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Nickname:	Il hombre invisible (The Invisible Man)
Known for:	Naked Lunch, Drugstore Cowboy, The Junky's Christmas
Birth name:	William Seward Burroughs
Birthday:	5 February 1914, St.Louis, Missouri, USA

He is featured on the song "Just One Fix" by Ministry with a vocal speaking part. Like frontman Alain Jourgensen, Burroughs also had a heroin addiction. The acknowledgement given to him at the end of the film "Blade Runner" was for legal reasons. He had written a screen play with an identical title (and completely different storyline), but it was never put into production. Once lived in a windowless apartment in the basement of what used to be a YMCA. His friends often called the apartment "Bill's Bunker". His novel Naked Lunch provided the name for the famous rock group, Steely Dan. "Steely Dan III From Yokohama" was the name of a rubber phallus used in the book. In 1951, Burroughs and his common-law wife, Joan, got drunk at a party in Mexico City, where they were living as Bill was a drug addict and she was addicted to Benzedrine, and drugs were easier to come by in Mexico. They decided to do a "William Tell" act with Joan balancing a glass on her head and Burroughs shooting it off with a gun. Burroughs missed and Joan was killed. This incident was later worked into the movie adaptation of Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch. Was a good friend of Kurt Cobain. He was even thought to appear in Nirvana's "Heart-Shaped Box" as Jesus Christ, but later refused. He made an EP with Kurt titled: "The Priest They Called Him". Was an heir to the Burroughs Cash Register Company fortune. A family trust allowed him the chance to write without holding other jobs. Lived in Tangiers for several years, partly to avoid the legal and social fallout from shooting his wife when they were living in Mexico, and partly because the place was so cheap, his trust fund allowed him to live in relative luxury. Was addicted to heroin. This was a recurring theme throughout many of his novels. Was a good friend of Genesis P-Orridge, leader of the avant-garde/industrial band Throbbing Gristle. The two were frequent correspondents and great fans of each others' work, and P-Orridge collaborated with Burroughs on his tape work occasionally. Created the 'cut-up' style of writing along with Brion Gysin, in which sections of a story are cut up and reassembled to create a new story. This technique is similar to the 'tape collage' style of experimental music, which Burrough was known to dabble in. Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 84-87. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. In 1937, while studying medicine in Germany, he agreed to marry a German Jewish woman named Ilse Herzfeld Klapper so she could become a citizen in the United States. Although they remained friends for many years after their entrance to the U.S., meeting weekly for lunch, the pair separated immediately and Burroughs formally divorced her nine years later. After shooting his second wife Joan, he fled to Tangiers and remained there for many years, a fugitive in his nation of birth and in his adopted homeland, Mexico. Produced several albums throughout the eighties featuring spoken word and his own style of electronic music. Highlander director Russell Mulcahey bought the rights to the Burroughs book "The Wild Boys" in the 80s with the intention of making it into a feature film. when the film project fell through he used the book as the basis for the 1985 Duran Duran video of the same name. The prosecution of Burroughs book Naked Lunch by the Comonwealth of Massachusetts is considered the last major obscenity trial in the United States. The book was initially found obscene, but the Massachusetts Supreme Court overturned the decision on appeal in 1966. For the initial trial, Grove Press had gathered together an impressive list of "experts" such as Norman Mailer to defend the book, but Burroughs' modern classic initially lost and was declared obscene in Massachusetts. However, the state Supreme Court (Memoirs v. Massachusetts) "found that Naked Lunch was not without social value, and therefore, not obscene." With the ruling, an era that began in 1870s when anti-smut crusader Anthony Comstock led the charge for stricter enforcement of obscenity laws by the federal and state governments came to an end.

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