Ian Curtis

Early life

Ian Kevin Curtis was born on 15 July 1956 at Stretford's Memorial Hospital and raised in a working-class home in Macclesfield, the elder of Doreen and Kevin Curtis's two children. As a child, he was thoughtful and bright, with a natural gift for poetry. At age 11, he passed the 11+ exam and entered The King's School, a boys' grammar school in Macclesfield, where he took up philosophy, literature, and the work of poets like Thom Gunn. He earned several scholastic awards at 15 and 16.

The year after he left King's School, his family bought a house from a relative and relocated to New Moston. During his teens, he took part in a school program visiting the elderly; on those visits, he and his friends would swipe prescription drugs and use them together. At 16, after taking a large dose of stolen largactil, his father found him unconscious in his bedroom and rushed him to the hospital to have his stomach pumped. Curtis had been into music since his early teens, inspired by Jim Morrison and David Bowie, and often stole records from local shops because he could rarely afford them.

He earned nine O-levels at King's School and started A-Levels in History and Divinity at St John's College, but quickly lost interest in school and quit to look for work.

Personal life

Curtis's widow, Deborah, has claimed that in October 1979, Curtis had an affair with the Belgian Annik Honoré, who had been working at the Belgian embassy in London before becoming a journalist and music promoter. They first met at a gig held in Brussels that month. Curtis was consumed with guilt over this affair due to being married and the father of a baby daughter, but also yearned to be with Honoré. On one occasion in 1980, Curtis asked Bernard Sumner to decide whether he should remain with his wife or form a deeper relationship with Honoré; Sumner refused.

Honoré claimed in a 2010 interview that their relationship had been platonic, while Deborah Curtis maintained it was sexual and romantic. His bandmates recollected that Curtis's friendship with Honoré led him to distance himself and become somewhat lofty with them.

He became a vegetarian, likely at Honoré's behest, though he still consumed meat when not in her presence. Curtis began having epileptic seizures in late 1978 and was officially diagnosed on 23 January 1979; doctors described his case as so severe that his life would be ruled to obsolescence by his severe epilepsy without strong medications. He joined the British Epilepsy Association and was initially open about his condition but soon became withdrawn.

Death

On the night of May 17, 1980, Ian Curtis asked his wife Deborah to abandon the divorce she was pursuing. She responded that he would probably feel differently by morning and, remembering his earlier suicide attempt and fearing his agitation could bring on an epileptic fit, she offered to stay with him. Deborah went to her parents' house to tell them her plan. When she got back to their home on Barton Street in Macclesfield, Curtis seemed different.

He said he wanted to be alone that night and made her promise not to come back until after he had caught his 10 a.m. train to Manchester to see his band. In the early hours of the next morning, Curtis killed himself. He was 23. He used the kitchen washing line to hang himself, after writing a note to Deborah in which he said he loved her despite his recent affair with Annik Honoré.

Deborah found his body shortly afterward. In her 1995 memoir, she recalled initially thinking he was still alive before seeing the rope. Tony Wilson said Curtis spent his final hours watching Werner Herzog's film Stroszek and listening to Iggy Pop's album The Idiot. Deborah remembered that Curtis had taken down photographs of their wedding and their baby daughter, apparently to look at them while he wrote the note.

In that note, he did not say he was going to kill himself, and he asked Deborah not to contact him for a while. Whether he meant it as a suicide note remains unclear.

Legacy

After Curtis was cremated, Sumner, Hook, and Morris, with help from Rob Gretton, started a new band. They first called themselves The No Names and played mostly instrumental music, but soon became New Order. Bernard Sumner took over the Vox Phantom VI Special guitar Curtis had gotten in September 1979 and played it on early New Order tracks like Everything's Gone Green. Several New Order songs reference Curtis: ICB (short for Ian Curtis, Buried) and The Him from their first album Movement, plus the instrumental Elegia from 1985.

The 2002 song Here to Stay was dedicated to Curtis, Rob Gretton, and Martin Hannett. The Durutti Column, who shared a label with Joy Division, honored Curtis with The Missing Boy on their 1981 album LC. Psychic TV released I.C. Water for him in 1990. Thursday put out a song called Ian Curtis on their 1999 debut Waiting, and Xiu Xiu released Ian Curtis Wishlist in 2003.

Paul Rudd's character in the 2000 film Gen-Y Cops is named Ian Curtis as a tribute. Deborah Curtis wrote Touching from a Distance, a biography of their marriage, published in 1995.