Meat Loaf

Born: September 27, 1948
Where: Dallas, Texas, USA

Born Marvin Lee Aday, accounts regarding his stage name place its origins in either a childhood nickname or a high school football incident.

For those who know Meat Loaf only as the powerful singer, it may come as a surprise that he was a serious, stage-trained actor long before he was a musical star.

He first landed a role on Broadway in Hair soon after arriving in New York in the late 1960s and even acted in Shakespeare's As You Like It in Central Park, among other non-musical plays.

But it was his voice, a bombastic mixture of rock and opera, which earned him his best opportunities. His debut album Bat Out of Hell became the third-best-selling album in history in 1977.

Meat Loaf also acted on stage in The Rocky Horror Show, which lead to his feature debut in the 1975 movie version of the cult classic musical.

His music career was revived by the best-selling Bat Out of Hell II: Back to Hell in 1993 and Meat Loaf once again turned his attention to singing.

He had small parts in two high-profile movies in 1992, Wayne's World and Leap of Faith, but his career was still just limping along until it took off in 1998.

That year saw him as the wild-eyed Bible-quoting bad guy of Black Dog (starring Patrick Swayze), as Dennis Quaid's best friend in Quaid's directing debut Everything Rises, and as Gillian Anderson's husband in The Mighty.

He subsequently portrayed a small town 60s sheriff coming to terms with his own prejudice in Crazy in Alabama, directed by Antonio Banderas, and donned a fat suit to play a 400 pound ex-bouncer in Fight Club.

Married with two children, a trimmed-down Meat Loaf was suddenly one of the hottest character actors in the business and in 2002, he portrayed The Lizard in the drugs comedy The 51st State, starring Samuel L. Jackson.