The Ultimate Biography of The Bee Gees

by Hector Cook

  For those who attended, there were other memories and highlights. In Dortmund, Robin’s thumb was noticeably bandaged, the result of an accident with a razor. There was a full five-minute standing ovation for ‘Words’ in Frankfurt. At Saarbrücken, the first in a run of five open-air concerts, a point was made of sound-checking ‘Secret Love’ as the band had lost their timing of the song due to audience clapping becoming faster and faster at each show. During the concert itself, there was a total power outage midway through Robin’s ‘Juliet’. No problem for the crowd though, they finished the song off for him while Barry led the clapping to sustain the correct tempo and Maurice performed one of his little dances.

  In Berlin, Barry wore a different combination of fingerless cycling gloves at each of the three shows, ostensibly in an attempt to keep his arthritic hands warm. Each of these shows at the Waldbuhne Stadium were filmed, a one-hour TV special and limited edition video release being the end result. An over-zealous security guard wrestled a camera from one fan’s grasp. Barry was having none of it and interrupted his song to demand, “Give that man his camera back!” The guard dutifully complied. The Berlin concerts were also recorded by a mobile studio as there were plans to issue a live album too. Over 50,000 turned up for the gig at Bremen’s Weserstadion. Those who turned up early enough heard Barry’s rendition of ‘Blowing In The Wind’ at the sound check!

  After completing the German leg of the tour, they moved on to Holland where, in Rotterdam, a large inflatable globe was thrown on-stage during ‘World’.

  Although concerts in La Coruna, Milan, Lyon and Montpelier were cancelled, the one in Brussels was reprieved late in the day. On hearing that it was going to be cancelled due to poor ticket sales, fan club representative Ann Grootjans intervened. “The promoter helped eventually in fact,” she said. “It was the record company’s fault, combined with a promoter who started promoting too late. ‘When He’s Gone’ was supposed to be in the shops, but it wasn’t, and it got no airplay either.” Ann argued that the lack of response was more down to insufficient awareness than the public’s apparent apathy. To prove her point, she organised a group of like-minded supporters to go around Belgium’s capital and the whole of Flanders putting up posters. They even covered the city of Liege in Wallonia. Within days, the show was a sell-out. Fan-power 1 — Warner Bros 0. Showing the extent of some fans’ devotion, the front row comprised followers from not just Belgium, but also Holland, Norway, Hong Kong, Germany, France and Great Britain, a fact acknowledged by Barry in his introduction to ‘Words’. “First of all, I’d like to say that there are numerous fans, although we call them friends, because they mean so much more to us than that, they travel to see so many shows, and we don’t quite understand it,” Barry laughed, “but we love them very much for it.” Gesturing specifically to the front row, he added, “To all of you — thank you!”

  Although the July 4 Independence Day concert in Dublin — there were Stars & Stripes hanging either side of the stage — was not technically one of the Gibbs’ best-ever shows, both the band and the audience were having a blast so the uncharacteristic errors went largely unnoticed. The tour ended in England on a triumphant note. They were at Birmingham’s NEC Arena on July 6 where the sound check unusually included ‘Marley Purt Drive’, and even more amazingly, Barry’s unreleased ‘Words Of A Fool’. Next up was the concert at Wembley Arena, which was broadcast live on BBC Radio One. Although originally scheduled as the final show of the tour, to satisfy the unprecedented demand, they returned to Birmingham for an additional date. Barry, Robin and Maurice got some unexpected vocal help that evening when assorted Gibb children suddenly joined them on stage for the final two numbers, ‘Party With No Name’ and ‘You Should Be Dancing’.

  When the tour came to its end, Maurice and his family left Britain for Miami for what he described as a well-deserved break. “I’ve been living like a gypsy and just want to put my feet up at home.”

  Barry and Linda and their sons also returned to their home in Miami. Barry, too, was ready for some respite from life on the road. “The tour went very well, but I don’t know when we’ll be back again,” he said. As for future projects, he added, “There is nothing to speak of just yet. It is all quiet right now.”

  *A Broadway and film star most famous for her inimitable rendition of ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’.

  *Best known for their residency on the David Letterman Show.

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  SIZE IS EVERYTHING

  ALTHOUGH LINDA GIBB claimed that she never wanted children at all, she and Barry have raised the largest family of the three brothers. “Stephen was an accident; when he was such a good baby, I thought this is a piece of cake,” she laughed. “Then along came Ashley. We’d both always wanted a girl — Stephen was going to be Stephanie, Ashley was going to be Ashley whether it was a boy or a girl — and I guess we wanted one of both so we kept trying … then a couple of years ago, Barry said we should try one more time. I said, ‘Oh Barry, I’m too old for this!’ and he said, ‘Come on, one more time.’ ”

  “After four boys, both of us really wanted a little girl and neither of us expected to have one,” Barry explained. “The last resort, for want of a better term, was to adopt one and that would have been our next move.”

  But first Barry and Linda consulted a fertility specialist in helping couples conceive a child of a certain sex in order to guarantee the longed for daughter. “We thought about artificial insemination, but then I found out I was pregnant,” Linda related. “I was utterly shocked.”

  As it happened, her pregnancy was first detected by an unlikely consultant. “A friend’s little girl said to me, ‘You’ve got five babies!’ I said no, I had four,” Linda recalled. “Then she pointed at me and said, ‘There’s one in your tummy!’

  “I thought well, that’s funny, my period was a bit strange last month. I thought it was because I was away on tour. I had an old pregnancy kit in the cupboard, left over from Michael. When it showed positive, I thought it must be out of date.”

  Unable to believe the results, Linda went out and bought three more test kits and got three more positive results. Finally convinced, she made an appointment for tests and waited anxiously to hear the result of the amniocentesis. “I thought, it’ll be another boy. I was convinced it was because that’s all we’ve had, boys, why should it be a girl,” she said.

  When she phoned the doctor to find out the results, her relief was so great to hear that there were no health problems that she nearly forgot to ask the sex of the baby. The doctor then confirmed the news she had been hoping for; it was a girl. “When he said everything was fine and that it was a girl, I must have screamed so hard down that phone! I couldn’t believe it was a girl.

  “The tears were flying down my face,” Linda said. “I ran upstairs to tell Barry and he started crying too.”

  According to Linda, they weren’t the only ones pleased with the result. “I think that my sons would have thrown me out if it had been another boy,” she laughed. The boys even decided on a name for this unborn sister. “I had wanted to call her Leanna, but they all wanted Alexandra so I was outvoted.” Linda’s choice would become the baby’s middle name.

  Christmas in the Gibb house was exceptionally merry in 1991. Barry made a cameo appearance as himself on the Christmas special episode of the popular British television series, Only Fools And Horses. Everything seemed to be perfect.

  Although Linda said, “I did everything I could to be healthy while I was pregnant,” there were complications just after Christmas. Their youngest son Michael came down with a virus, and Linda also fell ill.

  “I think while I was ill, I must have slipped on the floor. I didn’t feel anything, but my waters must have broken,” she explained. “The next night I didn’t feel right, and the next morning my shape had changed — there wasn’t the same kind of bump. By the time I got to hospital, my temperature was still 104°.”

  The doctors decided that both the m
other and child were in grave danger if they didn’t operate immediately to get the baby out before the virus passed through the placenta. So although the baby wasn’t due for another 16 weeks, on December 29, Linda underwent an epidural caesarean section. Conscious throughout the surgery, Linda couldn’t stop crying with despair. “How was a baby going to survive at 25 weeks?” she asked. “I knew she was a girl, I knew how much Barry wanted her. I was numb with distress and sadness … I was just so frightened I was going to lose this little girl.”

  “The moment of her birth was extremely spiritual,” Barry said. “Everyone else in the operating theatre seem to disappear, and I felt alone with her as I cut the cord.

  “I was shocked that something so beautiful could come from a situation so chaotic. It all happened in a scenario of chaos.”

  Linda recalled, “It was amazing — she came out crying. Her lungs were as developed as those of a seven and a half month baby, and I think that’s what pulled her through — she was breathing on her own straightaway.

  “The doctors said that because my waters had been leaking gradually for a couple of weeks, the baby had gone into stress. When that happens, it sends messages around the body saying, ‘Forget the hair, forget the fingernails; finish those lungs, work on the major parts.’ ”

  Only one pound and nine ounces, the new-born was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit. “As small as she was — and she was 12½ inches, or ruler length — she was just so perfect,” Linda said.

  With any premature baby, the first 24 to 48 hours are crucial. Even past those critical early days, it would be months before the baby would be out of danger. As Linda was still recovering from the virus, she wasn’t allowed to see her daughter for the first five days, although Barry saw her everyday. Linda could only watch helplessly through a window at the fragile little life in the incubator, distressed by the tubes in her nose and throat.

  “Right away, the doctors told us it was touch and go,” Barry recalled. “It was terrifying. For the first week, we weren’t convinced she’d make it, so we were holding back. I tried not to love her too much, seeing her only a few minutes each day.”

  “It’s really difficult because you are almost too frightened to get too close to them because you don’t know if they are going to survive or not,” Linda agreed.

  “Then the doctor called us in and said, ‘You’ve got to love this child. It’s that commitment that may save her life.’ So we made the commitment,” Barry said, “all or nothing. For three months, I lived and breathed the thought of that child. I hung a little cross around the mirror of my car. To have my little girl at this time of my life is the thing that’s most special of all to me.”

  Linda said that those first months were terrifying. “You just never knew if something might go wrong. She could have had a bleed in the head, which a lot of premature babies do. But she never had anything. We were very lucky …

  “After the first few weeks, I could hold her everyday and feed her, even if it was through the tubes. The doctors like you to have as much contact as possible with the babies, so that they can feel the love from you.” Linda even taped photos of Alexandra’s brothers and the family’s dogs to the incubator so little Ali would know her family.

  When Linda had first discovered she was pregnant, Barry had decided to go ahead with surgery for his troublesome back, so that he would be able to bend down and pick up the new baby. “I’d been in pain for about 12 years and it interrupted everything — touring, promotion work, even recording. It was the bane of my life. I got to the point where the idea of being fixed was far more attractive than the idea of going on with the pain.”

  As little Alexandra wasn’t due until April, Barry’s surgery had been scheduled for January and went on as planned; a nightmare scenario for Linda. “It was unbelievable,” she recalled. “Ali was in one hospital, and while she was there, Barry was in another having back surgery. He had an allergic reaction to morphine and stopped breathing. I had to keep him talking while the nurse ran to turn off the morphine drip.

  “In the middle of the night, he had a cardiac arrest; the next night I heard my mother had a serious eye injury.

  “Everything seemed to be going wrong. I had three of them in hospital. Fortunately, my mother was in the same hospital as the baby, so I was up and down floors there, across to the hospital where Barry was, and he didn’t like the food so I had to take him a food hamper!”

  It was all too much for Linda’s disturbed hormones. “I came home, sat in the bath and cried,” she said.

  In the midst of this stressful period, Hugh Gibb, the brothers’ father who had encouraged their music since they were old enough to walk, died from internal bleeding. He was 76 and he died on Andy’s birthday, March 5, 1992, and was laid to rest near his youngest son at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles.

  “We think Dad lost any kind of will to live after Andy,” Barry explained. “The spark went out of his life. When you lose your youngest child something else happens. He willed it on himself in the end.

  “He knew all about the baby, but he didn’t get the chance to see her. That’s the way it goes … It’s a great shame Dad never saw Alexandra because he would have absolutely idolised her. She’s so beautiful.”

  “Ali was the saviour of it all,” Linda said. “I fit hadn’t been for her doing so well, I wouldn’t have been able to go on. She was a little life, getting better each day.”

  Although naturally saddened by the loss of his father, Barry was philosophical. “I believe all this was meant to happen. I miss my father, of course, but he stopped living when Andy died and I’m sure he’s happier now.”

  He mused, “It was just a matter of time. He knew where Andy was and he wanted to be with him. He didn’t say that to us directly, but we knew he was saying those things. He used to hide behind his masculine persona. Mum was the backbone; she still is very strong … She’s suddenly got a new life. She’s going to travel and do things she’s never done before.”

  By then, Barry and Linda were looking forward to the day when they could take their baby daughter home. It had been a stressful three months during which time Linda went to the hospital everyday to feed and bathe her. Now in preparation for her homecoming, Barry explained, “Linda is going back into the hospital to get used to sleeping next to her … She’s going to have to spend the night next to her, to be there when she awakens suddenly. We’re both learning to operate the monitor that’s attached to her. When premature babies suddenly waken, they get a terrible shock and it can damage their hearts.”

  The couple had to take a resuscitation course for babies, learning what to do if their tiny daughter should stop breathing. The entire experience was an education for them, seeing what other parents went through at the same time and noting that there was no preferential treatment for superstars — all the babies in the neonatal intensive care unit were equally important.

  When they finally brought little Ali home, it was with the monitor, which was to be strapped to her chest, but after nerve-shattering false alarms when the monitor wasn’t put on properly, they took the monitor back. “We’ve been told to treat her like any normal baby but to be careful for the first few weeks,” Linda said. “Ali will need regular check-ups for the foreseeable future. But I still feel so blessed. When I was in hospital there were a couple of babies much bigger and full-term who died. I was scared right down the line. We were so lucky.”

  “When we first took her home, the boys were a wee bit fragile with her,” Linda admitted. “They were nervous of touching her. But now they pat her on the head as they go by or give her a kiss. They are great with her … There’s no jealousy at all — at least, not yet.”

  Although their “little miracle,” as Barry called her, was making exceptional progress, it would take nearly six months before they felt confident that all would be well.

  The back surgery hadn’t cured Barry’s back problems in the way he had hoped. “I have to deal with twinges and stiffne
ss, but I’m dealing with it, and I’m not having the same pain I had before,” he said. “At the time, there were so many other little crises going on it was a bit difficult to focus on your own problems, but maybe that was a good thing.”

  * * *

  A drama of a very different sort had been unfolding just down the street at Maurice and Yvonne’s Miami home. After Andy’s death, Maurice’s resolve to fight his alcoholism had weakened. “I hadn’t had a drink for years,” he said. “My wife Yvonne went away for a weekend, and I was like a kid in a toy shop.” After a weekend binge during which he claimed to have drunk eight gallons of Guinness, four bottles of whisky and two bottles of brandy, he said, “I was still sober. That’s when the wife sussed out that I was sick again.”

  Maurice credited Yvonne with helping him beat his drinking problem. Without her, he said, “If I were lucky, I’d be in some gutter, drunk — but I probably would be dead.”

  Despite previous attempts at conquering his problem “going into one luxury rehab after the other,” he had never really managed to kick the habit. “As an alcoholic, you have no appreciation for your wife or children’s feelings. But I’m making up for that now. I’m winning my kids’ trust back and it really is great.

  “Before there was no way they would believe me because I lied to them so many times. For 14 years I’ve been an alcoholic — of ten a really nasty person, wrecking new Rolls-Royces and Aston Martins — blacking out, even taking transatlantic trips without knowing it! My whole life — everything — was just a haze, a blur.”

  Maurice began drinking during The Bee Gees’ “first fame” period in 1967. A teenager suddenly thrust into the limelight and exalted company, he claimed, “John Lennon was the first one that gave me a drink. A Scotch and Coke, that was the drink of the day. I mean everybody drank Scotch and Coke. The Beatles drank Scotch and Coke, that’s what you drank. If he’d have given me cyanide I would’ve drank the cyanide, I mean it’s just that I was in awe of the man. In those days, I was 17 so I could drink just like the next guy. I could drink anybody under the table, the next day feel fabulous, no hangover, nothing.