Death List Members in the News
May 2007
Charles Nelson Reilly
January 2007
Bobby Hamilton
December 2006
Gerald Ford
November 2006
Jack Palance
August 2006
Fidel Castro, Kirk Douglas, John Madden
July 2006
Keith Richards, Ozzy Osbourne, Gerald Ford, Tony Stewart, Phyllis Diller,
B.B. King, Dale Jarrett, Arnold Palmer
May 2006
Keith Richards, David Blaine
April 2006
Tony Stewart, Gerald Ford, B.B. King, Queen Elizabeth, Mickey Rooney, Bob
Barker, Harry Morgan, Charlton Heston, David Blaine, Vin Scully, Muhammad
Ali, Hugh Hefner, Arnold Palmer, Jerry Lewis
March 2006
Courtney Love, Dale Jarrett, Sterling Marlin, Jerry Lewis, Osama Bin Laden,
Queen Elizabeth, Ozzy Osbourne, Gerald Ford
February 2006
Walter Cronkite, Brian Dennehy, Don Knotts, Willie Mays, Vin Scully, Tony
Bennett, Courtney Love, Bob Barker
January 2006
Gerald Ford, Tony Stewart, B.B. King, Walter Cronkite, William Shatner, Courtney
Love, Nick Nolte
December 2005
Richard Pryor, Ozzy Osbourne & Queen Elizabeth, Nick Nolte, Hugh Hefner,
Tony Bennett, Tony Stewart, David Blaine
November 2005
George Michael, Courtney Love, William Shatner, Muhammad Ali
October 2005
Rosa Parks, William Shatner, Joe Namath, B.B. King, Jerry Lewis, Tony Stewart,
Arnold Palmer, Richard Pryor, Jack Klugman, Michael Waltrip, Hugh Hefner,
Dale Jarrett
September 2005
Courtney Love, Ozzy Osbourne, B.B. King, Michael Waltrip, Willie Nelson, Courtney
Love, Jerry Lewis, Arnold Palmer
August 2005
William Shatner, Vin Scully, Ron Popeil, Hugh Hefner, Dale Jarrett, Keith
Richards, Ozzy Osbourne, John Madden, Courtney Love, Richard Pryor, Sterling
Marlin, Tony Stewart, Tony Bennett, Don Knotts, Jerry Lewis
July 2005
Muhammad Ali, Courtney Love, Kirk Douglas, Bob Barker, Ozzy Osbourne, Tony
Stewart, Dale Jarrett, Phyllis Diller, Michael Waltrip, Gerald Ford, Mickey
Rooney, Jack Klugman, Keith Richards, Nick Nolte, Rosa Parks,
Luther Vandross
June 2005
Jim Otto, Vin Scully, Tony Bennett, Gerald Ford, Tony Stewart, Queen Elizabeth,
Muhammad Ali, Ozzy Osbourne, Jack Klugman, John Madden
May 2005
Michael Waltrip, Queen Elizabeth, Fidel Castro, Tony Stewart, Walter Cronkite,
Arnold Palmer, B.B. King, George Michael, Vin Scully, Keith Richards, Don
Knotts, Brian Dennehy, Michael Waltrip, Wilford Brimley, Ozzy Osbourne, Willie
Mays, Bob Barker, Nick Nolte, Jim Otto
April 2005
Larry Hagman, Richard Pryor, Willie Mays, Phyllis Diller, David Blaine, Tony
Stewart, Queen Elizabeth, Muhammad Ali, Nick Nolte and William Shatner, B.B.
King, Ozzy Osbourne, Rosa Parks, Luther Vandross, Pope John Paul II
March 2005
Ozzy Osbourne, Pope John Paul II, Courtney Love, Phyllis Diller, Vin Scully,
Fidel Castro, Ed Asner, Bob Barker, B.B. King, Arnold Palmer, Keith Richards,
Muhammad Ali, Jack Palance, Jack Klugman, Sterling Marlin, Joe Namath, Charlton
Heston, Jerry Lewis, Horatio Sanz
February 2005
Pope John Paul II, Wilford Brimley, Tony Stewart, Queen Elizabeth, Willie
Nelson, B.B. King, Ozzy Osbourne, Dale Jarrett, Fidel Castro, Phyllis Diller,
Courtney Love, Gerald Ford, Larry Hagman, Rosa Parks, Mickey Rooney, Hugh
Hefner
January 2005
Willie Mays, Ozzy Osbourne, Arnold Palmer, B.B. King, Vin Scully, John Madden,
Johnny Carson, Brian Dennehy, Kirk Douglas, William Shatner, Rosa Parks, Jerry
Lewis, Courtney Love, Pope John Paul II, Willie Nelson, Mickey Rooney, Gerald
Ford, Bob Barker
December 2004
Richard Pryor, Queen Elizabeth, Ozzy Osbourne, Keith Richards, Rosa Parks,
Nick Nolte, Don Knotts
November 2004
Kirk Douglas, Ozzy Osbourne, Arnold Palmer, Jerry Lewis, Larry Hagman, Johnny
Carson, Queen Elizabeth, B.B. King, Muhammad Ali
October 2004
Courtney Love, Keith Richards, Tony Bennett, Fidel Castro, Ernest Borgnine,
Mickey Rooney, Willie Nelson, Jack Klugman, Jack Palance, Pope John Paul II,
Hugh Hefner, Rodney Dangerfield
September 2004
September 30 - Courtney Love
September 22 - Arnold Palmer
September 22 - Rosa Parks
September 21 - Rodney Dangerfield
September 20 - Bob Barker
September 13 - Nick Nolte
September 10 - Courtney Love
September 2 - Tony Bennett
August 2004
Arnold Palmer, Rodney Dangerfield, Bob Barker, Brian Dennehy, Ernest Borgnine,
Rosa Parks, Walter Cronkite, Willie Mays, Pope John Paul II, Fidel Castro,
Julia Child, Jerry Lewis, Mickey Rooney, Joe Namath, B.B. King
July 2004
Rosa Parks, Courtney Love, Fidel Castro, Nick Nolte, Don Knotts, Larry Hagman,
Kirk Douglas, William Shatner
September 30, 2004: Courtney Love Has Money Troubles, Legal Woes
LOS
ANGELES - Courtney Love's trial on drug possession charges was postponed on
Thursday, but her financial woes mounted as creditors on both coasts pressed
court claims that the singer-actress was dodging unpaid bills.
A Beverly Hills judge postponed Love's trial until Nov. 3 because of scheduling
issues, Los Angeles prosecutors said.
Love, 40, faces two separate assault cases for purportedly attacking a woman with a bottle in April at the Los Angeles home of her ex-boyfriend, and for allegedly throwing a microphone stand that hit a New York nightclub patron.
In May, she pleaded guilty in Los Angeles to a misdemeanor count of being under the influence of cocaine and was sentenced to a drug treatment program.
Her legal woes, as well as a brief involuntary stay at Bellevue Hospital this summer, forced her to scrub her summer concert tour to promote her first solo album. She also has been dogged by financial problems she claims were caused by former advisors who cheated her out of millions.
On Thursday, a California travel agency served her with a lawsuit accusing her of failing to pay $50,000 in travel-related expenses.
Love also has been slapped with liens by her New York condo board for unpaid charges on her luxury Soho apartment, and by Los Angeles County for $37,477.09 in unemployment insurance taxes on her personal employees.
Love's lawyer, Scott Tulman, said he was not aware of his client's tax or lien woes but did file a 14-page motion in New York State Supreme Court on Wednesday seeking dismissal of assault and reckless endangerment charges stemming from the microphone incident.
Her spokeswoman could not be reached for comment.
from Reuters
September 22, 2004: Prostate Cancer Foundation Enlists Arnold Palmer to Raise Awareness of TEAM Approach to Prostate Cancer Management
NEW
YORK - The Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) announced today it has partnered
with golf legend and prostate cancer survivor Arnold Palmer to launch a national
education campaign urging men with prostate cancer to seek a multidisciplinary,
or team, approach to manage their disease. This initiative is designed to
raise awareness among the nearly two million men battling the disease that
an integrated team of health care professionals -- a urologist, radiation
oncologist, and medical oncologist -- should be involved, especially in the
treatment of advanced prostate cancer to optimize patient outcomes and maximize
survival...
..."When I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, I did everything I could to fight the disease. With the advice of my medical team, I chose the most aggressive form of treatment recommended for my type of cancer," Palmer said. "I want men whose lives have been impacted by prostate cancer to know that they should seek a team of specialist who can help them manage their disease, and if their current treatment is not working, to ask their doctor about adding a medical oncologist to their team."
Diagnosed during the height of his career, Palmer worked with his medical team to ensure he received the treatment that was right for him. Now he is urging other men to do the same. During Prostate Cancer Awareness Month and beyond, Palmer will reach men with the disease through public service announcements airing on television stations nationwide.
from Prostate Cancer Foundation press release
September 22, 2004: Rosa Parks Health Declines
Rosa
Parks, the woman whose refusal of giving up her seat on a bus sparked the
civil rights movement, is now diagnosed with dementia. Ms. Parks, who's 91,
has been embroiled in a lawsuit against the hip-hop duo "Outkast"
for recording a song bearing her name. But now her lawyer says she`s not making
any public statements about the lawsuit because of her failing health. Ms.
Parks has rarely been seen in public in the past three years.
from KFDX 3 News Center (Wichita Falls, Texas)
September 21, 2004: Dangerfield in Coma After Surgery
LOS
ANGELES — Rodney Dangerfield has been in a coma for a couple of weeks
after undergoing heart surgery, but has begun to show some awareness, his
wife said Monday.
The 82-year-old comedian was stable and had been breathing on his own for 24 hours, Joan Dangerfield said in a statement released by the comic's publicist, Kevin Sasaki.
Dangerfield had a heart valve replaced Aug. 25 at the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center.
There was no mention of a coma in a condition update from the publicist last week. Sasaki did not return calls for comment Monday.
Joan Dangerfield said in her statement, "My husband slipped into a light coma a couple of weeks ago while recovering from his heart surgery. His overall condition, however, remains stable."
She said Dangerfield was receiving "extraordinary care" from his doctors and nurses.
"After recent visits from his family and close friends, Rodney is starting to show signs of awareness and we are all hopeful that he will regain full consciousness soon," she said. "Our family remains optimistic that Rodney will make a complete recovery and we are humbled by the love and support we have received during his hospitalization."
from the Associated Press
September 20, 2004: Bob Barker to
face courtroom battle after model's suit ruled valid
By Jessica Su, Court TV
For
32 years, host Bob Barker has charmed audiences on "The Price Is Right,"
the game show that made "Come on down!" and "You've won a new
car!" household phrases.
Off-camera, however, the show has resembled a soap opera, complete with power plays, demeaning comments, racial slurs and secret conversations, according to several employees.
"It's a weird show," said Linda Riegert, 57, a former production assistant. "It's like the most dysfunctional family you ever saw."
The behind-the-scenes battles have involved suits from nine employees who alleged wrongful termination or sexual harassment. One suit, which has been pending for eight years, recently got a boost when an appeals court ruled it was suitable for trial.
Holly
Hallstrom, one of the original "Price" models, said she was fired
in 1995 because she gained weight. A trial court had tried to toss the suit,
but on Sept. 8, 2004, a Los Angeles appeals court ruled that she had a valid
claim.
Nick Alden, Hallstrom's attorney, said he expected the trial to start in late 2005 or early 2006.
Hallstrom's suit goes deeper than external appearances, according to Alden.
"The weight was an excuse," he said.
In reality, Hallstrom was fired because she did not support Barker in another model's sexual-abuse suit, according to Alden.
"It's a chain reaction. Anyone who doesn't support Barker is fired," Alden said.
Offstage allegations
According to Alden, the chain of events began in 1989, when another "Barker's Beauty," Dian Parkinson, began an affair with the then-65-year-old.
Both parties admitted to the three-year relationship, but Barker publicly said it was the Playmate's idea to get "hanky-panky." Parkinson, however, called it sexual harassment and filed an $8 million suit against Barker in 1993.
To discredit Parkinson, Barker asked Hallstrom to lie in his favor, Alden said. But when Hallstrom refused, Barker privately threatened her with "early retirement," and badgered her about her weight, according to Alden.
The president of the show's production company, Jeremy Stamos, even admitted to calling Hallstrom "the Pillsbury dough girl," according to a court opinion.
Hallstrom claimed she had gained 14 pounds because of medicine to treat a hormonal condition. She claimed she lost the weight in the time limit Barker allotted — and was still fired in September 1995.
Hallstrom was now out of Barker's way, and so was Parkinson. Barker's mistress dropped her sexual harassment suit in April 1995, saying it was too costly and had taken a toll on her health.
The game show's legal troubles, however, were far from over. When Hallstrom told news programs she was fired for her weight and age, Barker followed with a slander-and-libel suit in December 1995.
"Holly's weight has absolutely nothing to do with her departure from [The Price Is Right]," Barker told Entertainment Tonight. "Her dress size has fluctuated from an 8 to a 14. Now if the company were going to terminate her for a weight problem, Holly would have been gone years and years ago."
Barker said Hallstrom was terminated because of show cutbacks. However, another model, Chantal Dubay, joined "Price" just after Hallstrom left. Dubay was 28 at the time, while Hallstrom was 43.
"He's a slippery devil," Hallstrom said of Barker.
Hallstrom fought back in July 1996, filing a suit for medical-condition discrimination, age discrimination and retaliation.
Taking sides
When Linda Riegert, a production assistant who overheard Hallstrom and Barker's secret conversation, sided with the model, trouble started for her as well.
"He called me a 'stupid bitch' in front of the audience and a 'f---ing idiot,'" Riegert said. "He made my life miserable, and he used to write me notes during Christmas saying our friendship was so strong."
In the summer of 2000, Riegert came forward and testified on Hallstrom's behalf, but not without resistance.
"Barker's lawyer, Patricia Glaser, told me to go home and think long and hard about my version of the story," Riegert said.
Barker dropped his suit against Hallstrom in September 2000, after damaging testimony from Riegert and three other women on the show, according to Alden.
Their testimony came with a price: On Oct. 19, 2000, the four women — Riegert; Janice Pennington, a model; Kathleen Bradley, a model; and Sherrell Paris, Barker's personal assistant — were dismissed from the show. Sharon Friem, a writer who rejected Barker's alleged sexual advances, was also let go that day, Alden said.
"We know for a fact that five out of 14, or 38 percent, of the show's women were fired the same day. Coincidentally, these same women are the ones who are fighting against Bob Barker," Alden said. "It doesn't leave much room for coincidence."
"They weren't fired," countered Henri Bollinger, Barker's publicist. "Basically, they weren't renewed. It's not Bob's decision whether they stay with the show or not. It's the production company's decision."
Bollinger was referring to Pearson Television, which took over the show's production in October 2000. According to news reports, CBS needed to cut costs. Even Barker wasn't immune: In 1999, he started renewing his contract just one year at a time.
Riegert insisted Barker was still responsible for the staff changes.
"Barker's really good at covering things," she said. "He waited until the takeover of Pearson. As executive producer, he made all the decisions on who's hired and who wasn't going to be there. It was very rare for people to be fired."
All five women who were dismissed in October 2000 filed suits against Barker and Pearson Television, claiming wrongful termination. With the exception of Riegert, they all settled out of court.
Riegert is still awaiting a trial date after her case was vacated June 25, Alden said.
Racism suit
Barker
suffered another legal blow on Aug. 3, when Claudia Jordan, a model, and Sylvia
Clement-Henry, assistant to producer Phillip Rossi, sued over allegations
of wrongful termination, sexual harassment and racial discrimination.
"You are the butt model. Repeat after me: 'I can fire your ass,'" Rossi told Jordan, according to the suit.
Jordan, an African American, was also told to stand between two Caucasian models "to do the reverse [Oreo]," the suit said.
After Jordan confronted Rossi, he advanced the clock on the set and cursed at her for being late, the model claimed.
When Jordan formally filed a complaint, human resources pressured her to withdraw it, and she was fired on Oct. 31, 2003, according to the suit.
Moreover, Clement-Henry claims she was instructed to mark a "B" next to African American contestants, "to make sure that no more than two African Americans are selected" and to make sure they perpetuated racial stereotypes.
She was fired when she refused to stay silent, the complaint said.
"Barker is probably the most vicious man I've met in my life," Alden said, who also represents Jordan and Clement-Henry. "I honestly liked him before I got involved in these lawsuits, until I took his deposition and thought, 'My God, what a monster.'"
Bollinger, however, viewed these suits as a publicity stunt.
"Barker has been dragged into every one of these situations, not because he was responsible for the direct actions, but because he's a big name," Bollinger said. "When lawyers just sue the production company, they get no attention."
Both Barker and his lawyer, Glaser, declined to comment on his pending litigation.
from Court TV
September 13, 2004: Nick Nolte bares
his soul
by Richard Ouzounian
The
secret to interviewing Nick Nolte is to catch him on the right drink.
If he's sober, he says too little; if he's tanked, he says too much. But this weekend afternoon, his alcohol consumption was at the Goldilocks level — just right.
The 63-year-old actor is at the Toronto International Film Festival with two projects — Clean and Hotel Rwanda, but nowadays he's known for his offscreen antics as much as his onscreen performances.
Back in 2002, he was here to publicize The Good Thief and spent most of his time in his pyjamas, wandering around the city in a befuddled state.
A few days after he left Toronto, he was arrested for driving under the influence of the "date-rape" drug, GHB and ordered into rehab.
"That was a good time for me," is his surprising admission. "Look, everything we repress, we put in a bag and carry behind us. Sometimes it gets too full and breaks open. That's what happened to me a couple of years ago.
"When that bag overflows is when I'm going to learn. When I mess up, there's a problem and I have to recognize it. I find my anger, my rage. I find that love is temporal, passion is forgettable and pain is always with you."
On this sunny day, Nolte sits in the outdoor garden of a midtown hotel, bringing his own personal thundercloud along with him. He's dressed in flowing black, hiding his eyes behind a pair of shades tinted the colour of L.A. smog.
Looking at his unruly, matted hair, it's hard to believe that this was the same man who actually appeared in ads for Clairol's "Summer Blonde" 35 years ago.
In Clean, Nolte plays a sober man who helps his musician daughter-in-law recover from her heroin addiction after the death of her husband.
Nolte acknowledges that it's easy for artists to slip into self-destructive behaviour.
"We've got pain but we've got to put our public face on and relegate to the darkness the part of us that's too harsh and primitive to accept. Tapping into our egos, sometimes breaking down. That's the way it is."
Nolte's table was covered with shotglasses — some partially filled with vodka, most empty. After an overzealous waitress cleaned them away, he reached into his briefcase and withdrew a bottle filled with clear liquid that smelled like Mother Russia when opened.
"Addiction," he murmured after a healthy swig. "You have to come to some kind of agreement with it. Some kind of love for it. Otherwise it will haunt you.
"What's it all about? It's all about suffering. Life is a process of loss, but I don't mean that in a negative way. Pain is a valid experience. You have to accept the disease to be healthy."
Clean comes to a positive resolution, with Nolte's addict daughter-in-law on the road to recovery. He believes that's possible.
"People can change. They do change. They have to change. If they don't, then there's real destruction, real evil.
"What's evil? It's not a little bug that sits out there somewhere. It's a series of repressions and projections that don't allow enough consciousness to respect another human being."
Evil is on Nolte's mind because of his other film at the festival, Hotel Rwanda, a story of the genocide that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of victims in 1994.
Nolte plays a member of the Canadian peacekeeping force, but he's anxious to point out that his character is a composite figure and not strictly based on any one individual.
"I didn't do (Romeo) Dallaire. You can't be him, because his story is in his own. He said something, however, that I thought of every day I worked on the movie: `I can't Pontius Pilate this; me, I'm responsible.'"
He angrily rips off his sunglasses and it's surprising to see that his eyes are reasonably clear.
"Genocide is alive and well. We can't stop with the Holocaust and say that was the end of that. Every time there's race-on-race killing, the world should shout out to stop it. But in Rwanda, everyone but the Canadians ignored it. Why? Was it because they were just black Africans killing each other and that was of no great economic interest to the world?
"It's pathetic and sad and absurd." He sits back, drained.
"The journey of my life is on a few curves right now, because a friend of mine died and I didn't know how much he meant to me until he was gone."
The friend he's talking about was Marlon Brando to whom Sean Penn had introduced him several years ago.
"Marlon said certain things and behaved in certain ways that showed me just how human he was and just how human an actor could be."
The normal Nolte bluster is gone and he speaks quietly, as though remembering Brando had calmed him.
"We had a lot in common. We were both born in Omaha, Neb braska, and our fathers sent us to Shattuck Military School to straighten us out, but it didn't work in either case."
"The major difference is that he turned out to be the archetypal actor of our generation and me ..." Nolte waves his hand in self-disgust and gets up to leave.
The window of lucid opportunity is closing rapidly and later that same evening, he'll be spotted weaving down Avenue Rd., totally out of control.
But he pauses and adds one more thought.
"Marlon called me before the last time I went away to rehab and he said `Nick, I don't know what your problem is, but don't hide from your pain.'"
from the Toronto Star
September 10, 2004: Courtney Love adds
fear to her long list of troubles
By Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times
"I
just don't know how to answer these questions." It's Courtney Love on
the phone, but the voice doesn't sound like the smeared-lipstick rock hellion.
This Courtney Love sounds smaller, sadder. "It's so dark. Dark, dark,
dark. I didn't used to be scared of these things, but now ... "
This is a season of anxiety for Love, and in someone usually recklessly outspoken, her reticence speaks volumes. For years, her life has been an unmade bed, but now the most extreme reports make it seem more like a mattress on the freeway -- tattered, hazardous and in need of police attention. The rock star is a defendant in three criminal court cases and has lost custody of her child. Her summer tour has been canceled, and her new album is not faring well. Last month, on her 40th birthday, a judge signed her name to a bench warrant because Love failed to make it to a court date.
Love knows what people are saying about her, and perhaps that's one of the reasons she agreed to speak to the Los Angeles Times. In words that veered from contrite to bold, witty to angry, the star spoke of philosophy, poetry, rock music politics and celebrity-era jurisprudence. Even before fame, Love's life odyssey saw her as a student at Trinity College in Dublin, Calif., and a stripper in Alaska, and any conversation with her is a festival of colorful tangents.
She repeatedly made the point that her well-publicized court hearings are echoes of a life she was leading months ago.
"The court cases are like a lagging indicator in economics. They show where I was, not where I am. ... I'm doing OK. I'm doing well, as a matter of fact. It's so stupid, but I even enjoyed the martyrdom," she says with a raspy chuckle. "I'm program girl now."
She offers that statement knowing that, at this point in her career, her skeptics would fill more arenas than her fans, and even those fans may admit some Courtney fatigue. But Love says the sources of her anxieties are now more serious than any concerns about album sales.
"To stand there and receive this, 'The state of California vs. Courtney Love Cobain ... ' I almost fell to my knees. I don't think I have ever been that scared."
Love has kept tabloid writers and attorneys busy.
In October 2003, Love was arrested at the home of Jim Barber, an ex-boyfriend and former manager, after an alleged break-in. She tested positive for cocaine and opiates. That arrest led to a case that ended with a judge ordering Love to spend 18 months in rehab, but she has until late October to enroll. Hours after the arrest at Barber's house, paramedics were called to Love's house, and the rocker was treated for what appeared to be a painkiller overdose. That incident led to another volley of drug charges -- and the loss of her daughter.
In March, hours after the singer repeatedly flashed her breasts on Late Show With David Letterman, a 24-year-old fan at a Love show at the Plaid nightclub in New York claimed he was whacked by her microphone stand, and that has led to misdemeanor assault charges. In April, Kristin King, a 24-year-old L.A. musician, told police that Love attacked her with a liquor bottle. King was staying at Barber's home.
The most serious of the cases, in terms of potential punishment, is the alleged assault with a deadly weapon in the King incident. Love failed to appear at an arraignment (leading to the bench warrant issued on her birthday) but has since entered a plea of not guilty. The maximum sentence, if she is found guilty, would be three years and eight months in prison.
Last month, she was photographed on a gurney as New York paramedics carried her from a New York apartment after responding to a 911 call that records show was a report of a woman suffering a miscarriage. The New York tabloids had already collected and passed on quotes from neighbors who say Love has been wandering the sidewalks, muttering words of paranoia.
"We see Courtney come through over and over," says Lisa Bloom, daytime co-anchor of Court TV, the docket-watching channel. "It's gotten pathetic. People see her face on TV now and just assume she must be in trouble again."
With all of that, it's easy to imagine that the day-to-day life of Love might seem like the alleyway scenes in Trainspotting or Barfly. In recent weeks it's been more like 13 Going on 30, according to Lisa Leveridge, the guitarist in Love's band, the Chelsea. The two gal pals have gone on coffeehouse visits, boutique shopping expeditions and trips to the gym.
Leveridge isn't offended when asked if she expects people to believe these reports about the sneering star who, more than any other, gave the MTV era a Janis Joplin figure of its own.
"I know, I know. Look, she was on vacation for a little bit and now she's back. It was a bum vacation, it was stressful and awful, but now she's back. It's just that everybody doesn't know it yet."
Love says "all of this hasn't hurt me to the point that I can't get tables at restaurants" and then laughs long and hard at herself for the unintended pretension. More than once she says, simply, "I feel well."
She has a full-time minder in Warren Boyd, a substance-abuse counselor hired to help Love stave off the behavior that has haunted her for years. "He's my guy. He knows where I am all the time," Love says.
Boyd worried that a judge's decision to give Love until Halloween to enroll in a rehab program would give her too much time ("A prerequisite to a disaster," Boyd thought initially), but he said this week that Love "has taken the initiative, and she's in a program, and she knows what needs to be done."
Love just played a show, booked long ago, in Japan, and Leveridge was giddy afterward about the first chance in months to get on stage and think about chords instead of depositions. Love is hugely popular in Japan, and the foreign press reviews of her show at the Fuji Rocks Festival were good.
"It's amazing to be in a healthy and happy band," Leveridge says. Did the show give Love a chance to prove herself? "She doesn't have to prove anything to anybody."
Love has taken on many roles in the public arena -- rock hero, movie star, artist-as-activist -- but the first was an icon's wife. Her 1992 marriage to Kurt Cobain of Nirvana gave her a Yoko Ono-esque sort of fame. To some fans, she was the undeserving lover of their idol. To others, her romance with Cobain seemed to channel Shakespeare or, at the very least, a latter-day Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen.
When Cobain died in a shotgun suicide in 1994, the polarized views of her only became more extreme. A fringe fan element has even proffered a theory that Cobain's death was directly or indirectly the fault of Love. There were inextinguishable rumors, too, that her best music was actually his work, at least in part. The venom was enough that, within a year of Cobain's suicide, an AOL forum dedicated to the topic of Love was shut down because of death threats against her.
Charles R. Cross, author of the highly regarded Cobain biography Heavier Than Heaven, said the music video of Love's life has been played out to the point that she can hardly get a fresh listen from the public.
"Not to defend her obviously messed-up life over the past few months, but if your neighbor down the street lost a husband to suicide and your neighbor still seemed screwed up a decade later, would one have some sympathy for that? Because Courtney is such a public figure -- and at times her own worse enemy -- I think we judge her harsher than we would the neighbor across the street. Being close to someone who kills himself is a messy business, and it's messy for everyone involved. It is not something that is easy to get over or move away from or forget, especially when the person is as famous as Kurt."
During a phone interview for this story, another voice came on the line. "Can you hang up, Franny?" Love asked her daughter cheerily, but there was an edge in her voice a minute later when she discussed a private school that recently turned Frances down.
"My problems become her problem too," Love said.
The girl was in Love's Beverly Hills, Calif., home last October when the rocker overdosed on prescription pills. In the weeks that followed, the child was removed from her mother's care. It is the second time Frances Bean has been shuttled through protective care proceedings, the first time following publication of a Vanity Fair article in 1992 that quoted Love as saying she used heroin during her pregnancy with Frances. (Love has maintained she didn't know she was pregnant at the time.)
"She lives in Beverly Hills with my nanny and (a relative), and it's ridiculous. And I live in Beverly Hills, where I can see her house. My house -- and I live in a hotel. I pay the hotel, and she comes across the street and sees me all day and we hang out. That's what we do."Even though a Los Angeles assistant district attorney recently described Love as a danger to herself and society, Love insists she will have the custody matter resolved soon. She says the stakes are too high for her to lapse into drug use again.
Love says she is writing music again, and she isn't sure how good it is, but she can hear it more clearly than any time in memory.
"I never did drugs when I was working. I held the writing part of me above the drugs. But the thing is I was never scared before. That's the new thing."
from The Los Angeles Times
September 2, 2004: Tony Bennett
christens Newport News concert hall
By Tony Germanotta, The Virginian-Pilot
NEWPORT
NEWS — These days, a lot of rock stars are turning to standards as they
age. Tony Bennett never left the genre, and if Wednesday night’s performance
at Christopher Newport University is any indication, he’s also never
going to age.
For an hour and a half, Bennett, the last of a breed of classic crooners, took a sold-out audience through the pages of the Great American Songbook. It was also a trip through his six decades of performing because many of those songs only became standards after Bennett recorded them.
Backed by a crackling four-piece combo, the 78-year-old pulled no punches. He whispered smokily through the soft ballads and swung hard through the rest.
The concert opened the school’s new Ferguson Center for the Arts, and the 500 or so attendees were the lucky ones who were able to grab every $125 seat within 18 minutes of them going on sale last month.
Bennett describes himself as a musical storyteller. His buddy, the late Frank Sinatra, once called him “the best singer in the business.”
Others simply refer to Bennett as a living treasure.
He has more than a dozen Grammy Awards on his shelf, including one for lifetime achievement.
And he even managed to capture the MTV-age audience with an “Unplugged” performance that bridged generations.
That’s tough billing to live up to night after night, but Bennett obviously loves performing.
He opened his set with “Watch What Happens,” a bouncy song with a bridge that has humbled lesser lights. “The Best is Yet to Come” was next, a boast Bennett more than backed up.
Toward the end of the show, he praised those who built the intimate, wood-paneled venue, describing it as among the best in the world.
“They don’t build theaters like this anymore,” he said. “This is a true concert-hall theater. That’s magnificent.”
And he urged any city father in attendance to “just make sure this never becomes an insurance company.”
Sprinkled throughout the evening were such Bennett classics as, “ People,” “Luck Be a Lady ,” “Cold, Cold Heart,” “All of Me” and one he describes as his own personal prayer to end war: “If I Ruled the World.”
Bennett joked with his audience that he was the Britney Spears of his day, selling millions of records. He then drew the audience to its feet as he hit the powerful final notes of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
Throughout the night, he took chances with phrases and held notes so long that audience members likely ran out of breath for him. He even turned off the mike and sang “Fly Me to the Moon,” unamplified, with just the guitar to back him.
As he belted out the phrase, “Fill my heart with song, let me sing forevermore,” you found yourself murmuring, “Yeah.” And hoping he’ll somehow be able to pull it off.
from The Virginian-Pilot