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Elton John is a Actor, Musical, Producer and Sound British born on 25 march 1947 at Pinner (United-kingdom)

Elton John

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Birth name Reginald Kenneth DwightElton Hercules John
Nationality United-kingdom
Birth 25 march 1947 (77 years) at Pinner (United-kingdom)
Creator of Rocket Pictures
Awards Officier des Arts et des Lettres‎, Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire

Sir Elton Hercules John CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight, 25 March 1947) is an English composer and singer, who accompanies himself on the piano. He has worked with lyricist Bernie Taupin as his songwriter partner since 1967; they have collaborated on more than 30 albums to date. In his five-decade career Elton John has sold more than 300 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. He has more than fifty Top 40 hits, including seven consecutive No. 1 US albums, 58 Billboard Top 40 singles, 27 Top 10, four No. 2 and nine No. 1. For 31 consecutive years (1970–2000) he had at least one song in the Billboard Hot 100. His single "Candle in the Wind 1997" sold over 33 million copies worldwide and is the best-selling single in the history of the UK and US singles charts. He has also composed music, produced records, and has occasionally acted in films. John owned Watford Football Club from 1976 to 1987, and 1997 to 2002. He is an honorary Life President of the club, and in 2014 had a stand named after him at the club's home stadium.

Elton John was born Reginald Dwight in 1947, and raised in the Pinner area of London. He learned to play piano at an early age, and by 1962 had formed Bluesology. John met his songwriter partner, Bernie Taupin, in 1967, after they had both answered an advert for songwriters. For two years they wrote songs for other artists, including Roger Cook and Lulu, and John also worked as a session musician for artists such as the Hollies and the Scaffold. In 1968 his debut album, Empty Sky, was released. In 1970 a single, "Your Song", from his second album, Elton John, reached the top ten in the UK and the US, his first hit single.

He has received six Grammy Awards, five Brit Awards – winning two awards for Outstanding Contribution to Music and the first Brits Icon in 2013 for his "lasting impact on British culture", an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, a Disney Legend award, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him Number 49 on its list of 100 influential musicians of the rock and roll era. In 2013, Billboard ranked him the most successful male solo artist on "The Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists" (third overall behind the Beatles and Madonna). He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, is an inductee into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, and is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. Having been named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1996, John was made a Knight Bachelor by Elizabeth II for "services to music and charitable services" in 1998. John has performed at a number of royal events, such as the funeral of Princess Diana at Westminster Abbey in 1997, the Party at the Palace in 2002 and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert outside Buckingham Palace in 2012.

He has been heavily involved in the fight against AIDS since the late 1980s. In 1992, he established the Elton John AIDS Foundation and a year later began hosting the annual Academy Award Party, which has since become one of the highest-profile Oscar parties in the Hollywood film industry. Since its inception, the foundation has raised over US$200 million. John, who announced he was bisexual in 1976 and has been openly gay since 1988, entered into a civil partnership with David Furnish on 21 December 2005, and after gay marriage became legal in England, wed Furnish on 21 December 2014. He continues to be a champion for LGBT social movements worldwide and same-sex marriage.

Biography

Sexuality and family
In the late 1960s, Elton John was engaged to be married to his first lover, secretary Linda Woodrow, who is mentioned in the song "Someone Saved My Life Tonight". He married German recording engineer Renate Blauel on 14 February 1984, in Darling Point, Sydney, with speculation that the marriage was a cover for his homosexuality. John came out as bisexual in a 1976 interview with Rolling Stone, but after his divorce from Blauel in 1988, he told the magazine that he was "comfortable" being gay.

In 1993, he began a relationship with David Furnish, a former advertising executive and now filmmaker originally from Toronto, Canada. On 21 December 2005 (the day that the Civil Partnership Act came into force), John and Furnish were amongst the first couples in the UK to form a civil partnership, which was held at the Windsor Guildhall. After gay marriage became legal in England in March 2014, John and Furnish married in Windsor, Berkshire, on 21 December 2014, the ninth anniversary of their civil partnership. They have two sons. Their oldest, Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John, was born to a surrogate mother on 25 December 2010 in California. A second son, Elijah Joseph Daniel Furnish-John, was born to the couple by the same surrogate mother on 11 January 2013. He also has ten godchildren, including Sean Lennon, David and Victoria Beckham's sons Brooklyn and Romeo, Elizabeth Hurley's son Damian, and the daughter of Seymour Stein.

In 2010, John was criticised by some Christian groups in the US after describing Jesus as a "compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems". William Anthony Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and opponent of gay marriage, responded: "To call Jesus a homosexual is to label him a sexual deviant. But what else would we expect from a man who previously said, 'From my point of view, I would ban religion completely.'"

In 2008, John stated he preferred civil partnerships over marriage for gay people. But by 2012 John had changed his position and become a staunch supporter of same-sex marriage in the United Kingdom. He was quoted: "There is a world of difference between calling someone your 'partner' and calling them your 'husband'. 'Partner' is a word that should be preserved for people you play tennis with, or work alongside in business. It doesn't come close to describing the love that I have for David, and he for me. In contrast, 'husband' does." In 2014, he claimed Jesus would have been in favour of same-sex marriage.

In 2013, Elton John resisted calls to boycott Russia in protest at the Russian LGBT propaganda law, but told fans at a Moscow concert that the Russian laws were "inhumane and isolating" and he was "deeply saddened and shocked over the current legislation." In a January 2014 interview, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke of John in an attempt to show that there was no gay discrimination in Russia, stating; "Elton John – he's an extraordinary person, a distinguished musician, and millions of our people sincerely love him, regardless of his sexual orientation." John responded by offering to introduce the President to Russians abused under Russian legislation banning "homosexual propaganda". On 24 September 2015, the Associated Press reported that President Putin called John and invited him to meet in the future about LGBT issues in Russia. Putin's call came just a few days after two phone pranksters called Elton John, pretending to be Putin and his spokesman, and causing John to erroneously thank Putin for the call on the singer's Instagram account.

Wealth

In April 2009, the Sunday Times Rich List estimated John's wealth to be £175 million (US$265 million), and ranked him as the 322nd wealthiest person in Britain. John was estimated to have a fortune of £195 million in the Sunday Times Rich List of 2011, making him one of the 10 wealthiest people in the British music industry. Aside from his main home "Woodside" in Old Windsor, Berkshire, John owns residences in Atlanta, Nice, London's Holland Park, and Venice. John's property in Nice is based on Mon Boron mountain. Elton John is an art collector, and is believed to have one of the largest private photography collections in the world.

In 2000, he admitted to spending £30 million in just under two years—an average of £1.5 million a month. Between January 1996 and September 1997, he spent more than £9.6m on property and £293,000 on flowers. In June 2001 John sold 20 of his cars at Christie's, saying he didn't get the chance to drive them because he was out of the country so often. The sale, which included a 1993 Jaguar XJ220, the most expensive at £234,750, and several Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, and Bentleys, raised nearly £2 million. In 2003, John sold the contents of his Holland Park home—expected to fetch £800,000 at Sotheby's—in order to modernise the decoration in order to display some of his contemporary art collection. Every year since 2004, John has opened a shop called "Elton's Closet" in which he sells his second-hand clothes.

Other
By 1975, the pressures of stardom had begun to take a serious toll on him. During "Elton Week" in Los Angeles that year, he suffered a drug overdose. He also battled the eating disorder bulimia. In a CNN interview with Larry King in 2002, King asked if John knew of Diana, Princess of Wales' eating disorder. John replied, "Yes, I did. We were both bulimic."

A longtime tennis enthusiast, he wrote the song "Philadelphia Freedom" in tribute to long-time friend Billie Jean King and her World Team Tennis franchise of the same name. John and King also co-host an annual pro-am event to benefit AIDS charities, most notably Elton John's own Elton John AIDS Foundation, for which King is a chairwoman. John, who maintains a part-time residence in Atlanta, Georgia, became a fan of the Atlanta Braves baseball team when he moved there in 1991. In 2015, he was named one of GQ's 50 best dressed British men.