Personal details
Official sites :
Born:
- Birthday: 1949-12-07
- Born Place: Pomona, California, USA
Also Known As:
Thomas Alan Waits, 汤姆·威兹
Tom Waits
Born on December 7, 1949, in Pomona, California, Tom Waits is a singular American artist who has spent over five decades crafting a persona that sits somewhere between a grit-voiced street philosopher and a surrealist avant-garde composer. The son of schoolteachers, Waits was famously born in the back of a taxi and grew up fascinated by the "bohemian" world of the Beat Generation and the rough-hewn storytelling of jazz and blues. After a youth spent working as a doorman at a San Diego nightclub and serving as a fireman, he moved to Los Angeles and released his debut album, Closing Time (1973), which showcased a tender, jazz-inflected folk style. Throughout the 1970s, he cultivated a "boozy lounge singer" image with albums like Small Change and Nighthawks at the Diner, before undergoing a radical musical transformation in the 1980s. Following his marriage and creative partnership with playwright Kathleen Brennan in 1980, Waits pivoted toward an experimental, "industrial" sound using unconventional instruments like brake drums and marimbas, resulting in the seminal trilogy of Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs, and Franks Wild Years. This era solidified his reputation as an innovator, eventually earning him two Grammy Awards (for Bone Machine and Mule Variations) and an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011. In tandem with his music, Waits has built a storied career as a character actor, specializing in playing eccentrics, outcasts, and supernatural figures for directors like Francis Ford Coppola and Terry Gilliam. His long-standing collaboration with Jim Jarmusch is particularly legendary, beginning with his starring role as a convict in Down by Law (1986) and continuing through Coffee and Cigarettes and The Dead Don't Die. In the 2025 anthology film Father Mother Sister Brother, Waits plays the titular "Father" in the first chapter, portraying a reclusive, rumpled patriarch living in rural New Jersey. His performance, characterized by a mix of physical frailty and a sharp, secret-keeping wit, was central to the film's success in winning the Golden Lion at the 2025 Venice Film Festival. Now 76 years old, Waits is known for his intensely private lifestyle in Northern California, where he continues to influence a generation of musicians and filmmakers with his "Waitsian" blend of the macabre and the beautiful.
