Join us for a career retrospective with music legend, Darlene Love, who is celebrating 50+ Years in show business.
Presented by SAG-AFTRA EEO Committee’s Legends Series.
Moderated by Nekesa Mumbi Moody
Estimated program end time: 8:30 PM
PANELIST BIO
Darlene Love
Since accepting the Academy Award for 20 Feet From Stardom, and the Grammy for its soundtrack, and being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Darlene Love’s career has been full speed ahead. At 78, she sells out shows worldwide, captivating audiences with her warm, gracious stage presence and sensational performances. The New York Times describes Darlene as having a voice “embedded in the history of rock and roll as Eric Clapton’s guitar and Bob Dylan’s lyrics,” and fans rejoice: she has no plans to retire anytime soon.
The definitive voice of the 1960’s girl groups and a hand-picked favorite of legendary rock and roll producer Phil Spector, Darlene Love is widely considered the voice that launched a hundred hits. Some of her top records include “Wait Til My Bobby Gets Home,” “Da Doo Ron Ron,” “River Deep, Mountain High,” and “He’s A Rebel.”
The hits “sound as steam-rolling fresh today as the day they were released,” says her longtime friend Bruce Springsteen, who famously sang a duet of “A Fine, Fine Boy” with Love at the 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert. Two years later, Darlene Love was officially inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by her other longtime friend, Bette Middler.
In addition to the rock and roll hits, Darlene is the voice behind the holiday classics, “All Alone on Christmas” from Home Alone 2, and “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home),” a song she performed annually on David Letterman’s The Late Show a record 28 years. In 2015, after The Late Show ended, Darlene began performing “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)” annually on ABC-TV’s The View. Last year, she and Anna Kendrick performed it on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, using classroom instruments.
Love is also famous for singing backup for artists like Sam Cooke, Elvis Presley, Cher, and Aretha Franklin, as chronicled in 2013’s 20 Feet From Stardom.
She’s a film and stage actress, too, most notably starring as Motormouth Maybelle in Hairspray on Broadway and touring with the Australian production of Fame in the lead as Miss Sherman. Darlene also played the role of Trish Murtaugh, the wife of Danny Glover’s character, in all four Lethal Weapon movies.
Darlene Love’s candor and her inimitable spirit — the product of her roots as a minister’s daughter — have enhanced the lives of music, stage and film fans for 50+ years and will continue to do so for many years to come. She is currently considering a limited residency in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and New York City and will be hitting the road in September for her annual Holiday tour and she’ll be celebrating her 5 year anniversary performing her #1 hit "Christmas Baby, Please Come Home" on The View in December and she’ll be starring in a new Netflix movie called Holiday Rush.
