Marilyn Manson

American shock-rocker, rising to the top of the charts on a platform of drag, nudity, arson, drugs and Satanism. His stage name was formed by combining and juxtaposing the names of two American pop cultural icons of the 1960s: actress Marilyn Monroe and criminal Charles Manson. The self-proclaimed "Antichrist Superstar," Manson carved out a goal for himself of becoming the most controversial entertainer of the ‘90s, whose show has at times included skinned goats heads and a fluorescent "Kill God" sign, all under the umbrella of free speech with the express intention of "exploring the limits of censorship." Though widely dismissed by critics, his brand of metal nevertheless struck a major chord with the youth market, comprised almost entirely of disaffected white suburban teens - primarily through the same sort of marketing that Madonna does so well, in-your-face performance spectacle such as that which lends a jubilant perversity for kids drinking beer and getting high at spring break. "The cops also made a big deal about a show where Marilyn put some guy’s d*** in his mouth onstage," said one of the band-members after the show, his eyebrows shaved, eyelids streaked blue and lips pained purple. "But we’ve done much worse things than that. I had my 11-year-old brother onstage in one of the shows completely naked. It was like child pornography," he laughed. Manson was brought up in a middle-class family, the son of a carpet salesman and a nurse. He had pneumonia three times as a kid. He attended Christian Heritage School in 1974, which he hated. His parents raised him with trust and respect, even taking him to his first KISS concert. His dad has become a familiar sight at Manson shows, distinguishable by the fact that he’s the only gray-haired gentleman walking around wearing a Marilyn Manson T-shirt. His mom still calls him Brian. In an interview, Manson related, "My father had a very violent temper, and he was never home, so I was kind of a mama’s boy. But I had a weird relationship with my mom as a kid because it was kind of abusive - but on my part. I wish I could go back and change the way I treated my mom because I used to be really rude to her, and she didn’t really have any kind of control over me." One of the Manson T-shirts reads, KILL YOUR PARENTS. "I first started having really vivid dreams as a kid around the same time when I was spying on my grandfather masturbating," he says. "I used to take pictures of naked women, and I would cut out just their sex organs. And I started having really violent dreams that I was going that to real people. It freaked me out as a kid." He was fascinated with the devil, with abortion, with sex, and terrified of scorpions. He recalls losing his virginity at 16 on a baseball diamond. "It’s kind of ironic because I hate sports." When he was 18, the family moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida and he got a job as a music journalist. In 1989, he and guitarist and fellow misfit Scott Mitchell formed a band, with Mitchell adopting the name of Daisy Berkowitz and Warner naming himself after Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson. Aiming to outdo Alice Cooper, KISS, Howard Stern and Ozzie Ozbourne, with a dash of P.T. Barnum thrown in, Manson took shock rock to boundaries never before scaled with a campaign of crass aggressive self-marketing techniques, including a newsletter, a hotline, and most notably, a series of eight (now highly collectible) self-produced and distributed cassettes. Each of the additional band members in their rapid turn-over of personnel assumed names that were a combination of female cultural icons and male homicidal maniacs, such as Gidget Gein and Madonna Wayne-Gacy, Olivia Newton-Bundy, Zsa Zsa Speck, Sara Lee Lucas and Twiggy Ramirez. They began playing gigs as Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids with Gothic stage shows including notable homemade special effects and for Manson's elaborate white-face make-up with bright red lips and the black cloak of Death, along with the perfunctory tattoos and body piercing. Their shows reflected a grisly hermaphroditism, as well as an obsession with and horror-show imagery. The legend gained momentum with the much-mythologized "chicken incident" of Friday the 13th 1995, in which it was wrongly reported that a live chicken was slaughtered by the audience in a depraved bacchanal. Manson’s live shows also have a pretence of him removing his own ribs, eyeballs and testicles and he carried his collection of artificial limbs with him on the road. The band began taking on a harder edge, and by 1992 they were among the most popular acts in the South Florida area. In 1993, Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor signed them with his Nothing Records label and as an opening act for NIN in spring 1994. Their debut LP, "Portrait of an American Family" was released the summer of 1994. The group's notoriety began to soar, affirming their infamy in Salt Lake City when Manson ripped apart a copy of the Book of Mormon onstage. The Church of Satan's founder Anton LaVey bestowed upon him the title of "Reverend." With their 1995 release, "Smells Like Children," the band broke into the mainstream; their "Antichrist Superstar," 1996, hit the No.3 spot on the charts. Manson’s group gained publicity from the objection of civic groups and right-wing and religious media. The question arose of whether he was truly in league with the Devil or just with the bitch-god, Success. He managed the publication of a best-selling autobiography, "The Long Hard Road Out of Hell." While on tour, Manson was detained in Rome on charges of indecent exposure. The following night he was once more charged in another and similar case, this one related to a 20 June 1999 concert at the Imola Heineken Jammin' Festival in Imola, Italy. Both charges stem from Manson's butt-baring stage attire, which apparently irked Italian authorities. Manson's tour, "Rock Is Dead did not do well. His influence hit too close to home when implicated of influence in the April 1999 Columbine High School massacre, and rumors of backstage backbiting seemed connected to the group turnover of talent. His album in 2000, "Holy Wood (In The Shadow Of The Valley Of Death" featured Manson in a crucifix pose with eyes rolled back and lower jaw missing. Even retailers who appreciate sales were put off by his gross marketing and many refused to stock the record. On 30 January 2001, Manson joined Eminem on stage in Hamburg Germany and on 8 February 2001, he was the recipient of "The Best Metal Act" from NME's annual Carling Awards. Manson craves spectacle, success and attention. When it comes to the traditional rock-star lifestyle, he can outdo most of his contemporaries with an ostentatious lifestyle and his occasional temper tantrums have left dressing rooms destroyed and a band member hospitalized. Marilyn Manson takes his name – and himself – very seriously. He has the repulsion- fascination of a car-wreck where we may see blood, gore and death. He is quoted for the viewpoint that "the opposite of love is apathy, and hate is really the same as love." Perhaps he is reflective of the thankfully-small segment of the population who believe they must do something, however gross, objectionable and bizarre, to gain some attention to prove that they exist. In May 2001, Manson, who has been cited as an inspiration to Columbine High School killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, was asked by a church group not to appear in a Denver concert next month. He responded that he will pepper his show with Bible verses. Charges were filed on 16 August 2001 for criminal sexual conduct for which he could get a possible two-years prison. Reports read that he allegedly stood behind a 25-year-old security guard and masturbated during a July 30 concert at DTE Energy Theater in Clarkston, a Detroit suburb. Manson then spat on the guard, wrapped his legs around the man's head and neck and gyrated against him, said prosecutor David Gorcyca. The singer also faced one count of misdemeanor assault and battery. "It was definitely offensive conduct," Gorcyca said. "It's one thing to shock the audience by some kind of behavior, it's another to involve an unwilling participant who was there to protect him." The rocker got engaged on 22 March 2004 to burlesque artist Dita Von Teese. A week later, Manson’s longtime guitarist John 5 departed from the group for unknown reasons. The two had worked together for five years. On 28 November 2005, Manson and von Teese were married in a private, non-denominational ceremony in their home. On 30 December 2006 Von Teese filed for divorce due to "irreconcilable differences." ET.com and People claimed that Manson was having an extramarital affair with then 19-year-old actress Evan Rachel Wood. 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." Manson's alcohol abuse and distant behavior were also cited as cause for the split. A judgment of divorce was entered in Los Angeles Superior Court on 27 December 2007. In 2007, attention was brought to Manson's love life again when a relationship with Wood was made public. 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 2010, but the couple broke off the engagement later that year. American pornographic actress and model Stoya was Manson's girlfriend from March until November 2009. A statement on her Twitter page, posted on 4 December 2009, read: "We simply weren't right for each other. Just because we had fun doesn't mean we were meant to be long term. C'est la vie." From 13 to 14 September 2002, his first art show, The Golden Age of Grotesque, was held at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions center. He unveiled a series of 20 paintings in 2010 entitled Genealogies of Pain, an exhibition showcased at Kunsthalle gallery in Vienna, on which he collaborated with filmmaker David Lynch. Link to Wikipedia biography