Paul Francis Gadd (born 8 May 1944) is an English glam rock singer and songwriter, and is better known by his stage name Gary Glitter.
Glitter first came to prominence in the glam rock era of the early 1970s. He had one of the longest chart runs of any solo singer in the UK during the 1970s, with a string of chart hits in the including "Rock and Roll parts 1 & 2", "I Love You Love Me Love", "I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am)" and "Hello, Hello, I'm Back Again". Between 1972 and 1995 Glitter charted twenty-six hit singles which spent a total of 180 weeks in the UK Top 100. His success as a live performer lasted well beyond the decade. He continued to record in the 1980s and 1990s, with his 1984 song "Another Rock N' Roll Christmas" being one of the Top 30 Christmas hits of all time. He released seven studio albums, and at least 15 greatest hits collections or live albums. In 1998, his recording of "Rock and Roll" was voted one of the Top 1001 songs in music history.
In 1999, Glitter once again became notorious when he was listed as a sex offender in the UK following conviction for downloading thousands of items of child pornography. His reputation was greatly tarnished, and, though he continued releasing new music, Glitter's popularity declined sharply. He moved from Cambodia, from where he was permanently evicted in 2002 for suspected child sexual abuse, to Vung Tau in Vietnam. In 2005, he was arrested by Vietnamese authorities, was tried and convicted of child sexual abuse charges in June. He was released from prison on 19 August 2008 and returned to London three days later, after being refused entry into Thailand and Hong Kong.
A year later, with a new manager, Vic Billings, he signed a new recording contract with Parlophone and worked with producer George Martin, before Martin's association with The Beatles. Martin produced two singles, "Walk on By" and "Tower of Strength", but neither sold very well and Raven's recording career reached an impasse. By 1964, while Martin's work with The Beatles was conquering the world, Raven was reduced to playing the warm-up for the British television programme Ready Steady Go!. He did numerous TV commercials and film auditions, and in the course of those activities met arranger-producer Mike Leander who eventually helped revive his career.
The song that at last made Gary Glitter's name and career began as a fifteen-minute jam, whittled down to a pair of three-minute extracts released as the A and B sides of a single, called "Rock and Roll, Parts One and Two". "Rock and Roll (Part Two)" would prove to be the more popular side in many countries, although it took about six months before it made its full impact, going to number two on the British pop charts and reaching the Top Ten in the United States, one of the few British glam rock records to do so. "Rock and Roll (Part One)" was also a hit: in France it made number one and in the UK both sides were listed together on the charts.
"Rock and Roll (Part Two)" caught on as a popular sports anthem in North America. Often used as a goal song or celebration song, fans chanted out "Hey!" along with the chorus. In light of Glitter's court convictions (see below), some teams have stopped using the song, though it remains heavily played.
Despite his success in the UK, Glitter never made the same impact in the U.S., where, at best, glam rock was seen as a curiosity. Glitter had one more entry on the U.S charts with "I Didn't Know I Loved You (Till I Saw You Rock 'n Roll)"; after that, however, the closest chart success for Glitter was a cover recording of "I'm the Leader of the Gang" by Brownsville Station.
After "Doing Alright With the Boys", Glitter won the award for "Best male artist" at the Saturday Scene music awards hosted by LWT. His next release was a cover of the Rivingtons' rhythm and blues legend, "Papa Oom Mow Mow", but it got no higher than number 38 on the British charts. After subsequent releases stalled in similar fashion, Gary Glitter announced his retirement from music in early 1976. That same year, his first true hits package, simply titled Greatest Hits, was released. It entered the UK Top 40 best-sellers charts. A similar budget album, entitled I Love You Love Me Love, was issued by Hallmark Entertainment the following year.
Glitter's comeback was boosted in the 1980s by various guest spots and collaborations, leading to his becoming a cult figure with students. In 1982 he appeared on the British Electric Foundation album Music of Quality and Distinction Volume One (UK #25) along with fellow pop/rock luminaries Sandie Shaw and Tina Turner. In 1988, The Timelords' "Doctoring the Tardis," a Doctor Who tribute that sampled "Rock and Roll (Part Two)", reached the number one spot. In due course, Glitter re-cut "Rock and Roll" with producer Trevor Horn and also "I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am)" with Girlschool. In the late 1980s his hit singles were used to compile the Telstar-released C'mon, C'mon ... It's the Gary Glitter Party Album. In 1989, Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers put a large sample of "Another Rock and Roll Christmas" on their Number 1 UK hit "Let's Party".
In 1991 Glitter opened a restaurant in London's West End. Glitter's Snack Bar was promoted under the slogan "Leader of the Snack". It was successful at first, but business eventually slowed and the restaurant closed in the late 1990s.
Glitter also launched his own record label in the early 1990s, Attitude Records, after he lost his deal with Virgin Records. Glitter had signed to Virgin after leaving Arista Records in 1984 after twelve years with the label. Attitude records was merged into Machmain Ltd later in the 1990s, a music company owned by Glitter.
Glitter spent the next decade mostly as an in-demand live performer, and his back catalogue of recordings proved durable enough that several compilations sold well. Glitter appeared in several humorous billboard and poster advertisements for British Rail, in one of which he was shown attempting to look younger (and quite clearly failing) in order to obtain a Young Persons Railcard. He also issued a new studio album Leader 2 in 1991 which sold reasonably well.
He was a surprise hit at the 1994 World Cup concert in Chicago which was telecast live to forty-six countries. He played the Godfather in a 1996 revival of The Who's Quadrophenia. He also cut a single, a new version of "The House of the Rising Sun". British rock group Oasis used a sample from Glitter's 1973 chart hit, "Hello, Hello, I'm Back Again" on their 1995 multi-million selling album (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, one of a number of acts that borrowed from his song book.
"Rock and Roll (Part Two)" by this time was being used heavily as a crowd-rouser at numerous sporting events, and it was featured in the hit films The Full Monty, Happy Gilmore, Meet the Fockers and The Replacements with Keanu Reeves.
In September 2001 he released a new album, On, that included material written before his 1999 British conviction. That material was to have been part of a project called Lost on Life Street until that album's release was cancelled following his arrest. By December 2004, after releasing a new single, "Control", Glitter was in the news again concerning his behaviour; NGOs had been petitioning the government with their own evidence aimed at arresting Glitter. Glitter moved to Vietnam.
In 2005 Remember Me This Way, the documentary filmed at Glitter's career peak in 1973 (and originally released in 1974), was issued for the first time on DVD. Glitter's music itself still had an audience, further demonstrated by three new album releases, although all of them contained past recordings from the vaults, rather than new product. The first two new albums were issued at the same time, The Remixes and Live in Concert (the latter of which was a 1981 recording). These were only for sale on the Internet. A new collection of Glitter's chart hit singles followed, The Best of Gary Glitter. In 2006 his back catalogue was made available via the Internet from sites such as iTunes and eMusic.
In July 1963, aged just 19, Gadd married Ann Murton. The following year they had a son, also called Paul, and in 1966 a daughter, Sarah. The marriage broke down in 1970 and they were divorced in 1972. In February 2001, he had another son, Gary Jr, with Yudenia Sosa Martínez, born 1973, with whom he was then living in Cuba.
Glitter was convicted of possession of child pornography on 12 November 1999 and formally classified as a sex offender, serving two months of a four-month sentence in Horfield Prison in Bristol. He was also charged with having sex with an underage girl, Alison Brown, around twenty years earlier, when she was 14 years old. Glitter was acquitted of this charge after it emerged that Brown had sold her story to the News of the World and stood to earn more money from the newspaper on Glitter's conviction.
After British press revealed his whereabouts in Spain, Glitter reportedly attempted to move to Cuba in 2000 but was thwarted after the Cuban Consulate in London was tipped off and his picture and real name sent to all Cuban ports. He then went to Cambodia, where there was an uproar over his presence which led Cambodian authorities to expel him in 2002 ostensibly for being 'a threat to the security of a country and to the national image of Cambodia'. He had been jailed for three nights in that country on suspicion of sex offences, but was not convicted of any crime.
After his arrest, Glitter was turned over to provincial police from Ba Ria-Vung Tau and returned to Vung Tau and held on suspicion of having sex with the two under-age girls. Glitter was held in jail throughout the criminal probe, which was completed on 26 December 2005. The charge of rape was dropped for "lack of evidence" (according to Glitter's lawyer), although the singer admitted that an eleven-year-old girl had slept in his bed. Glitter could have faced execution by firing squad if convicted of child rape. After having received compensatory payments from Glitter, the families of the girls appealed to the courts for clemency for him.
On 2 March 2006, Glitter was tried on charges of committing obscene acts with two girls, aged 11 and 12, facing a prison sentence of up to 14 years if he was found guilty. The trial ended the next day, upon which Glitter was found guilty, and was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. Prosecutions for sex with minors are not unusual in Vietnam, but the intense media interest in the Glitter case made a lengthy custodial sentence inevitable.
The sentence included mandatory deportation at the end of his sentence, and payment of 5 million Vietnamese dong (US$315) to his victims' families. Glitter continued to deny any wrongdoing, saying he believes he was framed by British tabloid newspapers. He announced he planned to spend part of his sentence writing an autobiography, which he had already begun during his pre-trial.
Glitter, in his first interview in more than eight years to BBC News in May 2006, denied any wrong-doing and claimed not to have knowingly had sex with anyone under 18. He also said "I know the line [not] to cross". When asked what he thought of adults having sex with children he said "It certainly is a crime ... I would be very angry about that." Christine Beddoe, director of End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking, criticised Glitter and said he was trying to "minimise what he has done" and added "We must allow children to tell their story and not just have the words of Gadd."
In his interview, Glitter denied he was a paedophile. He said he had hoped that there was even a slim chance he could put his life back on track and have a career after he left prison in England. However, the people around him felt that the media had already made a sensation about the paedophile allegations. He continued to blame the press for his downfall and called them "the worst enemy in the world", alleging 'entrapment' by them by paying local girls in a bar to arrange a photo-scoop. Glitter did not comment about his previous conviction for possession of child pornography several years earlier.
"Glitter was admitted to our hospital with acute diarrhoea," said Nguyen Huu Quang, the director of the hospital in Binh Thuan Province, near the prison where the singer was serving out his sentence. "While we were treating him, we found out that he also has a cardiovascular disorder.
Glitter was released from Thu Duc prison in southern Binh Thuan province on 19 August 2008. He was escorted under police guard to Tan Son Nhat Airport in Ho Chi Minh City and put on board a flight to London via Bangkok. At Bangkok he claimed that he had tinnitus and a heart condition, and refused to board the flight to London despite the efforts of British police sent to escort him, although they had no jurisdiction to take action. He was refused entry to Thailand and threatened with deportation to the UK. On the evening of 20 August he took a flight to Hong Kong, where he requested medical treatment saying he was suffering a heart attack. However the Hong Kong authorities also refused to admit him and he returned to Thailand the next day.
At least nineteen countries, including Cuba, Cambodia and the Philippines, announced that they would refuse to admit Glitter, and on 21 August the Thai authorities stated that he had agreed to return to the UK. He arrived back in the UK at Heathrow Airport at 7:10am on 22 August 2008, where he was met by British police officers.
Glitter also made regular appearances on many other TV shows, including: Top of the Pops (1970s - 1990s), Supersonic (1970s), TV-am (1980s) and GMTV (1990s). His music has also been used in many commercials, TV shows and films. A further partial list can be found in the Internet Movie Database.