The Harder They Fall

by Gary Stromberg

  Around this time I saw the movie Young Man with a Horn, which changed my life. I was in a lot of trouble with the authorities so I went to see Bishop Huddleston. He asked me what I wanted to do and I told him, “If you give me a trumpet, I won’t bother anybody anymore.” So he got me a trumpet, and I entered the music world.

  This turned out to be a mixed blessing, though. But let me put it this way: Everybody that I learned music from died from booze or drugs. All of them, including the chicks. The list starts with people like Lester Young, Billie Holiday, and Charlie Parker, and goes on and on.

  By the time I came to the States, I was this other guy, a major alcoholic. I was twenty-one. I had just turned twenty-one when I left South Africa. I’d drunk booze before then, but not that much. Back in South Africa I’d hang out with the older guys, and I was the designated driver. We’d be driving around with the bass and drums on top of the car. I drove them everywhere.

  Later I became that guy that would be praised walking down the street: “That kid can drink. You can’t drink like that kid can.” All the chicks liked me because when everyone else was passed out, I was often the last man standing!

  I was on a tour with Miriam Makeba, who later became my wife. She left and was living in New York City and became a star in the U.S. while I was continuing with my band The Jazz Epistles in Capetown and then Johannesburg. All over the country there were demonstrations and rallies against apartheid. Miriam was sending me gifts and albums, and with the help of Harry Belafonte and others, I got accepted at the Manhattan School of Music. My parents pulled every string they could to get me a passport. I arrived in London in May of 1960—after drinking all the free liquor on the plane—and went on to America a few months later.

  When I came to L.A. in 1966, there were all these drugs. Coke, LSD, psiloycbin, uppers, downers—even the doctors I met were using. The people I ran into were all “high guys.” This was the time I had my first acid trip, with my friends Stewart Levine and David Crosby, who had gotten me to play at the “Stop the War” concerts in L.A. and San Francisco. When the acid hit me, I remember that the branches of the trees were speaking to me, the plants were speaking to me. Stewart and David served me spaghetti, and the spaghetti was talking to me! I started thinking I was a Native American, and I started screaming, “Give us back our land!”

  I think I started losing it around this time. My career was still going well, but I wasn’t taking care of myself. It was all excess, to a point where in 1971 I decided to return to South Africa, but I wasn’t allowed back. So in 1972 I went to Africa. Went to many places, Guinea, the Congo, and a whole new life started for me.

  Then I traveled and performed in Ghana and Nigeria. After a while there I came back to the States with a band. Hedzoleh Sounds, it was called. It was a wild time. We recorded an album. We even posed with naked chicks for the album cover. Our single came out around this time, “Grazing in the Grass,” which became a huge hit.

  The music I was making caught on at the height of flower power. For me the anti-establishmentarianism never went away. Even though I was having great success in the States, what was foremost in my mind was what was happening in South Africa. I was alone, while there was a whole international movement going on. I think that God also got in my way then. Here in Los Angeles my friend Stewart and I were spending lots of time in police stations. We had no respect for any authority. We were bad!

  And it didn’t get any better as the years went on. It never improved, it just got worse. Variations on a theme.

  Then, in 1990, I was finally able to go back to South Africa, legally allowed in. Nelson Mandela was released from prison in February 1990 and then went around the world speaking. My sister Barbara worked with him, managing a staff in his office at this period, and Miriam went back at this time. I thought they were kidding when they called and said I should return to my native country. After thirty years. It had really changed. The country was so modern and contemporary. People from all over the world were there, and so were new crime syndicates. But it was a place of hope. People flocked there from everywhere. From Nigeria, from all over Africa as well.

  As a consequence, I never had to buy drugs, to buy coke. I was a “home boy,” an African, so everybody wanted to entertain me. What I did in the States was nothing compared to what I did there. We all thought this was the way it was supposed to be, but in the process, I got moshed. I ended up with my friends very sad. They could see I was going to die if I didn’t stop doing drugs. All friends, including my sister Barbara, decided they were going to cut me off. It was like an intervention. They wouldn’t answer my calls—they just stopped talking to me.

  Barbara said to me, “I want my brother back. Don’t call me, don’t speak to me until you are ready to quit.” Everybody I knew had been saying for about three years, “You should do something about this shit.” So that became the last straw. In 1997, I went to England and spent Christmas and New Year’s at a rehab. I stayed there for two months, and when I came out, I was scared because I started to understand how lost I was. After the first three days in rehab I realized that this was the first time in forty-four years that I’d been sober. The last time that I felt like that I was thirteen. It was a feeling so magical it was nothing I ever wanted to lose again.

  I felt too good to go to those recovery meetings. I went to my first two meetings and then the third time I went I said, “I can’t return here, man, because I’m so fucking happy to be sober, I’m enjoying it so much, I’m never going to get high again. I’m not going to be evangelical, but I’m not going to feel sorry for myself. I’m going to break all the rules and go to the clubs and bars and hang out.”

  So I went to all the after-hours joints and all I said to people was, “I’m never going to do this again.” My friends said, “What are we going to do now? We used to like hanging out with you and the band and doing these delicious things.” But I didn’t want that life anymore. I didn’t ever want to be that person again. There was nothing in it for me anymore … I’d be talking to somebody and I’d be really nasty. I hurt so many people. I ended up writing sixty letters of apology.

  The rehab was really good for me because it let me see that damage I was doing to myself and others. They asked me to make a diagram: “Put down your grandparents on both sides.” You know, a family tree. When I finished it they said, “Make circles around the names of the people who drink. Also make a check next to the couples who stayed together.” Well, there was only one couple that stayed together. And of the hundred or so people in my family tree, there were maybe five or six who didn’t drink.

  Then they said, “Make another circle around the names of the people who died from drinking.”… It was such a weird diagram! I held it up and said, “Well, there it is.” … I’ve come a long way, but I have a long way to go.

  After a while I decided that it wasn’t the substance that was the problem, it was me. I don’t have any temptation to drink, but now I can’t sit around people who are smoking—I can’t be around people who are drunk.

  As far as my music goes, I notice that I have become really powerful in my performances. I just played City Center in New York with some South African musicians, and it’s just become so fluid and easy. Everything is going great. I have my own record company now. This is the first African record company with its own distribution. We do all our own marketing and sales. We have our own studios. I supervise all of our productions. I’ve even begun a foundation, a musicians’ and artists’ assistance program in South Africa: MAPSA. We help musicians with drug and alcohol problems get into treatment. I also do interventions in serious cases. Everybody knows I’m clean and sober, so they call me and say, “My cousin, my aunt, my wife, my uncle needs help. Maybe you can talk to them—I’ve tried everything.”

  I’ve become good at breaking down those troubled people. I tell them, “You know, I’m not perfect, but I can’t do what you’re doing anymore.” And I tell them my story.

  They tell me, “
You ain’t done shit compared to what I’ve done.” … Talking to people like this really gives me satisfaction.

  You know, people ask me what it’s like playing music now that I don’t drink or do drugs. Wasn’t I afraid of losing my chops? Losing my music? And the answer is, “My music came back. My mind cleared and I remembered why I was into music. It wasn’t because of the drugs. It wasn’t because of the booze. It wasn’t because of the chicks. It was because I loved music. Music was my love, and now it’s back.”

  About the Celebrities

  * * *

  Dick Beardsley (b. March 21, 1956)

  Dick Beardsley is the fourth-fastest American marathon runner of all time. His race with Alberto Salazar at the 1982 Boston Marathon was touted as “an epic duel,” and it was one of the closest in the marathon’s history. Beardsley, twenty-six, and Salazar, twenty-three, ran together the entire 26.2 miles, with no other competitors in sight for the last nine miles. Beardsley finished the race in 2:08:54, losing to Salazar by two seconds. Beardsley retired from his professional running career shortly thereafter. Born in Rush City, Minnesota, Beardsley lives in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, runs a fishing-guide business, and is a motivational speaker for youth groups.

  Glenn Beck (b. February 10, 1964)

  Inspired by Orson Welles, Glenn Beck brings outspoken humor and a conservative cast to his roles as a nationally syndicated radio and TV host. Beck’s media career started early: he first went on the air as a thirteen-year-old contest winner. He became a Top 40 deejay in Phoenix and Houston and, after a semester at Yale to study theology, returned to the media as a radio talk-show host. Begun in 2001 in Tampa, Florida, The Glenn Beck Program soared to number one in that market and then went national, airing on more than two hundred stations. It has become the third most popular talk-show program in the United States for adults twenty-five to fifty-four. Beck made his television debut in 2006 with Glenn Beck, a CNN Headline News talk show, and he is a regular contributor to ABC’s Good Morning America.

  Gerry Cooney (b. August 4, 1956)

  Nicknamed “The Gentleman” and “The Great White Hope,” former professional boxer Gerry Cooney was the number-one heavyweight contender in the 1980s, with a professional record of twenty-eight wins and three losses, with twenty-five knockouts. In 1982, in one of the biggest boxing showdowns in history, Cooney lost to Larry Holmes for the World Heavyweight Championship. Cooney helps run FIST (Fighters’ Initiative for Support and Training), an organization devoted to helping former boxers find new careers. He was born in Manhattan.

  Alice Cooper (b. February 4, 1948)

  The original “shock rocker,” Alice Cooper was born Vincent Damon Furnier in Detroit and grew up in Phoenix, where he and a few of his high school friends formed a band called Earwigs, which later became the Alice Cooper Group. The band is credited with bringing theatrics to rock and roll. Cooper’s signature eye makeup, his boa constrictor and guillotine props, and fake blood shocked audiences and helped the band to earn twenty-five gold albums and sell 50 million records. The band’s albums include Killer and Welcome to My Nightmare.

  Pat Day (b. October 13, 1953)

  Racing Hall of Famer Pat Day won his first professional horse race in 1973 at Prescott Downs in Arizona. Since then, Day has won the Eclipse Award—presented to North America’s most outstanding jockey—four times. In 1997, he became the fourth rider in history to be able to claim seven thousand career victories. Born in Brush, Colorado, Day has won the Breeders’ Cup Classic, the Canadian Triple Crown, and the Preakness. He is a spokesman for the Race Track Chaplaincy of America and is involved with the Disabled Jockeys Fund.

  Steve Earle (b. January 17, 1955)

  Steve Earle, a country rocker, has contributed much to the merging of progressive country music and rock audiences with works such as “Guitar Town,” “Ellis Unit One,” and “I Feel Alright.” Born in Schertz, Texas, just outside of San Antonio, Earle quit school in the eighth grade and hit the road at age fourteen. A guitar and bass player, Earle hooked up with Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt, two of the most legendary songwriters in Texas at the time. Earle is not shy about using his music as social commentary and has been called “the real thing” in a town “overflowing with songwriters.” Earle has also written Doghouse Roses, a collection of short stories.

  Dock Ellis (b. March 11, 1945)

  A highly regarded major-league pitcher from Los Angeles, Dock Ellis spent most of his professional baseball career (1968 to 1979) with the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 1970 Ellis pitched a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres. He started in two World Series games: for the Pirates in 1971 and for the New York Yankees in 1976. Ellis was known as one of the more controversial players in baseball, for antics such as wearing hair curlers on the field, and for speaking out against racism on and off the field. He’s also credited for his many charitable acts and currently works helping inmates overcome addiction to alcohol and other drugs.

  Destry Forgette (b. December 13, 1959)

  Destry Forgette grew up in the small ranching community of Elizabeth, Colorado. He participated in rodeo riding while in the Navy. Later he traveled throughout the western United States living the life of a cowboy. Forgette is a member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association.

  Pete Hamill (b. June 24, 1935)

  Novelist, columnist, and journalist Pete Hamill, sometimes referred to as “the quintessential New Yorker,” began his writing career in 1960 as a reporter for the New York Post and has since been editor and columnist for both the New York Post and the New York Daily News. His most recent books include the novels Forever and Snow in August, and a memoir, A Drinking Life. Hamill was born in Brooklyn.

  Mariette Hartley (b. June 21, 1940)

  Actor Mariette Hartley studied with John Houseman at the repertory at Stratford and with Eva LeGallienne at Lucille Lortel’s White Barn Theatre before appearing in her first movie, Ride the High Country, with Joel McCrea. Over the years, she has appeared in dozens of television shows, including Peyton Place, Dr. Kildare, The Twilight Zone, The Love Boat, Diagnosis Murder, To Have and to Hold, Caroline in the City, WIOU, and Law and Order. In 1987, Hartley held the position of news anchor on the CBS Morning Program. Hartley was born in Weston, Connecticut.

  Anne Lamott (b. April 10, 1954)

  Best-selling author Anne Lamott writes with wit and rigorous honesty on the subjects of alcoholism, motherhood, and faith. Her novels include Blue Shoe, Hard Laughter, and All New People. Nonfiction works include Bird by Bird, Traveling Mercies, Plan B, and Grace (Eventually). Lamott wrote a biweekly column, voted “The Best of the Web” by Time magazine, for Salon, and has taught at the University of California, Davis. Lamott is from San Francisco.

  Richard Lewis (b. June 29, 1947)

  Richard Lewis is best known as the neurotic comedian who originated “the date from hell.” A Brooklyn native, Lewis began his career as a stand-up comic and went on to star or appear in TV series, including Anything but Love, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Hiller and Diller. His movie credits include Drunks, Hugo Pool, and Gameday. The Other Great Depression, his autobiography, was published in 2002.

  Hugh Masekela (b. April 4, 1939)

  Human rights advocate and world music pioneer Hugh Masekela is known both as a musician—a trumpeter with a personalized African sound—and as a fighter against apartheid. Born in Witbank, South Africa, a coal-mining village east of Johannesburg, Masekela attended the Manhattan School of Music and eventually cofounded Chisa Records. He had great success with singles such as “Riot” and “Fuzz” as well as the album The Americanization of Ooga Booga (1965). Masekela’s hit single “Grazing in the Grass,” adapted from a traditional Zambian song, topped the charts for several weeks in 1968. The artist spent the 1970s and 1980s in Africa deepening his roots in traditional and protest music, and he returned to his homeland in 1990. Masekela founded the Botswana International School of Music and now produces for an all-African record label. His autobiography, Still Grazing: The Mus
ical Journey of Hugh Masekela, was published in 2004.

  Malachy McCourt (September 20, 1931–December 10, 2005)

  Born in Brooklyn and raised in Limerick, Ireland, Malachy McCourt returned to his home state as a young man and opened Malachy’s, New York’s first singles bar. He became a local celebrity and developed an acting, broadcasting, and writing career. His theater work includes Playboy of the Western World, Da, The Hostage, and A Couple of Blaguards. He has appeared in several films, including Reversal of Fortune and Bonfire of the Vanities. He has been a regular on Ryan’s Hope, Search for Tomorrow, and One Life to Live. His memoir is entitled A Monk Swimming.

  Malcolm McDowell (b. June 13, 1943)

  Actor Malcolm McDowell is probably best known for his role as gang leader Alex in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. He played leading roles in O Lucky Man!, Caligula, and Time After Time. His more recent films include Hidalgo, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, and Robert Altman’s The Company. Born in Leeds, England, McDowell worked at his parents’ pub and as a coffee salesman before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company as an extra.