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Joseph Leonard Stefanelli (born September 11, 1960 in San Francisco) is an American musician and actor, of Italian descent, who is best known for performing the voice of John Lennon in the 1994 film Forrest Gump . [1]
John Winston Ono Lennon was an English singer, songwriter and peace activist who co-founded the Beatles, the most commercially successful band in the history of popular music. He and fellow member Paul McCartney formed a much-celebrated songwriting partnership. Along with George Harrison and Ringo Starr, the group achieved worldwide fame during the 1960s. In 1969, Lennon started the Plastic Ono Band with his second wife, Yoko Ono, and he continued to pursue a solo career following the the Beatles' break-up in April 1970.
Forrest Gump is a 1994 American comedy-drama film based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Eric Roth. The film stars Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Mykelti Williamson, and Sally Field. The story depicts several decades in the life of Forrest Gump (Hanks), a slow-witted but kind-hearted man from Alabama who witnesses and, unwittingly, influences several defining historical events in the 20th century in the United States.
Stefanelli arrived into the world of entertainment in 1989, by a chance meeting through a mutual friend who asked him to sit in on some jam sessions with Duncan Faure, a former lead singer of the Bay City Rollers. Duncan had recently been in touch with Ian Mitchell and the two decided to get a band together and rehash old BCR songs. Duncan volunteered Joe to play bass, though Joe could only play an acoustic guitar. In just two weeks, Joe accomplished the bass guitar and went on tour with the group. This was just the beginning of his life in music.
The Bay City Rollers are a Scottish pop rock band known for their worldwide teen idol popularity in the 1970s. They have been called the "tartan teen sensations from Edinburgh", and "the first of many acts heralded as the 'biggest group since the Beatles'".
In 1992, Joe decided to try out for a spot as John Lennon in Beatles tribute bands throughout the Los Angeles area. Most of the bands didn't have what Joe was looking for, so he started his own band, The Mop Tops. In the next 10 years, the Mop Tops toured the world, played Candlestick Park and Dodger Stadium, and made hundreds of personal appearances. Based on this experience, Joe was hand-picked by director Robert Zemeckis to be the voice of John Lennon in Forrest Gump.
The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The line-up of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr led the band to be regarded as the foremost and most influential in history. With a sound rooted in skiffle, beat and 1950s rock and roll, the group were integral to the evolution of pop music into an art form, and to the development of the counterculture of the 1960s. They often incorporated elements of classical music, older pop forms, and unconventional recording techniques in innovative ways, and in later years experimented with a number of musical styles ranging from pop ballads and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock. As they continued to draw influences from a variety of cultural sources, their musical and lyrical sophistication grew, and they came to be seen as embodying the era's sociocultural movements.
Candlestick Park was an outdoor sports and entertainment stadium on the West Coast of the United States, located in San Francisco's Bayview Heights area. The stadium was originally the home of Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants, who played there from 1960 until moving into Pacific Bell Park in 2000. It was also the home field of the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League from 1971 through 2013. The 49ers moved to Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara for the 2014 season. The last event held at Candlestick was a concert by Paul McCartney in August 2014, and the demolition of the stadium was completed in September 2015.
Dodger Stadium, occasionally called by the metonym Chavez Ravine, is a baseball park located in the Elysian Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, the home field to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the city's National League franchise of Major League Baseball (MLB). Opened 57 years ago on April 10, 1962, it was constructed in less than three years at a cost of US$23 million, financed by private sources. Dodger Stadium is currently the oldest ballpark in MLB west of the Mississippi River, and third-oldest overall, after Fenway Park in Boston (1912) and Wrigley Field in Chicago (1914) and is the world's largest baseball stadium by seat capacity. Often referred to as a "pitcher's ballpark", the stadium has seen twelve no-hitters, two of which were perfect games.
Today, Stefanelli resides in Southern California.
