January 5: rock musician and former music journalist Brian Hugh Warner- AKA Marilyn Manson - is 45-years-old today.

-----

Brian Hugh Warner who was born in Canton, Ohio, is better known by his stage name Marilyn Manson. His stage name was formed from combining two well-known American cultural icons, actress Marilyn Monroe and multiple murder convict Charles Manson.

Brian was working towards a degree in journalism and gaining experience in the field by writing articles for a music magazine, 25th Parallel, when he met several of the musicians to whom his own band would later be compared, including My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, The Perfect, and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.

In Florida in 1989, Manson and guitarist Scott Putesky formed Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids. (The name was eventually shortened to Marilyn Manson.) In the summer of 1993, the band drew the attention of Trent Reznor, who produced their 1994 debut album, Portrait of an American Family, released on his Nothing Records label.

The band began to develop a cult following, which grew larger with the release of Smells Like Children in 1995. That EP yielded the band's first big MTV hit with "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)," a cover of the 1983 Eurythmics hit. Antichrist Superstar was an even greater success.

Manson made his film debut in 1997, as an actor in David Lynch's Lost Highway. Since then he has appeared in a variety of minor roles and cameos, including Party Monster; then-girlfriend Rose McGowan's 1999 film Jawbreaker; Asia Argento's 2004 film The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things; Rise; and The Hire: Beat The Devil, the sixth installment in the BMW Films series.

He was interviewed in Michael Moore's political documentary Bowling for Columbine discussing possible motivations for the Columbine massacre and allegations that his music was somehow a factor.

He has appeared in animated form in Clone High and participated in several episodes of the MTVseries Celebrity Deathmatch, becoming the show's unofficial champion and mascot; he often performed the voice for his claymated puppet, and contributed the song "Astonishing Panorama of the Endtimes" to the soundtrack album.

In July 2005, Manson told Rolling Stone that he was shifting his focus from music to filmmaking – "I just don't think the world is worth putting music into right now."

Johnny Depp reportedly used Manson as his inspiration for his performance as Willy Wonka in the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Manson himself expressed interest in playing the role of Willy Wonka in the film.

Manson stated in a 2004 interview with i-D magazine to have begun his career as a watercolor painter in 1999 when he made five-minute concept pieces and sold them to drug dealers. On September 13–14, 2002, his first show, The Golden Age of Grotesque, was held at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions Centre. Manson named his self-proclaimed art movement Celebritarian Corporation.

-----

For more about Marilyn (Brian), visit his Website at -

http://marilynmanson.com/

####