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Bono Turns 50
U2 frontman BONO is celebrating his 50th birthday on Monday (10May10), marking a career which has taken him from early rehearsals in a pal's kitchen to international rock star, leading campaigner on humanitarian issues, and Nobel Peace Prize nominee.
The singer formed U2 in 1976 after answering an advert for musicians posted by drummer Larry Mullen, Jr., joining him, guitarist The Edge, and bass player Adam Clayton for auditions in Mullen's kitchen.
He is now one of the most famous and iconic frontmen in rock - and to celebrate his landmark birthday, WENN has collected 10 fascinating facts about Bono.
- Born Paul David Hewson, the rocker's nickname derives from the Latin word "bonavox" - meaning "good voice".
- His various humanitarian work around the globe and his efforts to raise awareness of Aids in Africa earned him the Nobel Peace Prize's Man of Peace title in 2008. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003.
- His favourite food is fish and chips, and his favourite drink is Jack Daniels or tea.
- Bono is a keen chess player, falling in love with the game at the age of 12 after he became "fascinated" with its grandmasters.
- In 2007, he was given an honorary knighthood by Britain's Queen Elizabeth II for his tireless campaigning.
- The singer's trademark sunglasses are not just a rock 'n' roll fashion statement - his eyes are over-sensitive to light.
- Bono has enjoyed several forays into acting - he had small roles in Million Dollar Hotel and Across The Universe.
- During U2's Zoo TV Tour in the early 1990s, Bono's onstage alter-egos included The Fly, Mirror Ball Man, and Mr. MACPhisto.
- Bono and his U2 bandmates were nominated for a Best Original Song Oscar in 2003 for the track The Hands That Built America, which featured on Gangs of New York - but lost out to Eminem's Lose Yourself, from the movie 8 Mile.
- He has collaborated with a huge range of artists in his career - including Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash, Jennifer Lopez, Frank Sinatra, and Luciano Pavarotti.
- Bono has enjoyed several forays into acting - he had small roles in Million Dollar Hotel and Across The Universe.
Bono spends his special day with 'sweetest thing'
Bono and wife Ali Hewson seen in New York yesterday. Picture: Getty Images
By Ken Sweeney
Tuesday May 11 2010
BONO celebrated his 50th birthday in New York last night with his number one fan.
The U2 frontman chose to spend it alone with his 'sweetest thing': his wife of 28 years, Ali.
Sources say the setting for this most special of meals was Nobu restaurant in Manhattan, part owned by actor Robert De Niro.
The couple are big on birthdays; Bono famously penning U2 hit 'The Sweetest Thing' after forgetting his wife's birthday.
Traditionally, it's also a few days after his big day that Bono gets around to throwing a party.
However, this year it's understood celebrations have been suspended due to the death of broadcaster Gerry Ryan.
One friend of the singer said that while plans had been made for a number of Bono's pals to travel over to New York later this week, they were dropped. This was backed up by at least two of the U2 singer's best friends, screenwriter and singer Simon Carmody, and nightclub owner Robbie Fox telling friends they had no plans to travel over.
U2's publicist said Bono would be "taking the next few days off to spend with his family".
The 50-year old has had a hectic week after joining with fellow third world campaigner Bob Geldof to edit a special edition of Toronto's 'Globe and Mail' newspaper on Sunday.
Before leaving the newspaper on Sunday night the U2 star had 'Happy Birthday' sung to him by staff. Bono is at present residing in the US with his family while their family home in Killiney, Dublin, has a major extension built to its rear and roof.
Bono spends his special day with 'sweetest thing' - Celebrity News & Gossip, Independent Woman - Independent.ie
From Mr. Neil McCormick
Bono's Half Century
Today (Monday 10th) is Bono’s 50th birthday. The U2 singer has been on the planet for half a century, although for some it will probably seem longer. A band leader since he was 15, a rock star by the time he was 21, a global superstar at the age of 27, Bono has become one of the most ubiquitous celebrities on the planet, straddling the worlds of showbusiness and politics by the bridge of charitable activism.
Immediately recognisable by his trademark sunglasses and bullish Irish charm, Bono may be the most divisive, love-him-or-hate-him character in modern pop culture. For fans, and there are tens of millions of them, he is the greatest rock star of our age, a passionate heir to the pop art activism of John Lennon, leader of one the most extraordinary (and biggest selling) bands of our times. For his detractors, he is an egotistic pain in the neck, a God-bothering do-gooder always sticking his face where it doesn’t belong as a self-appointed, unelected, Messianic representative of the world’s poor, narcissistically boosting his self-esteem by hectoring and cajoling others to think of those worse of than themselves whilst hypocritically living the indulgent life of a super-rich, over-privileged tax dodger. I think that about covers it.
As a long-time friend and admirer, I have never quite understood why people get so upset about someone so obviously trying to do good, and indeed why people are so willing to ascribe negative values to transparently positive intentions. I have defended Bono before, which only unleashes ever increasing torrents of abuse. In my experience as a prolific music blogger, I have learned there are two things you cannot say without drawing the vitriol of poison posters: criticise Abba, or praise Bono.
It seems to me that this polarity of opinion regarding Bono has become so extreme, people no longer treat him as a human being. Rather he is a kind of idea of an image of a caricature of a caricature, and no matter what he says or does it will be twisted one way or another to serve pro and anti opinion of Bono, Saint or Devil.
The peculiar thing for me, of course, is that I not only know Bono, I’ve known him since before he became Bono. He wasn’t always a rock star, but he was always a complex, driven, passionate, mischievous but intensely well-meaning and essentially sincere character. He is a year older than me, and I always looked up to him and considered him a bit of a hero even in the corridors of a comprehensive school in Dublin. He was a nice guy then, and he’s a nice guy now. He’s married to his childhood sweetheart, our classmate Alison Stewart, which would be quite an achievement even if he weren’t a rock star with all the indulgence and privileges that career allows. Such is his media ubiquity, the modern Bono sometimes seems to know every significant figure on the planet, from popes to president to film stars and supermodels, but actually he still hangs out with a lot of the same friends he had back in those days. He’s fun to be around, clever and entertaining and a great includer, so that he draws people in, remembers peoples names, asks about wives and children, makes people feel that it is not all about him but about everyone present. And he’s such a passionate believer in the positive power of people to change the world that he is a hugely inspirational character to be around.
If he does seem a larger than life character it’s because he has allowed his extraordinary life to really fill him up. I love Brian Eno’s response when he was asked about Bono’s big ego. “Bono commits the crime of rising above your station. To the British, it’s the worst thing you can do. Bono is hated for doing something considered unbecoming for a pop star – meddling in things that apparently have nothing to do with him. He has a huge ego, no doubt about it. On the other hand, he has a huge brain and a huge heart. He’s just a big kind of person. That’s not easy for some to deal with. They don’t mind in Italy. They like larger-than-life people there. In most places in the world they don’t mind him. Here, they think he must be conning them.”
I remember the moment that inner rock star was unleashed, in the Mount Temple school gym, in Autumn 1976, when the band that would become U2 played their first show. He stood on a stage of school tables held together by masking tape and, as the band played Peter Frampton’s ‘Show Me The Way’, he picked up the microphone and started to stamp and roar. It was like an electric charge went through the room. The girls in the gymnasium actually started to scream. It was a transformative moment, no doubt about it. “It was really a feeling of liberation,” Bono told me once. “It’s like you’ve jumped into the sea and discovered you can swim. Everything changed for me, cause now I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”
And so Bono became a rock star. But he never stopped being himself. He’s fifty years old now, married with children of his own, a loyal husband, a good father, a genuinely nice guy. When I see him now, I can still recognise the boy in the man. I wish more people could see that. But, in thirty years of rock and roll, his detractors haven’t managed to bring him down yet. I’m betting he’s going to be getting on their nerves for a while yet.
Bono spends his special day with 'sweetest thing'
Hard to believe, but Bono’s already burned through his first 50 years on Earth.
Bono's first 50 years: the music, the politics, the sunglasses
Where is this article from? Could we generally give links and sources to all the articles posted here, please? Thank you.
Wyclef Jean will join forces with Bono for a Haiti fundraiser.
As for Bono (yes, he’s left Toronto for Cannes), he seems to be pacing himself. He has yet to join the frenzy of the festival, preferring instead to lounge around on a luxury yacht nearby until the weekend, at which point he’s expected to light up the Croisette for a Haiti fundraiser with Wyclef Jean.
Lainey Lui is a reporter for CTV’s eTalk and runs the gossip site LaineyGossip.com.
Lainey on the red carpet - The Globe and Mail