Janis Joplin

The manual dexterity displayed during the very last moments of life (changing a five-Dollar Bill, using a cigarette machine and undressing despite drunkenness and expectation of a heroin high) was a lifelong trait. Biographer Myra Friedman was told by Joplin's parents that when they interacted with other new parents in Port Arthur, Texas in the 1940s, everyone noticed their first-born child's dexterity with eating utensils, drinking glasses and napkins. The Joplins often took their toddler to the homes of other new parents to demonstrate these motor skills. Regularly drove drunk in California (in her custom-built Porsche) during the last two years of her life. No accidents were ever reported (in newspapers or several biographies), and only one instance of getting pulled over is noted (in a book by Peggy Caserta, who claimed the officer recognized the singer and let her go with a warning). Only one known injury during a performance, which happened in College Park, Maryland and turned out to be a source of humor on The Dick Cavett Show (1968). Manual dexterity and the appearance of controlling her own destiny, no matter how drunk or stoned, diverted many people's attention from the possibility of imminent death. However, personal manager Albert Grossman expected it and (in June 1969) took out a $200,000 insurance policy on his client in case of accidental death. Grossman, famous for signing the young Bob Dylan, collected $112,000 from the San Francisco Associated Indemnity Corporation almost four years after his female client's "accident". During a three-week trial in the New York State Supreme Court, Grossman swore under oath he had not known in June 1969 that Joplin used heroin. He won the 1974 case against the insurer despite its efforts to prove Joplin's death had been a suicide.

She was voted the 47th Greatest Artist in Rock 'n' Roll by Rolling Stone.

Along with Grace Slick, she was one of the first female rock stars and an important figure in the directed change of rock music in the late 1960s.

Janis Lyn Joplin was born at St. Mary's Hospital in the oil-refining town of Port Arthur, Texas, near the border with Louisiana. Her father was a cannery worker and her mother was a registrar for a business college. As an overweight teenager, she was a folk-music devotee (especially Odetta, Leadbelly and Bessie Smith). After graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School, she attended Lamar State College and the University of Texas, where she played auto-harp in Austin bars. She was nominated for the Ugliest Man on Campus in 1963, and she spent two years traveling, performing and becoming drug-addicted.

Back home in 1966, her friend Chet Helms suggested she become lead singer for Big Brother and the Holding Company, an established Haight-Ashbury band consisting of guitarists James Gurley and Sam Andrew, bassist Peter Albin and drummer Dave Getz).

She got wide recognition through the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, highlights of which were released in Monterey Pop (1968), and with the band's landmark second album, "Cheap Thrills".

She formed her "Kosmic Blues Band" the following year and achieved still further recognition as a solo performer at Woodstock in 1969, highlights released in Woodstock (1970).

October 4, 1970: Died of a heroin overdose while she was legally drunk in Room 105 of the Landmark Motor Hotel located next door to the Magic Castle in Los Angeles, California. After she mainlined the drug, she was able to leave her room, walk to the lobby, ask the desk clerk to change a five-Dollar Bill so she could spend 50 cents on a pack of cigarettes, pull the rigid knob on the cigarette machine, return to her room and remove some of her clothes. She then fell suddenly, breaking her nose. The desk clerk later stated that while he was giving her change she talked happily about the new album she was recording, although he believed, based on having interacted with her since her August 24 check in, that she "was not a happy person". Her body was discovered approximately 18 hours later by her road manager, who was the son of Alistair Cooke.

The character Frankie Hart in American Pop (1981) was based partially on her and partially on Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick.

Posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1995).

Over the years, there have been many unsuccessful attempts to film a biopic on Janis Joplin. Actresses who have been attached to play the singer include: Melissa Etheridge (circa 1996, in Gary Fleder's project Piece of My Heart); Brittany Murphy (in 1999, also in Fleder's project); Lili Taylor (in a competing 1999 project); Laura Theodore (also 1999; in a never-filmed adaptation of the off-Broadway play "Love, Janis" by Janis' sister Laura Joplin); Renée Zellweger (2003, in Piece of My Heart); Pink (2004) and Zooey Deschanel (2006) (both in Penelope Spheeris' The Gospel According to Janis); Reese Witherspoon (2007, in an untitled Catherine Hardwicke project); Nina Arianda (2012 in Sean Durkin's Janis); Amy Adams (2010 in Get It While You Can); and Michelle Williams (2016 in Durkin's Janis). As of July 2017, none of these projects have ever been filmed; most of them never even came close to going into production. Many were stymied by extensive legal problems with obtaining music rights to Joplin's songs.

In 2001, Topps trading cards, in their American Pie Baseball brand produced a "Piece of American Pie" memorabilia insert set that included a Joplin-worn dress that is seen on her album "Pearl".

She was posthumously awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 6752 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on November 4, 2013.

Played by Janelle Powers in Hollywood Mouth 2 (2014).