05-05. http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/godhead/artist.jhtml#bio/. Retrieved 2007-06-18. 
  13. "Charlie & the Chocolate Factory - Preview". Sci-Fi Movie Page. 2005-07-19. http://www.scifimoviepage.com/art_charlie.html. Retrieved 2010-09-08. 
  14. "Marilyn Manson announces details first low budget film". SIDE-LINE.com. July 5, 2006. http://www.side-line.com/news_comments.php?id=15724_0_2_0_C/. Retrieved 2008-02-14. 
  15. "'Phantasmagoria' Film Still In Pipeline". BLABBERMOUTH.NET. July 13, 2007. http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=76734. Retrieved 2008-02-14. 
  16. "More Details on Adam Bhala Lough's Splatter Sisters". Dread Central. June 10, 2010. http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/37957/more-details-adam-bhala-loughs-splatter-sisters. Retrieved 2010-06-10. 
  17. Smith, Dakota (January 24, 2000). "Shocker! Marilyn Manson Can Paint, Art Critics Say". VH1 News. http://www.vh1.com/news/articles/620624/20000122/story.jhtml. Retrieved 2008-02-15. 
  18. Harris, Chris (2005-10-28). "Marilyn Manson Likens His New Guitar God To A Naked Woman". MTV News. http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1512539/20051028/marilyn_manson.jhtml?headlines=true. Retrieved 2007-09-27. 
  19. "Marilyn Manson's art 'scarier than music'". The Age (Melbourne). 2010-06-30. http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/marilyn-mansons-art-scarier-than-music-20100630-zjyy.html. 
  20. "Marilyn Manson absinthe 'as bad as piss' say critics + official site spreads malicious software". Side-Line.com. 2008-09-04. http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/blogs/editor/2008/02/absinthe-taste.html. Retrieved 2008-09-04. 
  21. Ali, Erial (2008-08-05). "Esquire Mansinthe 2nd in top 5". Esquire.com. http://www.esquire.com/features/drinking/absinthe-0808. Retrieved 2010-09-08. 
  22. The Heirophant - Marilyn Manson Encyclopedia and Community
  23. "Marilyn Manson Artistfacts". artistfacts.com. http://www.artistfacts.com/detail.php?id=246is. Retrieved 2009-01-07. 
  24. Lee, Ken (2007-01-09). "People Magazine". People.com. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20007918,00.html. Retrieved 2010-09-08. 
  25. Jennifer Garcia and Jessica Herndon. "Marilyn Manson and Evan Rachel Wood Call It Quits (Again!)". People.com. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20413552,00.html?hpt=T2. 
  26. "PETA Announces 'Worst-Dressed' Celebrities of 2008". Furisdead.com. http://www.furisdead.com/feat_worst_dressed_winner.asp. Retrieved 2010-09-08. 
  27. "Kate, Aretha, Lindsay & Eva Top PETA Worst Dressed List". Entertainmentwise.com. 2008-02-22. http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news/40716/kate-aretha-lindsay--eva-top-peta-worst-dressed-list. Retrieved 2010-09-08. 
  28. Braund, Simon (October 2009). "All about Alejandro". Empire Magazine (Bauer Media Group): p. 139. 
  29. "Rock star Manson set to divorce". BBC News. 2007-01-06. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6236663.stm. Retrieved 2008-02-16. 
  30. Marilyn Manson's Alleged Affair ETonline.com January 10, 2006. Retrieved June 21, 2007.
  31. Ken Lee (January 9, 2007). "Marilyn Manson Dating Evan Rachel Wood". People Magazine. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20007918,00.html. Retrieved 2008-02-14. 
  32. Cutter, Kimberly (22 April 2007). "Educating Dita". Sunday Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/main.jhtml?xml=/fashion/2007/04/22/stdita122.xml&page=3. Retrieved 2008-02-15. 
  33. "Splitsville for Marilyn Manson and Dita Von Teese". SPIN. January 5, 2007. http://www.spin.com/features/news/2007/01/070105_marilyn/. Retrieved 2008-02-15. 
  34. "Manson-Von Teese marriage ended". United Press International. 2007-12-28. http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Entertainment/2007/12/28/manson-von_teese_marriage_ended/2173/. Retrieved 2008-02-14. 
  35. Gustafson, Paul (2003-09-06). "No verdict yet in Marilyn Manson trial". Star Tribune: p. 9B. 
  36. O'Hara, Sean (2001-12-07). "Manson's latest hip record". The Daily Mirror: p. 14. 
  37. Smyntek, John (2003-09-10). "Names & faces". Detroit Free Press: p. 2D. 
  38. Potts, Laura (2001-08-17). "Manson charged with assault". South Bend Tribune: p. A2. 
  39. "Judge rules rocker's act not a sexual one". The Philadelphia Inquirer: p. E2. 2002-01-02. 
  40. "Marilyn Manson ordered to pay fine for assault". National Post: p. AL6. 2002-06-20. 
  41. Derakhshani, Tirdad (2004-02-19). "Marilyn Manson gyration suit is settled". The Philadelphia Inquirer: p. D2. 
  42. 42.0 42.1 42.2 Vineyard, Jennifer (April 9, 2002). "Manson May Fight Wrongful Death Suit With Countersuit". MTV news. http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1453344/20020409/story.jhtml. Retrieved 2008-02-14. 
  43. Vineyard, Jennifer (April 3, 2002). "Marilyn Manson Accused Of Contributing To Friend's Death". MTV. http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1453249/20020403/marilyn_manson.jhtml. Retrieved June 14, 2010. 
  44. "Los Angeles Superior Court - Civil Case Summary". http://www.lasuperiorcourt.org/civilCaseSummary/index.asp?CaseType=Civil. 
  45. "Marilyn Manson is a fraudulent Nazi artifacts collector says former bandmember". SIDE-LINE.com. August 6, 2007. http://www.side-line.com/news_comments.php?id=25024_0_2_0_C. Retrieved 2008-02-14. 
  46. "MARILYN MANSON Sued By Former Keyboardist/Drummer Over 'Partnership Proceeds'". BLABBERMOUTH.NET. August 2, 2007. http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=78000. Retrieved 2008-02-14. 
  47. "Marilyn Manson Accused of Buying Child's Skeleton, Human Skin Masks". FOX News. 2007-11-23. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312616,00.html. Retrieved 2008-02-14. 
  48. "Marilyn Manson files countersuit against ex-bandmate Stephen Bier". SIDE-LINE.com. December 25, 2007. http://www.side-line.com/news_comments.php?id=P28015_0_2_0. Retrieved 2008-02-14. 

External links