Claim: Courtney Love was a performer.

Courtney Michelle Love -LRB- born Courtney Michelle Harrison ; born July 9 , 1964 -RRB- is an American singer , actress , writer , and visual artist . Prolific in the punk and grunge scenes of the 1990s , Love has enjoyed a career that spans four decades . She rose to prominence as the frontwoman of the alternative rock band Hole , which she formed in 1989 . Love has drawn public attention for her uninhibited live performances and confrontational lyrics , as well as her highly publicized personal life following her marriage to Kurt Cobain .   The daughter of Hank Harrison and psychotherapist Linda Carroll , Love had an itinerant early life . She spent her formative years in San Francisco and Portland , Oregon , where she was in a series of short-lived bands before being cast in two films by British director Alex Cox . After forming Hole in 1989 , she received substantial attention from underground rock press for the group 's debut album , produced by Kim Gordon . Hole 's second release , Live Through This -LRB- 1994 -RRB- , gave her high-profile renown with critical accolades and multi-platinum sales . In 1995 , Love returned to acting , earning a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance as Althea Leasure in Miloš Forman 's The People vs. Larry Flynt -LRB- 1996 -RRB- , which established her as a mainstream actress . The following year , she saw further mainstream success with the release of Hole 's third album , Celebrity Skin -LRB- 1998 -RRB- , which was nominated for multiple Grammy Awards .   Love continued to work as an actress into the early 2000s , appearing in big-budget pictures such as Man on the Moon -LRB- 1999 -RRB- and Trapped -LRB- 2002 -RRB- , before releasing her first solo album , America 's Sweetheart , in 2004 . The next few years were marked by publicity surrounding Love 's legal troubles and drug addiction , which resulted in a mandatory lockdown rehabilitation sentence in 2005 while she was in the process of writing a second planned solo album . That project became Nobody 's Daughter , which was released in 2010 as a Hole album but without any other members of the original lineup . Between 2014 and 2015 , she released two solo singles and returned to acting in the network series Sons of Anarchy and Empire .   Love has also had endeavors in writing , co-creating and co-authoring three volumes of a manga , Princess Ai , between 2004 and 2006 , as well as a memoir , Dirty Blonde : The Diaries of Courtney Love -LRB- 2006 -RRB- . In 2012 , she premiered an exhibit of mixed media visual art titled And She 's Not Even Pretty .