by Hector Cook
In April, Andy again sought help for his addiction, checking into the Betty Ford Treatment Clinic at Rancho Mirage in Southern California for six weeks.
Maurice, himself a recovering alcoholic, was well aware of Andy’s problems but felt that there was little anyone could do to help. “Andy was always the golden boy, but he got into cocaine as well as booze,” he said. “We all knew he was dabbling, but we didn’t know how deep he was into drugs. It began to show. He got nasty … We all did what we could to help Andy, but I had to accept that all I could do was plant the seed for his recovery. When he finally went into the Betty Ford Clinic, we thought, ‘Thank God.’ ”
At first, the Betty Ford Clinic appeared to have worked, and Andy returned to the road in May, performing in Jackson, New Jersey. Soon, he had slipped back into addiction. Marc Gurvitz, who managed Andy from 1983 to 1985, observed, “It was hard on him not having the royal treatment any more. Whenever he was depressed on tour, he wanted to cancel the engagement.”
Often, Andy would complain of unbearable pain, insisting that his mother take him to the hospital, “because if you’re in pain, they give you a shot … and you go to sleep. I’d got to the point where I’d take him to the hospital … not believing him, of thinking he was crying wolf again,” Barbara admitted.
His cardiologist, Dr William Shell, said that in some cases, Andy’s pains were not only very real, but also very serious. “These weren’t heart attacks in the lay sense,” he explained. “They were heart attacks in the sense that he destroyed small amounts of heart muscle.”
In the autumn, Andy played two shows in Minneapolis, before beginning a week’s engagement in Toronto at the Royal York Hotel. On his first night at the Royal York, Andy’s performance was well received, although one heckler in the audience insisted upon chanting “Victoria” ad infinitum throughout his performance of ‘Me (Without You)’. As a result, Andy dropped that particular number from his repertoire during the remainder of his engagement there, substituting more Bee Gees’ and Mills Brothers’ tunes.
After each show, a large number of people would congregate in the lounge area located immediately outside of the dinner room, hoping to meet the young star. Dawn Martin, a young woman who worked in hospitality, making sure the entertainers were fed and kept relatively happy, also happened to be a fan, and she recalled that Andy entered the room followed by an entourage of people including his mother. Leaning casually on one of the partitions, Andy waited receptively for people to approach him and shortly thereafter, he began to mingle.
“Gosh, Andy spoke to each of us like we’d been long lost friends,” Dawn recalled. “His mother would also jump in every now and then as well. I am not sure if the family likes to joke around a lot, or if they were just trying to put all of us ladies at ease as we met Andy, but it was such a warm, receptive experience. When it came to pictures, he was so inviting and he’d sort of give you a little squeeze as if to let me know that I was special. Although the night was getting on, he graciously remained until everyone had spoken to him, signed autographs and had completed their photos.”
Dawn’s work put her in contact with many celebrities whose personal and professional personas were not the same, but in Andy’s case, “he still came across as a sincere, gracious, and ‘down to earth’ guy even in a room full of female admirers flocking to see him after a performance.”
The gremlins were at work for the performance on Andy’s third evening. In the middle of a song, his microphone died, which he took in his stride. Unfortunately, the replacement microphone was also dead, which seemed to particularly annoy him.
After the show, Dawn went backstage and spoke to Andy’s tour manager, Michael Sterling, with a view towards beginning an “official” Andy Gibb fan club as well as to present some of the photos that she had taken of Andy during the previous evenings’ performances.
“When I arrived, Mr Sterling ushered me into the dressing room. The dressing room itself was not overly decorated but it was filled with flowers, cards, and teddy bears from other admirers,” Dawn said.
The strain of the nightly performances seemed to show on Andy when he appeared. “Unlike the previous evenings … this night he was dressed casually in a sweat suit. He looked very thin and appeared to be very tired … Andy and I began to talk briefly about my intentions. He listened and responded enthusiastically, and in the end we agreed that I’d get Mr Sterling’s mailing address and we’d take it from there. Prior to leaving I presented Andy with a couple of 8×10’s which I’d taken the previous night, for him to autograph. Andy was quite critical of his appearance and commented about his ‘poor make-up job’.”
Andy was of ten disparaging about his own appearance, of ten referring to Barry as his “older and better looking brother”. Despite the adulation of thousands, his low self-esteem and insecurity about his talent, looks — even his own worth as a person — continued to plague him, and he sought comfort in whatever substance it took to make him feel self-confident.
In December, Andy performed one of two scheduled shows at Caesar’s in Lake Tahoe but cancelled the second, due to the poor sound quality of the initial concert.
Andy had a new manager, Dana Miller, who also handled soap opera star turned singer, Rick Springfield. There was a new lady in his life as well, Kansas native Nicole Romaine, who had also choreographed his nightclub act.
“I think the biggest thing that really helped me is that I’m in love at the moment, intensely in love,” he said. “I have found the girl of my dreams, and we’re talking marriage. She’s a Solid Gold dancer and I am just crazed, crazed about her. She only adds to my sobriety.”
Andy recognised the problems of his meteoric rise and fall, saying, “Looking back, almost a little too much too soon, too young, because I peaked and then I died for a while and I am just now starting to try and get my feet back on the ground.”
He also admitted that he had fallen victim to the materialism and one-upmanship of the “Me Decade,” where materialism was the name of the game and image was everything.
“I didn’t think it was going to be [a disadvantage] at the time, ’cause it was wonderful! Great big beautiful roller coaster ride. I was making a couple of million a week, literally, it was just pouring in. I was buying cars, yachts … Looking back, I suppose I could blame a few people ’cause I was too young to know any better, but nobody advised me. Maybe I wouldn’t have listened if they had thinking back, ’cause I was pretty head strong, but nobody advised me how to invest it, what to do with it.”
Andy finished off the year with a well-received Asian tour. In Bangkok, he starred in a Royal Command Performance at the Royal Orchard Hotel before the King and Queen of Thailand, even performing a duet with the Crown Princess on ‘All I Have To Do Is Dream’.
In Kuala Lumpur, he played to a crowd of 6,000, and in Tai Pei, Hong Kong, the attendance more than doubled, with 12,500 excited fans. His over-enthusiastic admirers pulled him from the stage, bumping his head and dislocating his thumb in the process. After all that, it was little wonder that Andy cancelled the second scheduled Hong Kong concert, although he pleaded only “throat problems”.
Andy played a New Year’s Eve concert in Singapore followed by two shows on New Year’s Day and had an unexpected reunion with his former sister-in-law, Lulu, who was also touring the Far East.
There was yet another fresh start planned for the coming year, as Andy vowed, “I’ve got a feeling that deep down in the pit of my stomach that ’86 is going to be good for me. Because I am clean now, and I know what I’m doing and to work with my brothers, joining my brothers at the end of the year as a Bee Gee at the end of ’86 is what we’re doing. We’re going to be one group, and we will start my new album in May with Barry again, now we have confidence in me.”
Like many other acts who enjoyed brief stardom during the Seventies, Andy was finding that he could earn a living by playing many smaller club dates instead of a few big stadiums, but the clubs weren’t nearly as luc
rative as the major venues had been. He wistfully recalled the days when he performed before thousands of screaming fans and looked forward to that next new beginning when a new album would put him back on top.
He had a busy schedule of concert dates lined up, playing various Fairmont Hotels during March and April He opened at the San Francisco Fairmont on March 9, just four days after his twenty-eighth birthday.
One fan who saw Andy performing on several occasions during his engagement there, Marty Hogan, recalled that he was surprised that the 500-seat capacity room was only about one fifth full. “The show, however, was excellent and Andy was doing as much talking as he was singing, being very intimate with the audience. The crowd was older and too polite, probably as there was a 21-year-old minimum age requirement,” Marty explained.
Marty had become friendly with one of Andy’s backing vocalists, Leonard, who asked him if he would mind sitting with Barbara Gibb at one of the shows. On that occasion, Andy left abruptly, without finishing with ‘Shadow Dancing’, usually his closing number.
Marty accompanied Leonard to return Andy’s show jacket to his hotel room, with the offer that he could briefly meet the star. Barbara Gibb let the two young men into the suite, where a wet-haired Andy clad in a bathrobe was kicking the television set with his bare feet because the reception was poor.
Marty recalled that Andy was “talking a mile a minute, telling gruesome stories about the old prison Alcatraz in the San Francisco Bay. Some of the remarks were startling and I kept watching Barbara for reactions to some of Andy’s comments. She just smiled,” he said.
That evening, Marty was treated to a full private concert of 26 Bee Gees’ songs performed by Andy, accompanying himself on a gold plated guitar, said to be worth $100,000, that Barry had given him for his birthday.
Andy mentioned that he had a new single due for release later that year, ‘It’s My Neighbourhood’. “I think it’s a number one hit, don’t you, mum?” he added to Barbara.
Marty continued, “Somehow, Victoria Principal’s name came up and Andy simply replied, ‘But we don’t talk about actresses, do we, mum?’ He quickly changed the subject. Before anyone realised, it was 5.00 a.m. We finally prepared to depart and Andy completely caught me off guard. He said, ‘Thanks for coming up tonight’ and gave us all hugs. He was so well mannered,” he added.
From San Francisco, Andy went on to play at the Fairmont Hotels in Orlando, Reno, New Orleans and Dallas.
In May, he was in the studio for the first time in four years recording demos for a new album, tentatively titled, It’s My Neighbourhood, to be co-produced by Jimmy Studer. Eventually, the working title for the album was changed to Man On Fire. “I think it’ll be my best album by far,” Andy enthused. One of the tracks for the album was a Phil Collins composition that his new manager, Dana Miller, had secured for him.
That summer, he played concerts in the Catskill Mountains, Cleveland and Atlantic City. Andy claimed that Miller “just turned everything around” for him. “It’s been really amazing. He’s changed my image completely. We’re working on it day by day. We haven’t been together that long, but he’s just making me see what I need to do to get away from the old Andy Gibb and attract a new audience.
“I’ve had to overcome this stigma that I’ve been through in the past two years. Obviously, the problems have been hard to overcome, but I think with time and positive thinking, I’m ready again. I was in a rut and staying in it. I was being the old Andy Gibb. I never changed my looks or my appearance or the way I dressed. I think it’s about time I caught up with the times.”
On one occasion, some Girl Scout campers had a rare treat. There was a call to the camp director that Andy Gibb was eating at a local restaurant in the nearby resort town. Several of the girls were interested in meeting him, but some of the camp counsellors had had bad experiences with other celebrities and were none too keen to risk a repeat performance. One counsellor, Daisy, was a little more daring. “I figured, okay, what’s the worst that can happen … He could scream and be obnoxious like many of the others … After all, the girls really wanted to see him,” she explained.
She needn’t have worried. “Andy was a perfect gentleman,” she recalled. “He was very patient and took time with each girl. He was a breath of fresh air.”
Late in 1986, Andy returned to Miami to once again live near his brothers. He briefly dated model Donna Rice, whose 15 minutes of fame had come when she was linked with Presidential candidate Gary Hart, effectively ending his dreams for the White House.
He ended 1986 with a New Year’s Eve concert in Indianapolis and dreams of his long-awaited recording comeback for the coming year.
36
YOU DON’T SAY “US” ANYMORE
“WE JUST TOOK a year out just to do these separate things,” Maurice explained. “We’ve all been helping each other out with our separate things too. We did actually, the three of us, collectively decide that this year we would do everything that we’ve always wanted to do a little bit of.”
For Robin, it was house-hunting and a new LP; for Barry, a solo video album; for Maurice, it was scoring films.
In 1984, when their son Robin John was a year old, Robin and Dwina began searching for a place to put down roots. They discovered just the place on the edge of Thame, in Oxfordshire. As Dwina put it, “We came to the arches of the gate house and stepped into paradise. It was just what we were looking for.”
It might not have been the conventional idea of paradise, but Robin and Dwina have never made any pretence of being a conventional couple. A medieval mansion, The Prebendal was built in the twelfth century by the English theologian Robert Grosseteste and for 500 years played a strictly ecclesiastical role as a place where priests trained to become bishops. The property still has its own chapel and refectory. A heated swimming pool and tennis courts were later additions to the 20 acre estate.
A Bee Gee was not the first celebrity to inhabit The Prebendal. “Elizabeth I was here,” Robin revealed. “So was Henry VIII. George III had some exiles from the French Revolution stay here, about 50 of them… This house is a fantastic base. Amazing to think it’s older than Hampton Court and the same age as the Tower of London.” It later became the home of the last member of the Rolls-Royce family.
After buying the house, the couple decided to restore the property to its medieval glory. They searched the country for authentic doors, wood panelling and furnishings — even a suit of armour. Inspired by Ryecote Chapel, Dwina hand-painted the ceilings in a soft, pale blue with gold stars. The chapel on the estate was carefully restored and remains a consecrated Christian chapel.
“It all adds up to a very expensive undertaking, but it’s been worth it,” Robin said. “You don’t really own a property like this. You’re merely custodians for the next generation. But we love what we’re doing, love the ambience of the place — we even love the ghosts!”
The renovation wasn’t easy in the beginning. “When we first moved in here, the house wouldn’t accept anything new,” Dwina claimed. “Washing machines would break down, televisions, video machines. Telephone systems — they wouldn’t function properly. An engineer from BT came out and said, ‘It’s not us, it’s the house.’ ”
Despite the mechanical problems, Dwina credited the “500 years of prayer” during its religious history for giving The Prebendal an air of tranquillity. Robin agreed, “It is just so peaceful … I have never felt anything other than utterly relaxed here.”
Robin’s second album of the Eighties, with its emphasis on the technopop sound, could hardly be farther removed from the medieval splendour of The Prebendal. Despite his love for history, Robin’s musical taste is modern. “I don’t like songs of the past,” he explained. “I like to get ahead; these songs are very 1984, maybe even more futuristic. You’d never associate them with The Bee Gees.”
Perhaps not, but once again, Secret Agent was a Robin and Maurice collaboration all the way, and this time two songs were even co-wri
tten with Barry. Except for some electric guitar, the instrumental tracks are all synthesizers and drum sequencers, so the album has a cold and crisp sound to it.
The lead single, ‘Boys Do Fall In Love’, was released in May, 1984, and just cracked the Top 40 in the United States, coming in at number 37. It did slightly better in Germany, where it peaked at 21. There was a 12-inch single with a “long version” — what would become known soon as a “dance remix” — not strictly mixing but very free editing, including even the insertion of newly recorded material. “ ‘Boys Do Fall In Love’ is quite tongue-in-cheek,” he explained. “I’m very cynical about love ballads right now because I went through a dreadful divorce back in 1980. I don’t feel like doing love ballads, quite honestly.”
The B-side ‘Diamonds’, with a little bit of Maurice vocal, was one of the more successful songs on the album, and its storyline as well as its title harks back to 1969’s ‘Black Diamond’.
The LP followed in June. The second single was the title track, ‘Secret Agent’, but this did not fare as well as its predecessor.
This album was distributed in the US by Mirage, an Atlantic custom label owned by Jerry Greenberg, a long-time friend of The Bee Gees from their Atlantic days.
“It’s a different sound,” Robin maintained. “Very black and urban, with strong story lines. It reflects street music. I’m not singing at all the same as I did on our early records.”
While Robin conceded that people would always regard him as a Bee Gee, he still held out hope that eventually people would see himsimply as Robin Gibb. “I’ll always be a Bee Gee, but I’d like to think that as kids discover this record, they’ll see me as a new artist. It’s not difficult to establish a solo identity, but it does take time. Look at Phil Collins. He will always be associated with Genesis, but now he has a completely separate profile. I want to build a personal repertoire and not simply go on stage singing songs The Bee Gees made famous — that’s too easy.”