The Love life

The eccentric musician and actress talks about her changing career

By JASON TAYLOR
Staff Writer

The film "200 Cigarettes" has a large cast of well-known actors. One of the most prolific of the bunch alsohap-pens to be the lead singer of the band Hole.
During a recent interview, a tired, and smoking Courtney Love stepped into a room filled with what she imagined to be blood-thirsty reporters. What she found was an intimate forum in which she could open up about her personal life and express her satisfaction with life.
The minute she walked in, Love exclaimed, "Thank God, radio!" - thinking that she had entered the room for radio press rather than print. Committing a major faux pas, Love quickly glossed over the comment by candidly discussing the details of her career and life.
Even though she probably smoked 200 cigarettes throughout the interview, Love expressed her distaste and views on cigarettes.
"I said I'd quit when my daughter learned to read ŒGreen Eggs and Ham.' She did last week," Love said, taking another nicotine hit. "It's an incredibly addictive substance and if they get you before you are 18, you're doomed."
Playing a slut who wants to reform, Love was attracted to the role because it was a character she said could relate to. She alluded to the lack of "doom and gloom" or "horror and tragedy" in her character's life. What Love saw was someone with "some angst but it was more existential and (I) related to her."
Love's film career is blossoming quite nicely, and she is being flooded with film offers. After turning down a period-piece film, she is currently touring with her band, which her daughter affectionately calls "the monster people."
Her dedication and love for music has not changed or wavered since starring in films. At the same time, unlike Will Smith who said his soul is in music, Love feels her soul is in both music and film.
In both fields, Love has quickly learned the contrasting ways the two industries work.
"Rock has so many working class kids, mostly boys, that people take advantage of and rip them off," Love said. In film, though, "actors tend to come from Yale or Harvard and they know they should get the sushi."
Already a successful musician, and having already received raves for her portrayal of Althea Flynt in "The People vs. Larry Flynt," Love came to this movie in order to gain more acting "chops" and have fun in 1981 New York.
"I have some confidence in it. I've been doing it since I was 8," Love said about her start in acting.
Ever since starring in commercials as a child, Love knew what she wanted to do, against her parents' wishes and without their support.
"It was my dream, when Tatum O'Neal won the Oscar for ŒPaper Moon,'" Love said. "I ran away from home to go to Hollywood. My parents found me the next day in Coburg, Oregon."
With her success as an actress adding to the fame she gained as a singer, some critics have accused Love of selling out. Love replied with something she learned long ago.
"Selling out is when everyone buys a ticket. Come on. Get over it," she quipped.
Love's success does present her with challenges, she said. She expressed that "trying to have a lot and trying to have it all in the midst of a lot of chaos" has been most difficult for her.
But Love understands that life isn't all about fame and fortune, as she practices three religions in order to be at peace. She attends a Baptist church in South Central twice a month, and looks to Eastern religion to gratify her want for a non-gender-based being.
"I just replace father with mother. The problem with English is that there is no word for both," Love said.
But what about all the crazy rumors? All of the tantrums and fits that Courtney has been so publicized in the press for?
She said she has never thrown a tantrum on a movie set, but did at the MTV Video Music Awards because she felt she was treated like a "scummy rock band (underneath) Shania, Mariah and Celine."
But overall, Love doesn't like to disprove rumors because she feels she is "not a narcissist."
"It's ridiculous to fight," she added.
Love said she feels people should discover the truth about her for themselves - though she helps and "leads them to it."

Copyright 1999 by the Daily Trojan. All rights reserved.
This article was published in Vol. 136, No. 31 (Wednesday, March 3, 1999), beginning on page 7 and ending on page 10.