Rick Springfield

Richard Lewis Springthorpe (born 23 August 1949), known professionally as Rick Springfield, is an Australian-American musician and actor. He was a member of the pop rock group Zoot from 1969 to 1971, then started his solo career with his debut single, "Speak to the Sky", which reached the top 10 in Australia in mid-1972. When he moved to the United States, he had a No. 1 hit with "Jessie's Girl" in 1981 in both Australia and the US, for which he received the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. He followed with four more top 10 US hits: "I've Done Everything for You", "Don't Talk to Strangers", "Affair of the Heart" and "Love Somebody". Springfield's two US top 10 albums are Working Class Dog (1981) and Success Hasn't Spoiled Me Yet (1982).

As an actor, Springfield starred in the film Hard to Hold in 1984 and the television series High Tide from 1994 to 1997. He appeared in supporting roles in Ricki and the Flash and True Detective (both 2015). He portrayed Noah Drake on the daytime drama General Hospital (1981–1983, 2005–2008, 2012), returning in 2013 for the show's 50th anniversary with his son, actor Liam Springthorpe. He played a depraved version of himself in Californication (2009). He has also appeared in episodes of Supernatural, Hot in Cleveland, and American Horror Story. In 2010, Springfield published his autobiography, Late, Late at Night: A Memoir.

Rick Springfield was born Richard Lewis Springthorpe on 23 August 1949 in Guildford, a western suburb of Sydney. He is the son of Eileen Louise (Evennett) and Norman James Springthorpe, an Australian Army career officer. His maternal grandparents were English. When he was young, he lived at the army camp with his family in Broadmeadows, Victoria, Australia. Springfield attended Ashwood High School in Melbourne during the 1960s. At 14, he saw the Beatles perform at Festival Hall in Melbourne.

Springfield was 13 years old when he learned to play guitar. He joined various bands in England, where his father was stationed from 1958 to 1963, and joined several more bands after returning to Australia. In 1968, Springfield was approached by bass guitarist Pete Watson to join his group Rockhouse; Watson changed the band's name to MPD Ltd later that year. Another member of MPD Ltd was drummer Danny Finley.

In October 1968, when Springfield was 17, the band traveled to South Vietnam where they entertained troops for several months during the Vietnam War. While staying overnight with American troops at a camp near Da Nang they came under attack from a Viet Cong unit. Springfield was asked to drop mortar shells into a launch-tube, one of which, he learned, had killed a Viet Cong soldier. The knowledge that he "was responsible for the end of a life" has bothered him ever since.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.