He is a guitarist, producer and songwriter born in
Brooklyn, New York.He
initially wanted to study Egyptology when he was young, but after his
parents had bought him a guitar when he was 11 he became more and more
interested in music. He encountered several problems as a teenager when he
as expelled from school for having long hair, his father died from a heart
attack and he had a nervous breakdown. Choosing music as his professional career and gaining
inspiration from the New York Dolls, he joined the group The Stilettos in New
York in 1973 where a co-member was Debbie Harry.They became a couple and the following year formed the
band Angel and the Snake that would become Blondie before long.Seeing regular hits from 1976, many
of them were co-written songs with Debbie Harry such as "Heart of Glass", "Picture
This" and "Dreaming", and he was the sole-writer of the hit "Sunday Girl".In 1982 he also branched out as a
producer when he worked on the film Wild Style and formed his own
record company, Animal Records, which released Iggy Pop's Zombie Birdhouse.Everything was going well in his
career until 1983 when he was diagnosed with the genetic skin disease
Pemphigus that is normally fatal.Blondie disbanded and after several years he miraculously recovered
after a long fight with the disease in hospital.Debbie Harry and he amiably split as a couple, but he
still contributed work to her solo albums that were released during the
1980s.Blondie got back
together in the '90s after there was renewed interest in them, he produced
photographic artwork for albums by Lydia Lunch and Dramarama, and he
married the actress Barbara Sicuranza. Debbie Harry is the godmother to their daughter Akira. His compositions for the television
and film industry include music for Intimate Stranger, Wild Style,
Polyester, Tales From the Darkside and Union City among others.
