Ridiculed by critics and custodians of cool, Meat Loaf’s bombastic performances were loved by millions, providing the soundtrack to the lives of various generations.
The man born Marvin Lee Aday was something of an unreliable narrator. He offered contradictory accounts in interviews of such basic details as his date of birth, real name, or why and how he came to be known as Meat Loaf. According to his autobiography, an inheritance from his mother allowed him, as a disturbed and distressed teenager, to leave the house of a violent alcoholic father to live, first in Dallas, and subsequently California.
