BOB GELDOF Biography - Musicians

 
 

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BOB GELDOF

Name: Bob Geldof                                                                   
Birth name: Robert Frederick Xenon (or "Zenon") Geldof                             
Born: 5 October 1951 Dan Laoghaire, Dublin, Ireland                                 
                                                                                   
Robert Frederick Xenon Geldof, known as Bob Geldof (born 5 October                 
1951), is an Irish singer, songwriter, actor and political activist.               
                                                                                   
Geldof was born in Dan Laoghaire, County Dublin, in the Republic of Ireland, to     
Roman Catholic parents. His father, Robert, also known as Bob was the son of a     
Belgian immigrant. At the age of 41 Geldof's mother Evelyn complained of a         
headache and died shortly thereafter, having suffered a haemorrhage. He also has   
two older sisters, Lynn and Cleo.                                                   
                                                                                   
Geldof attended Blackrock College, near Dublin, a school whose staunch Catholic     
ethos he disliked. After work as a slaughter man, road navvy and pea canner, he     
started as a music journalist in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, for the       
weekly publication Georgia Straight. Upon returning to Ireland in 1975, he         
became the lead singer of the band The Boomtown Rats, a rock group closely         
linked with the punk movement.                                                     
                                                                                   
In the year of 1978, The Boomtown Rats had their first No. 1 single in the UK       
with "Rat Trap", which was the first New Wave chart-topper in that country. In     
1979, the group shot to international fame with their second UK No. 1, "I Don't     
Like Mondays". This was equally successful, as well as controversial; Geldof       
wrote it in the aftermath of Brenda Ann Spencer's attempted massacre at an         
elementary school across the street from her house in San Diego, California, at     
the beginning of 1979.                                                             
                                                                                   
Geldof quickly became known as a colourful spokesman for rock music. The           
Boomtown Rats' first appearance on Ireland's The Late Late Show led to             
complaints from viewers. He had limited success as an actor, his most notable       
role being the lead in the 1982 film Pink Floyd The Wall, based on Pink Floyd's     
album The Wall.                                                                     
                                                                                   
Geldof's long-term partner and later wife was Paula Yates. Yates was a rock         
journalist, presenter of the cutting-edge music show The Tube, and most             
notorious for her in-bed interviews on the show The Big Breakfast. Geldof met       
Paula when she became an obsessed fan of the Boomtown Rats during the band's       
early days. They got together as a couple in 1976 when Yates travelled by           
aeroplane to Paris, to surprise him when the band was playing there.               
                                                                                   
Before they married, the couple had a daughter, Fifi Trixibelle Geldof, born       
March 31, 1983 (and while Geldof was still allegedly conducting an affair with     
the young Claire King). After 10 years together, Bob and Paula married in June     
1986 in Las Vegas with Simon Le Bon (of Duran Duran) acting as Geldof's best man.   
The couple later had two more daughters, Peaches Honeyblossom Geldof on March 16,   
1989, and Pixie Frou-Frou Geldof on September 17, 1990. Pixie is said to           
be named after a celebrity daughter character from the cartoon Celeb in the         
satirical magazine Private Eye, itself a lampoon of the unusual names the           
Geldofs gave to their children. In 1994, Yates left Geldof for Michael Hutchence   
(INXS), whom she met when she interviewed him on "The Big Breakfast". Geldof and   
Yates divorced in May 1996 and Yates moved in with Hutchence. Yates and             
Hutchence had a daughter, Heavenly Hiraana Tiger Lily, born July 22, 1996.         
After Hutchence was found hanged in a hotel room in 1997, Geldof went to court     
and obtained full custody of his three daughters and has since become an           
outspoken advocate of fathers' rights. After Paula Yates's death from an           
overdose in 2000, Geldof became the legal guardian of Tiger Lily Hutchence,         
believing it best that she be raised with her three half-sisters. Geldof lives     
in the Davington area of Faversham in Kent with his French actress girlfriend       
Jeanne Marine.