Nora Maier Forster (born 6 November 1942) is a German publishing heiress and former actor and model who is primarily known as a
music promoter
A promoter works with event production and entertainment industries to promote their productions, including in music and sports. Promoters are individuals or organizations engaged in the business of marketing and promoting live, or pay-per-view ...
.
Before moving to London in the late 1960s, she worked in Germany with
Jimi Hendrix,
Wishbone Ash
Wishbone Ash are a British rock band who achieved success in the early and mid-1970s. Their popular albums included '' Wishbone Ash'' (1970), ''Pilgrimage'' (1971), '' Argus'' (1972), '' Wishbone Four'' (1973), ''There's the Rub'' (1974), and ...
and
Yes. In London she helped financially support the punk bands
The Slits
The Slits were a punk and post-punk band based in London, formed there in 1976 by members of the groups the Flowers of Romance and the Castrators. The group's early line-up consisted of Ari Up (Ariane Forster) and Palmolive (a.k.a. Paloma R ...
, the
Sex Pistols and
The Clash
The Clash were an English rock band formed in London in 1976 who were key players in the original wave of British punk rock. Billed as "The Only Band That Matters", they also contributed to the and new wave movements that emerged in the w ...
. She is married to
John Lydon of the Sex Pistols.
Early life
Nora Maier Forster was born 6 November 1942 in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
, Germany to a wealthy publishing family. Her father,
Franz Karl Maier, was the editorial manager of the magazine
''Der Spiegel'', and ran the newspaper, ''
Der Tagesspiegel
''Der Tagesspiegel'' (meaning ''The Daily Mirror'') is a German daily newspaper. It has regional correspondent offices in Washington D.C. and Potsdam. It is the only major newspaper in the capital to have increased its circulation, now 148,000, ...
''. She was educated in Munich, and was interested in music from an early age. After she finished school, she went to work for her father's media company.
She is a publishing heiress of ''Der Spiegel''.
After the death of her father she inherited $120 million from his fortune.
Career
Forster began her work as a music promoter in Munich. Her home there became a meeting place for "rock royalty".
Some of the acts she worked with in Germany were
Jimi Hendrix,
Wishbone Ash
Wishbone Ash are a British rock band who achieved success in the early and mid-1970s. Their popular albums included '' Wishbone Ash'' (1970), ''Pilgrimage'' (1971), '' Argus'' (1972), '' Wishbone Four'' (1973), ''There's the Rub'' (1974), and ...
and
Yes. She found German society to be too restricting,
and decided to move to London with her daughter in the latter half of the 1960s.
Their first flat was located in a "cold, damp and dark" basement in
West London
West London is the western part of London, England, north of the River Thames, west of the City of London, and extending to the Greater London boundary.
The term is used to differentiate the area from the other parts of London: North Londo ...
, near the Chelsea football ground. Following that they moved to a small house off Gowrie Road in South London. During this time she came to be called a "Punk Mummy Warrior" who guided her daughter,
Ari Up
Ariane Daniele Forster (17 January 1962 – 20 October 2010), known by her stage name Ari Up, was a German vocalist best known as a member of the English punk rock band the Slits.
Biography
Ari Up was born in Munich, West Germany. Both her pare ...
's musical pursuits and supported the development of her band, The Slits, when Ari was just fourteen or fifteen. Forster hosted numerous musician house guests, and among them was
Neneh Cherry, the teenage step-daughter of
Don Cherry
Donald Stewart Cherry (born February 5, 1934) is a Canadian former ice hockey player, coach, and television commentator. Cherry played one game in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the Boston Bruins, and later coached the team for five se ...
. Cherry performed backing vocal with
The Slits
The Slits were a punk and post-punk band based in London, formed there in 1976 by members of the groups the Flowers of Romance and the Castrators. The group's early line-up consisted of Ari Up (Ariane Forster) and Palmolive (a.k.a. Paloma R ...
for a time.
During the 1960s and 70s, Forster was part of the
bohemian
Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to:
*Anything of or relating to Bohemia
Beer
* National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst
* Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors
Culture and arts
* Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...
scene in London. Starting in the late 1960s Forster's home in Shepherd's Bush became a crash pad, salon, and meeting place for rock musicians including
Joe Strummer
John Graham Mellor (21 August 1952 – 22 December 2002), known professionally as Joe Strummer, was a British singer, musician and songwriter. He was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and co-lead vocalist of punk rock band the Clash, ...
of
The Clash
The Clash were an English rock band formed in London in 1976 who were key players in the original wave of British punk rock. Billed as "The Only Band That Matters", they also contributed to the and new wave movements that emerged in the w ...
,
Jimi Hendrix,
Jon Anderson of the band
Yes, and many other bands.
She helped to financially support the punk bands The Slits, the Sex Pistols and The Clash.
In 1970, Forester began to promote music gatherings in London. In 1975, Forster met
John Lydon of the
Sex Pistols in west London at
Vivienne Westwood
Dame Vivienne Isabel Westwood (née Swire; born 8 April 1941) is an English fashion designer and businesswoman, largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave fashions into the mainstream.
Westwood came to public notice when she m ...
's clothing store, ''Sex,'' on Kings Road.
In 1979, she married Lydon
who is 14 years her junior.
They married in
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian language, Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second- ...
. Previously, she was the girlfriend of
Chris Spedding
Christopher John Spedding (born Peter Robinson, 17 June 1944) is an English musician, singer, guitarist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and record producer. In a career spanning more than 50 years, Spedding is best known for his st ...
, a well known musician and rock music producer.
In 1986, she was a major
stockholder
A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of a corporation is an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the legal own ...
of ''
Der Tagesspiegel
''Der Tagesspiegel'' (meaning ''The Daily Mirror'') is a German daily newspaper. It has regional correspondent offices in Washington D.C. and Potsdam. It is the only major newspaper in the capital to have increased its circulation, now 148,000, ...
'', a
West Berlin
West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
-based newspaper. Forster and Lydon moved to California in the 1980s.
Personal life
Forster's first husband was , a German popular music singer, with whom she had a daughter, Ariane,
better known as
Ari Up
Ariane Daniele Forster (17 January 1962 – 20 October 2010), known by her stage name Ari Up, was a German vocalist best known as a member of the English punk rock band the Slits.
Biography
Ari Up was born in Munich, West Germany. Both her pare ...
, who was the frontwoman and singer of The Slits.
In 1988 Forster and Lydon were booked to travel on the December 21
Pan Am Flight 103 that was bombed over
Lockerbie, but missed taking the deadly flight due to packing delays.
In 2000, Forster and Lydon became guardians of Up's twin sons, Pablo and Pedro. Forster and Lydon later became the guardian of Up's third child, Wilton. Up died in 2010 at age 48 from breast cancer.
Forster was diagnosed with
Alzheimer's disease in 2018.
She currently lives in
Venice Beach
Venice is a neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles within the Westside region of Los Angeles County, California.
Venice was founded by Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a seaside resort town. It was an independent city until 1926, when it was annexed by ...
, Los Angeles, US with Lydon who is her full-time care taker when he is not on tour.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Forster, Nora
Music promoters
20th-century English actors
20th-century English actresses
English models
Women music promoters
German emigrants to England
German emigrants to the United States
Actresses from Munich
1942 births
Der Spiegel people
People with Alzheimer's disease
Living people