Happy Birthday Meat Loaf

Marvin Lee Aday was born September 27, 1947 in Dallas, Texas. Little Meat was the the only child of Wilma Artie, a school teacher and member of the Vo-di-o-do Girls gospel quartet, and Orvis Wesley Aday, a former police officer who went into business selling a homemade cough remedy with his wife and a friend, under the name of Dr Aday’s  Mystery Elixir. The elixir was made in the family bathtub and contained cocaine, alcohol and opium. The company was run out of business when a child went blind after drinking it. 

Marvin was a big baby, clocking in at 4 feet tall and weighing 48 lbs at birth, the size of most first graders. His father immediately gave him the nickname ‘Meat’. During High School, Marvin was in the drama club and a star on the football team. One day during practice, Marvin stepped on the coach’s foot who screamed “Get off my foot, you hunk of meat loaf!” The nickname ‘Meat Loaf’ stuck. 

Meat moved to Los Angeles in the 1960’s joined the cast of “Hair”, appeared in Shakespeare in the Park and starred in the original L.A Roxy cast of “Rocky Horror Picture Show” as Eddie. He also appeared in the film. 

In October 1977, Bat Out of Hell was released. The rest is history. Bat Out of Hell is one of the best selling albums of all time, having sold over 43 million copies worldwide. It is certified 14x Platinum and has spent 522 weeks on the UK Album charts. We believe it is still to this day the only album that features Yankee shortstop and announcer Phil “Scooter”  Rizzuto. 

Meat Loaf revealed that when he played at a CBS Records convention in 1978, record executives, celebrities and superstar Billy Joel gave Meat Loaf a standing ovation after a haunting performance of the closing track “For Crying Out Loud,”. Billy Joel was actually weeping. 

Meat Loaf recently posed nude in Vanity Fair magazine. “I did it because I’m not one of those stick-skinny boys you see. I was always a husky kid, I had to shop for tough-skin jeans in the Sears Husky department, and it was very embarrassing.  I felt like boys today need to see a normal body.”