http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200533,00.html Courtney Love: to Play London’s West End | Courtney Love to Play London’s West End
The new and improved
Courtney Love, one of our most talented and conflicted performers, has a lot of plans. Among them: heading to London’s West End where she’ll appear in a “classic” play before the end of the year, perhaps even earlier.
But first:
Courtney is busy in the recording studio with producer
Linda Perry, who put
Christina Aguilera on the charts with “Beautiful” and gave
James Blunt his career with “You’re Beautiful.” Perry, whom
Courtney rightly calls a “genius,” will probably sign Love to her Custard label for the album. The title hasn't been set, but “How Dirty Girls Get Clean” has been bandied about. Perry hasn’t given
Courtney any songs with the word “beautiful” in the title, but she did give her a stunner, Love says. “She whipped a
song out of the ‘Beautiful’ and gave it to me,”
Courtney reports. “It’s stunning.”
This week, to cleanse herself and get ready for a big round of singing and lyric writing, Love has stashed herself away at a spa for several days of fasting. “It’s not for weight,” she told me, “it’s for clarity.” She’s on a mostly liquid diet of lemon water, apple juice, zucchini, carrots, parsley juice, aloe vera and—believe it or not—castor oil.
The new and improved
Courtney Love, one of our most talented and conflicted performers, has a lot of plans. Among them: heading to London’s West End where she’ll appear in a “classic” play before the end of the year, perhaps even earlier.
But first:
Courtney is busy in the recording studio with producer
Linda Perry, who put
Christina Aguilera on the charts with “Beautiful” and gave
James Blunt his career with “You’re Beautiful.” Perry, whom
Courtney rightly calls a “genius,” will probably sign Love to her Custard label for the album. The title hasn't been set, but “How Dirty Girls Get Clean” has been bandied about. Perry hasn’t given
Courtney any songs with the word “beautiful” in the title, but she did give her a stunner, Love says. “She whipped a
song out of the ‘Beautiful’ and gave it to me,”
Courtney reports. “It’s stunning.”
This week, to cleanse herself and get ready for a big round of singing and lyric writing, Love has stashed herself away at a spa for several days of fasting. “It’s not for weight,” she told me, “it’s for clarity.” She’s on a mostly liquid diet of lemon water, apple juice, zucchini, carrots, parsley juice, aloe vera and—believe it or not—castor oil.The diet must work. Indeed,
Courtney Love has never sounded better. She’s “clean” as a whistle and much resolved to have a series of successes this year including the play, the album and a book she’ll publish this fall called “Dirty Blonde.” The publisher is a classy one, too: Faber & Faber via Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Their other authors include
Tom Wolfe,
Philip Roth and
Walker Percy. Not bad. “It’s not a kiss and tell,” she insists. Conde Nast’s Fashion Rocks supplement will carry an excerpt in September.
Back to the album:
Courtney tells me that the principal work has been done by Perry, herself, and Smashing Pumpkins’
Billy Corgan. “Not many people know this,”
Courtney says, “but Billy’s been living with me for the last four months.” By selling 25 percent of the
Nirvana song catalog,
Courtney raised enough money to buy a big Gatsby-like house in the Hollywood Hills, complete with a formal ballroom. “Billy has one wing, Frances (her 13-year-old daughter) has another and I have one,” she says proudly.
The change in finances has a lot to do with
Courtney’s new outlook. She says at her low point she had about $4,000 left, and she and Frances had moved into a rented condo. Offers were always pouring in to use Nirvana’s
songs (aka songs by her late, celebrated husband,
Kurt Cobain). Coca Cola was desperate for one for a commercial. But in April
Courtney sold 25% ownership in the catalog to music vet Larry Mestel.
Bono was among those who wanted to buy the catalog,
Courtney says. But "he didn’t understand the extent of my debt,” she reports. They remain friends. Now she says, a new feminine version of KY Jelly, is begging to use one of the songs for their commercials.
“They probably want Come As You Are,” she jokes. However, there’s been no decision so far.
One of her big purchases with her new money is an Aston Martin, although she doesn’t know how to drive it. That’s just as well. “I have a driver,” she says. She is determined to stay out of trouble. And if Linda Perry’s Custard
Music winds up with Universal Music—the company
Courtney sued to get out her contract—she’ll be happy to go along without any complaints. “I don’t hold any grudges,” she says right before hanging up. She’s got to get back to that parsley juice!
No! 
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