33 Years After 'Jessie's Girl,' Rick Springfield Gets His Star

Rick Springfield will receive the 2,525th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame today, honoring a singing career of more than 30 years, during which he had 17 Top 40 hits, sold more than 25 million records and won a Grammy.

Actor Jason Thompson and singers Richard Marx and Jay DeMarcus will join Springfield in speaking at the 11:30 a.m. ceremony in front of the Live Nation on Hollywood Boulevard.

Born Richard Lewis Springthorpe on Aug. 23, 1949, in Sydney, Australia, Springfield was the son of a lieutenant colonel in the British Army and spent his childhood on bases in Australia and England.

Springfield had a few hits in his native Australia in the early 1970s, then moved to the United States, where he sought to replicate his success. He initially turned to acting, appearing in episodes of "The Six Million Dollar Man," "The Rockford Files," and "Wonder Woman" and had a recurring role on the CBS daytime drama "The Young and the Restless."

Springfield skyrocketed to fame in 1981 with the release of his album "Working Class Dog" and his joining the cast of the ABC daytime drama "General Hospital." The album's song about unrequited love, "Jessie's Girl," reached No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart and brought Springfield a Grammy for best male rock vocal performance.

Springfield also received Grammy nominations for "I Get Excited" and "Don't Talk to Strangers," which were both released in 1982, and "An Affair of the Heart," released the following year.

Springfield's other memorable songs include "I've Done Everything for You," "Love Somebody" and "Human Touch."

Springfield's other acting credits include the short-lived 1992 ABC action-adventure drama "Human Target"; the 1994-97 syndicated adventure series "High Tide"; guest-starring roles on Showtime's "Californication," CBS' "Hawaii Five-0" and TV Land's "Hot in Cleveland"; the made-for- television movies "Legion," "Nick Knight" and "Dying to Dance"; and the 1984 feature film, "Hard to Hold."

Springfield was also part of the original cast of the Broadway musical "Smokey Joe's Cafe."

The ceremony comes two days before Springfield performs at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica as part of his first solo tour, "Stripped Down." The concerts include songs from his latest album, "Songs for the End of the World" and those he had never played before in concert, storytelling and a question-and-answer session with the audience.

It also comes three days after the publication of his first novel, "Magnificent Vibration," about a man who steals a mysterious self-help book from a bookstore, calls the 800-number scrawled inside the front cover and discovers he has a direct line to God.

--City News Service