Michael Penn

Singer-songwriter Michael Penn generated a Top 20 hit with the alt-pop single "No Myth" in 1989, but found greater success as a composer for films and television series like "Boogie Nights" (1997) and "Girls" (HBO, 2012-2017). He was born into a family of performers on August 1, 1957 in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City; his father, Leo Penn, was an actor and Emmy-nominated television director, while his mother, Eileen Ryan, and younger brothers Sean and and Christopher Penn, all achieved varying degrees of fame as actors. But from an early age, Michael Penn's interests lay in music, and he began performing with bands and writing songs while in high school. He gained his first exposure to the music industry as a member of Doll Congress, but the Los Angeles rock act never found a substantial audience. He left music briefly to pursue acting, but returned to writing and performing songs after joining his brother Sean on a 1987 appearance on "Saturday Night Live" (NBC, 1975- ). He soon reteamed with Doll Congress bandmate Patrick Warren to begin work on his solo debut, March (1989), which generated a Top 20 hit single with the melancholy "No Myth." Two years would pass before Penn's second solo effort, Free For All (1992), but listener response to the album was more muted, despite critical acclaim. Five more years would eclipse before Penn released another LP, but the hiatus proved particularly fruitful: not only did he forge a professional and personal relationship with singer Aimee Mann, whom he married in 1997, but he also began composing soundtracks for director Paul Thomas Anderson's features, including "Boogie Nights." Scores for other films soon followed, including Tony Goldwyn's "The Last Kiss" (2006) and "Sunshine Cleaning" (2008), and television shows like "Girls" and "Masters of Sex" (Showtime, 2013- ).