Courtney Love was a performer.
Courtney Michelle Love ( born Courtney Michelle Harrison ; born July 9 , 1964 ) is an American singer , actress , writer , and visual artist . 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 . Love continued to work as an actress into the early 2000s , appearing in big-budget pictures such as Man on the Moon ( 1999 ) and Trapped ( 2002 ) , before releasing her first solo album , America 's Sweetheart , in 2004 . Between 2014 and 2015 , she released two solo singles and returned to acting in the network series Sons of Anarchy and Empire .