AWARD-WINNING ‘BAT OUT OF HELL’ ROCKER, ACTOR
MEAT LOAF • 1947-2022
Meat Loaf, the largerthan-life rocker whose 1977 debut, “Bat Out of Hell” — a campy amalgam of hard rock and Broadway-style bombast — became one of the bestselling albums of all time, died Thursday. He was 74.
His death was confirmed by his manager, Michael Greene. The cause and location were not given.
Meat Loaf, who was born Marvin Lee Aday and took his stage name from a childhood nickname, had a career that few could match. He was a trained Broadway belter and a multiplatinum-selling megastar whose biggest hits, like “Bat Out of Hell” and “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,” were radio staples — and barroom singalongs — for decades.
Despite his success, he earned little respect from rock critics. “Nutrition-free audio lunch meat” was how Rolling Stone dismissed “Bat Out of Hell” — which would go on to sell at least 14 million copies in the United States. Still, some critics gave grudging admiration. In a 1977 review in The New York Times, John Rockwell wrote that Meat Loaf had a “fine, fervent low rock tenor, and enough stage presence to do without spotlights altogether.”
Meat Loaf also appeared in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” “Fight Club” and other films.
After “Bat Out of Hell,” Meat Loaf struggled to repeat his success. He temporarily lost his singing voice and was involved in lawsuits. Follow-up albums like “Dead Ringer” (1981) and “Midnight at the Lost and Found” (1983) were flops. He later declared personal bankruptcy.
His comeback came in 1993 when he worked with Jim Steinman, the songwriter who wrote “Bat Out of Hell,” on a sequel to their original hit, “Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell.” It included the song “I’d Do Anything for Love (but I Won’t Do That),” a No. 1 hit that in 1994 won the Grammy Award for best solo rock vocal performance.
“Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose,” released in 2006, also included some songs by Steinman, who created a musical based on “Bat Out of Hell” that premiered in England in 2017. Steinman died in April 2021 at 73.
Meat Loaf ultimately released 12 studio albums, the last being “Braver Than We Are” in 2016.
His first major film role came in 1975 in the cult classic “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” in which he played Eddie. Meat Loaf also appeared in “Wayne’s World” (1992), “Spice World” (1997) and “Fight Club” (1999). More recently, he had a role in several episodes of the TV series “Ghost Wars” in 2017 and 2018.
Marvin Lee Aday was born and grew up in Dallas, the son of Orvis Wesley Aday, a former policeman, and Wilma Artie Hukel, an English teacher.
According to his autobiography and Texas birth records, Meat Loaf was born Sept. 27, 1947, but news reports of his age varied over the years. In 2003, he showed a reporter from The Guardian a passport bearing a birth date of 1951. He later said about the discrepancy, “I just continually lie.”
He often said that he changed his first name to Michael as an adult because of childhood taunts about his weight. In his autobiography, he also said he had been disturbed by a commercial from his childhood, which he claimed had the slogan, “Poor fat Marvin can’t wear Levi’s,” though Internet sleuths have cast doubts on that story.
His survivors include his wife, Deborah, and his daughters Pearl and Amanda.