Shirley Manson of Garbage

Shirley Ann Manson (born 26 August 1966) is a Scottish singer, songwriter, musician and actress, best known internationally as the lead singer of the alternative rock band Garbage. For much of her international career Manson commuted between her home city of Edinburgh and the United States to record with Garbage; she now lives and works in Los Angeles.Manson gained media attention for her forthright style, rebellious attitude and distinctive voice.
Manson's musical career began in her teens when she was approached to perform backing vocals and keyboards for Scottish band Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie. Quickly she developed into a prominent member of the group and developed a formidable stage presence. Manson was approached by her band's record label with the idea of launching her as a solo artist, and recorded an album with her band under the Angelfish name. After seeing Manson in an Angelfish video broadcast only once on MTV's 120 Minutes, Garbage invited Manson to audition and record vocals on a couple of unfinished songs; she eventually co-wrote and co-produced an entire album with the band. The resulting self-titled debut, Garbage, was a critically acclaimed, worldwide hit, and was followed by four studio albums, including the multiple Grammy Award-nominated Version 2.0, and a greatest hits album.
In 2006, Manson began to write and record solo material after Garbage was put on "hiatus" and in 2008 was cast in her first professional acting role on the second and final season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles as series regular Catherine Weaver, a liquid metal T-1001 Terminator. Manson returned to the recording studio in 2010 to write and produce material for the group's fifth studio album Not Your Kind of People.
Shirley Ann Manson was born to John Mitchell and Muriel Flora Manson (née MacKay) in Edinburgh. John Mitchell, a descendant from the fishing community of Northmavine, Shetland, was a university lecturer while Muriel was a big band singer, who had been adopted by a Lothian-based family at an early age (and took on the family name MacDonald). Shirley was named after an aunt who was herself named after Charlotte Brontë's novel Shirley. She was born with two years between both older sister Lindy-Jayne and younger sister Sarah, and was brought up in the Comely Bank and Stockbridge areas of the city. She attended Broughton High School, Edinburgh. Manson's childhood education was informed by the Church of Scotland (her father was also her Sunday School teacher), until the age of 12, when she rebelled against organized religion.
Manson's first public performance was in 1970, at age four, with her older sister, in an amateur show held at the local Church Hill Theatre.
Enrolled at Flora Stevenson Primary School, Manson received instruction in recorder, clarinet and fiddle, and learned ballet and piano from extramural classes at age seven. Manson was a member of Girlguiding UK throughout this period of her youth as a Brownie and a Guide, Manson attended the City of Edinburgh Music School, the music department of Broughton High. While at Broughton, Manson became an active member of its drama group, performing in amateur dramatic and musical performances such as The American Dream and The Wizard of Oz, while also singing with the Waverley Singers, a local girl choir.
While Manson enjoyed primary school, Manson was bullied while in her first year at secondary school, causing her to suffer from depression, body dysmorphic disorder, and engage in self-injury: she carried a sharp object in the laces of her boots and cut herself when she felt low self-esteem, stress or anxiety.
The bullying stopped when Manson associated herself with a rebel crowd – which resulted in her rebelling herself; playing truant for most of her final year at school, smoking cannabis and sniffing glue, drinking, shoplifting, and on one occasion breaking into Edinburgh Zoo. Manson's first job was volunteer work in a local hospital's cafeteria, then as a breakfast waitress at a local hotel before spending five years as a shop assistant for Miss Selfridge, beginning on the make-up counter. Manson was eventually moved into stockrooms because of her attitude toward customers. Manson became well known throughout Edinburgh's clubbing scene, and making use of free samples from Miss Selfridge, styled hair for a number of local bands.Manson also briefly modeled clothing for Jackie magazine.
Manson's first musical experiences came from briefly singing with local Edinburgh acts The Wild Indians and performed backing vocals with Autumn 1984. While she was acting in her group, Manson was approached by Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie's lead Martin Metcalfe to join his band. Manson embarked on a relationship with Metcalfe initially, but remained involved after splitting from him and became a prominent member of the group, performing keyboards, backing vocals and becoming involved in the band's business side.
In 2009, Manson announced she was stepping away from music, claiming she got sick of the music industry's new practices and had found more excitement in acting.
Manson said she thought about abandoning the music business as soon as 2008, when her mother got ill with dementia and later died, saying that "I didn't want to make music, didn't feel creative. I could barely function." Later that year she reconsidered her words and went back into performing after being asked by friends to sing David Bowie's "Life on Mars?" at their son's memorial. According to Manson, "we were all in so much pain, but it meant so much to them that I could sing that song and so much to me that I was able to do something. It made me realise how much music sustains people. I don't know why I'd turned my back on it."