Jarvis Cocker

Jarvis Cocker

Jarvis Branson Cocker is an English musician, actor and presenter. He is the founder, frontman, lyricist, and sole consistent member of the band Pulp. Cocker invaded the stage at the 1996 Brit Awards in a spur-of-the-moment protest against Michael Jackson’s performance.

About Jarvis Cocker in brief

Summary Jarvis CockerJarvis Branson Cocker is an English musician, actor and presenter. He is the founder, frontman, lyricist, and sole consistent member of the band Pulp. He became a figurehead of the Britpop genre of the mid-1990s. Cocker invaded the stage at the 1996 Brit Awards in a spur-of-the-moment protest against Michael Jackson’s performance. For seven years he presented the BBC Radio 6 Music show Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service. His father, Mac Cocker, a DJ and actor, left the family and moved to Sydney when Cocker was seven, and had no contact with Cocker or his sister, Saskia, until Jarvis was in his thirties. He wrote a song about being abandoned by his father, working briefly as a butler, and in 1998 travelled with his sister to Australia to meet him for the first time in nearly 30 years. He said he forgave his father for abandoning them, saying, ‘I don’t feel any bitterness towards him at all. I feel sorry for him’ Cocker founded Pulp originally under the name Arabacus Pulp at the age of 15 while he was a pupil at The City School, Sheffield. He was a frequent guest on TV shows in the 1990s, and hosted an art series for Channel 4 – \”Journeys into the Outside\”. In the series, he took a trip across the globe, meeting so-called ‘outsider artists’ people who create wacky and wonderful works of art, trying to understand what compelled them to do so.

After releasing a greatest hits album, the band went on hiatus from 2003 to 2010, then returned to activity in 2011. His trademark image was his glasses, which seemed to ‘stay magically on his face’ no matter what antics he performed. His penchant for TV appearances was reflected in a parody of ‘Common People’ which was featured on the satirical comedy show Spitting Image in 1996. He has also appeared in a number of films, including ‘The Godfather’ and ‘Dangerous Liaisons’, as well as on the TV series ‘Criminal Minds’. He appeared in the film ‘I’ve Got A Secret’ with David Walliams, which was based on the book ‘A Man Walks On To A Gun’ by David Wallium. He also appeared on the BBC’s ‘Casualty’ series, in which he played the lead role in a police investigation into the murder of Michael Jackson. He starred in a film version of The Godfather: Part II: The Second Half, which also featured the likes of Simon Cowell and Simon Cowells. He had a cameo role in the movie ‘Sleeping Beauty’ as a character called ‘Mr Cocker’ who was later revealed to be the father of one of the main characters in the book.