Gwen Stefani

Gwen Renée Stefani ( /stɛˈfɑːni/; born October 3, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter and fashion designer. Stefani is the lead vocalist for the rock and ska band No Doubt. Stefani recorded Love. Angel. Music. Baby., her first solo album, in 2004. The album was inspired by music of the 1980s and was a success with sales of over seven million copies. The album's third single, "Hollaback Girl", was the first US digital download to sell one million copies. Stefani's second and final solo studio album, The Sweet Escape (2006), yielded "Wind It Up", "4 in the Morning", and the highest-selling single "The Sweet Escape". Including her work with No Doubt, Stefani has sold more than forty million albums worldwide. She won the World's Best-Selling New Female Artist at the World Music Awards 2005.. Stefani was born and raised in Fullerton, California, and grew up in a Roman Catholic household. She attended Loara High School in Anaheim, California. She was named after a stewardess in the 1968 novel Airport, and her middle name, Renée, comes from The Four Tops' 1968 cover of The Left Banke's 1966 hit song "Walk Away Renée". Her father, Dennis Stefani, is Italian American and worked as a Yamaha marketing executive. Her mother, Patti (née Flynn), is of Irish and Scottish descent and worked as an accountant before becoming a homemaker. Gwen's parents were fans of folk music and exposed her to music by artists like Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris. She is the second oldest of four children: she has a younger sister, Jill Stefani, a younger brother, Todd, and an older brother, Eric. Eric was the keyboardist for No Doubt; he left the band to pursue a career in animation on The Simpsons on the Fox TV network.. Many of the women in Stefani's family were seamstresses, and much of her clothing was made by them or her mother. In school, she was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD, which she's been medicated for ever since. As a child, Stefani's musical interests consisted of musicals such as The Sound of Music and Evita. After making a demo tape for her father, she was encouraged to take music lessons to train her "loopy, unpredictable" voice. Stefani made her onstage debut during a talent show at Loara High School, where she sang "I Have Confidence", from The Sound of Music, in a self-made tweed dress inspired by one from the film. Stefani was on the Loara swim team in an attempt to lose weight. She first worked at a Dairy Queen and later manned the MAC makeup counter of a department store. After graduating from high school in 1987, she began attending Fullerton College before transferring to California State University, Fullerton....
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