Born Steven Paul Morrissey in Manchester, UK, Smiths frontman and mope-rock icon Morrissey — or “Mozza” to his fans — turns 50 today. WENN’s news desk has helpfully supplied us with a fat file of trivia bits on the “Hairdresser on Fire” singer, above at the Coachella festival last month. If you’re prepping for a pub quiz, meet us at the cemet’ry gates…after the jump. Morrissey toured as a support act for David Bowie in 1995 — but quit after just two weeks when the glam rock legend suggested Morrissey should sing one of his songs every night. In 2006, he came third in a BBC poll to find the greatest living British icon — behind Sir David Attenborough and Sir Paul McCartney. Morrissey launched his rock career in the late 1970s as frontman of little known punk bands The Nosebleeds and Slaughter & the Dogs, before meeting Johnny Marr and forming The Smiths. Before finding fame as a singer, Morrissey worked as a hospital porter and as a clerk for the British tax office, the Inland Revenue. At a concert in Wolverhampton, England in 1988, Morrissey offered free entry to any fan wearing a The Smiths T-shirt. More than 20,000 devotees descended on the venue, which had a capacity of just 3,000. When he relocated to Los Angeles in the late 1990s, Morrissey moved into the house previously owned by movie director John Schlesinger.  Funnyman Russell Brand is a huge fan of the singer — and has even named his cat Morrissey as a tribute.
Morrissey’s favourite food is yogurt, and his favourite drink is tea. At the last ever Smiths concert in 1986, Morrissey paid homage to his working class, northern England roots by holding aloft a banner proclaiming: “Two light ales, please” — a reference to a traditional British beer. His favourite place to get his famous quiff trimmed is Geo F. Trumper barbers in London’s Mayfair. A committed vegetarian, in 2005 he was given People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ Linda McCartney Award in honour of his efforts to highlight animal rights causes. A notoriously private person, his close circle of friends includes Nancy Sinatra and 1960s singer Sandie Shaw. While touring in support of his “Boxers” single in 1995, Morrissey would frequently appear onstage covered in fake cuts and sporting a black eye. He originally wanted to be a rock journalist, and had several reviews printed in music magazines before forming The Smiths. When The Smiths played their first ever gig in New York on New Year’s Eve 1983, the opening act was a then barely-known Madonna. Morrissey later described the “Like A Virgin” hitmaker as “closer to organised prostitution than anything else.” In 1992, he sold out a gig at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles in less than five minutes, smashing the record previously set by The Beatles. The first record he ever bought was Marianne Faithfull’s “Come and Stay With Me,” and his first ever concert was T-Rex in Manchester in 1972. As a teenager, Morrissey was obsessed with long-running British soap opera Coronation Street and dreamed of writing for the show. He submitted several scripts to programme-makers, but all were rejected. During a concert in the 1980s, vegetarian Morrissey stormed offstage when a member of the audience threw a sausage and it hit the singer in the mouth. He also stopped his show to complain about the smell of “burning flesh” coming from food stands during his performance at the Coachella festival in California in April. He was named Songwriter of the Year by rock magazine Q in 1994.
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