Biography for
Gary Kemp (I) More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

16 October 1959, Islington, London, England, UK

Birth Name

Gary James Kemp

Height

6' (1.83 m)

Mini Biography

Gary Kemp was born in Islington, London in October 1959. On his 10th birthday, he got his first guitar from his parents. In the 70s, he and his younger brother, Martin Kemp, went to learn drama at Anna Scher's acting school. Then, in 1978, Gary Kemp formed "The Makers". After Richard Miller left, his brother replaced him on bass. That's when Gary changed the name to Spandau Ballet. Spandau's break came in March 1980 when they were filmed for a documentary on ITV. When the documentary was broadcast, the record companies were bursting out of their ears. They chose to sign to Chrysalis, as they were offered the most money. For 10 years, they had hits like "To Cut a Long Story Short" (1980), "Chant No. 1 (I don't need this pressure on)" (1981), "True" (1983), "Gold" (1983), "Only When You Leave" (1984) and "Through the Barricades" (1986). After Spandau Ballet completed a tour in 1987, Gary and Martin decided to go into acting once again. They auditioned for the part in The Krays (1990) and, in 1989, they played "Ronald" and "Reggie". Soon afterwards this, Spandau Ballet would split. During the '90s, Gary continued to act, most notably playing a part in The Bodyguard (1992). In 1999, Gary was involved in a court battle over £1,000,000 royalties against John Keeble, Steve Norman and Tony Hadley, his 3 other bandmates. Gary won the case. However, in March 2009, all 5 members of Spandau Ballet called a truce, and they announced on the HMS Belfast in London that they would be reuniting for a world tour later in the year.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Richard Baker

Spouse

Lauren Barber	(5 September 2003 - present) 1 child
Sadie Frost	(7 May 1988 - 19 August 1997) (divorced) 1 child

Trivia

Older brother of Martin Kemp.

Former co-leader of the band Spandau Ballet.

Guitarist, songwriter and sometimes the synthesizer player of Spandau Ballet.

His song "True" was sampled for the PM Dawn hit, "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss".

The first album he bought was T-Rex's "Electric Warrior".

The first band he saw was Slade when he was 11.

The first single he bought was "Apeman" by The Kinks.

"True" was directly influenced by his love of Marvin Gaye and Al Green. The lyrics were delicately influenced by Nabokov's novel, Lolita.

Spandau Ballet won the Sony Award For Technical Excellence in 1984.

Son Milo Wolf Kemp (born July 14th 2004) with Lauren Barber.

Son Finlay Munro Kemp (born September 20th 1990) with Sadie Frost.

Brother-in-law of Shirlie Holliman.

Personal Quotes

Spandau Ballet is a brand name. Part of me never wants to do it again. Part of me is fascinated of what it would be like. Because we spent the most amazing time together.

I can't get away from 'True'. It's been played 3 million times on American radio.

I think that Will Young is this generation's Des O'Connor or Max Bygraves. Where is the sex, drama and outrage in music anymore?

The thought of going on tour with people like Toyah Wilcox is just appalling. I'm certainly not tempted.

Kevin Costner told me that "True" was his and his wife's song. I'm not sure if that's a good thing because they split up soon after.

I like a band with sex and attitude. Coldplay and Travis do nothing for me.

Songwriting helps me sort out my personal problems. With acting, you're just a tool for someone's ideas.

Punk was sort of an angry stance against things that had happened just before, against the pop of glam rock, against progressive rock. Music had become very staid and it was about the playing and people obsessed. Eric Clapton was God and we needed an enema within the art form, and punk did do that.

I wanted to write a soul song. We'd come out of that electronic, Blitz, dance movement. I wanted to get back into writing songs that I loved, which was black American soul songs. I wanted to write an Al Green song. Marvin Gaye obviously was a hero and I wanted to mention him in the song. (On "True")