A survivor, a gay icon, one of the best selling musicians of all time and two-time Academy Award winner. Today marks the 74th birthday of Elton John.
Sir Elton Hercules John was born in 1947 as Reginald Kenneth Dwight. Started his music career at the age of 15 as a pub pianist, five years later he was already writing hit songs with lyricist Bernie Taupin, as part of a partnership that’s still going strong. After nearly fifty years of musical successes, personal struggles and numerous scandals later, it’s hard to summarize the British musician’s career. So let’s just focus on his contributions to the motion picture arts!
For the whole generation of Millennials, probably the first song that would jump to their mind when mentioning Elton John would be “Can You Feel The Love Tonight”, and not without a reason. The ballad featured in “Lion King” was named as the winner in the Best Original Song category at the Oscars in 1995. His second award came just last year for “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again”, a song featured in the credits of his autobiographical movie, “Rocketman”.
The 2019 film, starring Taron Egerton and directed by Dexter Fletcher, recently made headlines again, after the Vatican issued a decree in which they reiterated the Catholic Churches condemning stance on same-sex marriage. In a Twitter post the singer called them hypocrites, because, as it turns out, the Vatican invested some 4 million euros into the biopic.
Besides his numerous cameos, including the ones in “South Park”, “The Simpsons” and “Kingsman: The Golden Circle”, there’s only been two occasions over the years, when he played another character. He was the Narrator in DreamWorks’ “Road to El Dorado” in 2000, and back in 1975, when he portrayed the reigning pinball champion in Pete Townshend’s rock opera, “Tommy”. The Who’s adaptation of their earlier concept album though has an overly convoluted and frankly, weird plot, it’s worth watching because of its phenomenal soundtrack and the ensemble cast.
Happy Birthday, Rocket Man!
