MY SON WILLIE WAS FOUR MONTHS OLD WHEN OUR HOUSE IN LOS Flores Canyon—the first real house I ever had, I hadn’t bought it yet, we were just leasing it, but I was thinking about buying it—burned to the ground in the big Malibu fire of ’93. We lost everything we had. Pietra—Willie’s and my son Harry’s mom—and I went over to my studio, to the dressing room at CBS, and slept in there for the first night. It was the only place we had to go. The next day we went to the Sheraton Universal Hotel, one of the hotels giving cut rates to victims of the fire. We literally watched our house burning on the news. Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason—who were the producers of Evening Shade and Hearts Afire, the TV shows I was on—gave us some money, put us up in an apartment, and went with Pietra with a credit card to the clothing store to get clothes for her and Willie. We named Harry, who wasn’t born yet, Harry James, for Harry Thomason. James is for my brother Jimmy.
Anyway, other people who have been golden—and this is probably supposed to be part of the acknowledgments page or an awards speech, but I don’t care—are John Ritter, Robert Duvall, Bruce Willis, Dennis Quaid, Penélope Cruz, Cate Blanchett, and John Cusack. There’s Bruce Dern, with whom I got to do a couple of scenes in The Astronaut Farmer and who I consider to be a real legend and a hero of mine. Angie, above all. And I would absolutely be remiss if I didn’t mention one of my best friends in the world, Dwight Yoakam, who I think is one of the few people who keeps true to what he does. He’s doing the same thing now as he was doing when he first started. I admire that. Dwight and I have had amazing times over the years. Dwight is a great actor, a great songwriter, a great musician, a great singer, and a great friend. I couldn’t even go into all the times we’ve had. Just know that Dwight and I have many stories to tell. I hope he writes a book one day, because he’s not lazy like me and he’ll probably tell you the whole thing. And he was amazing in Sling Blade. So were Jimmy Hampton, Rick Dial, Lucas Black, John Ritter, and Natalie Canerday—they all should’ve been noticed way more than they were for that movie. I’ve spent nights hanging out with Dwight, Gary Busey, Kinky Friedman, Bud Cort, and Warren Zevon all at once. Now, think about that group.
There have been some really, really good people, so many to name, who have been good to me over the years. Those old directors who took me in and gave me advice early on: Stanley Kramer and Billy Wilder, who I’ll owe forever.
I’ll always love Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. I knew them back when they were kids running around town. Just good kids. And look at them now.
Fred Roos. Great producer. He was a casting director in the sixties and has been responsible for discovering a lot of people: Harrison Ford, Suzanne Somers, Richard Dreyfuss, Paul Le Mat, just to name a few. And me. Fred, if it weren’t for him seeing me in a couple of things in the theater, I don’t know what I’d be doing. Joe Byrne, Jeb Rosebrook, producers of The Outsiders television show Fred got me in for. My friend Coby and his wife, Katja, who took me in when I was broke and starving and really saved my life. Another great guy, Brad Pitt. Another great guy, George Clooney. These are big movie stars, you know, but I have to tell you, they’re regular guys. Kristin Scott has been my assistant for ten years. Bruce Heller was my assistant years ago and became a producer with me, and I owe a great debt of gratitude to him. And also my West Coast Ensemble pals Greg Littman, Forest Witt, Jesse Dabson, Rick Krause, and Tom Chaliss.
These are all people who make a life. If you add them up, the famous ones and the not-famous ones, they’re the people that are just the fabric of this life you build out here. Anybody who ever has a bad word to say about any of those people I mentioned, they are full of shit. I can tell you at the end of the day, those are the people that if I needed them they’d be there. I’ve had assistants, managers, agents, some of them who have been awful, some of them full of shit. Some people you want to slap the piss out of. But I won’t go into those folks because I don’t think it’s good to talk bad about people, I never have. I’ll talk bad about types and injustices, not individuals. That’s my policy.
CHAPTER FORTY
Angie
They call her Miss Lucky, she was born in a hurricane
The wind blew her down a dark and magic lane
She’s a golden gypsy lighting up the way
For anyone who needs her night or day
Her thunder casts a spell in magic tones
Her lightning strikes and courses through your bones
Her power leaves you spent there where you lay
And leaves you trying to find something to say
Beautiful is all that comes to mind
The understatement that seems to me unkind
Beautiful is all that comes to mind
The words just seem to be so hard to find
Her rain comes pouring down to wash you clean
Unless you’re in the flood you can’t know what I mean
Her power leaves you spent there where you lay
And leaves you trying to find something to say
Beautiful is all that comes to mind
It’s hard to even look and not go blind
Beautiful is all that comes to mind
The words just seem to be so hard to find
Beautiful is all that comes to mind
Please help me out if you are so inclined
Beautiful is all that comes to mind
The words just seem to be so hard to find
—“Beautiful” (Thornton/Andrew)
MY MANAGER GEYER KOSINSKI CALLED ME ONE DAY SOMETIME IN the nineties and said, “I signed this young girl, she’s Jon Voight’s daughter. She’s, like, the female version of you. I desperately want you guys to work together, but I’m afraid to introduce you because I’m afraid you guys will get married.”
Angie and I got to be really good friends over the years. We were attracted to each other in the way that’s, like, oh yeah, there’s that other human being I can relate to. We became closer during Pushing Tin, and after the movie finished shooting we ended up seeing each other.
We later got married in one of those chapels in Las Vegas. I was somewhere in the South, Nashville or somewhere, recording some demos with my buddy Harvey Cook, who was a video playback guy on movies. After we finished recording, we were driving cross-country to get back to Los Angeles when Angie called me and said, “If we’re going to get married, we should probably do it right now.” And I said, “Yeah, why not?” We had been seeing each other for a while, and we had known each other since she was a kid of nineteen or twenty.
Harvey was our best man because he happened to be right there with me. At the chapel in Las Vegas, there was this woman playing the organ who turned out to be the sister of Jimmie Fadden, the drummer for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
After we were married, we went back to L.A. Angie saw this house that was for sale in Beverly Hills and it had a studio. We looked at different places, but the house we bought together, the one that she wanted, was the one that had a music studio, because she knew I wanted a music studio. That’s how she thinks.
The house belonged to Slash, and I saw him at the Sunset Marquis that night and he said, “Hey, I heard you guys came and looked at my house. That’s great because I want cool people to own my house.” Slash is a great dude.
Angie and I had an amazing time together. We both did a couple of great movies while we were together; I did The Man Who Wasn’t There and Monster’s Ball, and she did Tomb Raider and Beyond Borders. We had the best time, and we had some very good people around us. We were very close. But I always thought I was sort of Quasimodo or the Phantom of the Opera, and when I was with her I think that really reached its heights. I never felt good enough for her, and when you’re reading all the nasty, negative comments that people make, it’s really hurtful and it’s hard to keep a relationship together. Those guys who spread gossip—particularly the writers—don’t know what they do to people. Everybody was raised up out of the same stardust, and it gets a little creepy when you’re made fun
of. We all had that in school. Anyway, I love her dearly, and she’s one of my greatest friends no matter what they said years ago in the press. We’re great friends and always will be, but that doesn’t sell gossip magazines. Good shit doesn’t sell and scandal does, I guess.
The reason Angie and I split up was because I couldn’t take it. Angie, I felt, was definitely too good for me, and at some point, if you believe somebody’s too good for you, you’re going to mess it up. She and I both know that I messed it up, but the good thing about her is, she doesn’t judge me. Never did. I never felt like I was good enough for her, and it had nothing to do with looks. They say, “Well, she’s the most beautiful woman in the world and he’s an ugly motherfucker.” That was never a problem, because women don’t look at men the same way men look at women. Any guy could be Robert Redford if a woman thinks he’s cool enough. Women got the short end of the stick with that deal. A man could run into a woman who might be the smartest person who ever lived, funny and everything else, but if she looks like she has a foot for a face, he probably won’t go there unless he’s real drunk, it’s real late, and she’s the only one around. It’s not fair of us, but it’s just part of our shitty natures.
There weren’t any hard feelings when Angie and I split up. Believe it or not, she actually did like me, and that’s the story that I’ll tell because the rest of it is none of anybody’s business. Even now, anytime the press says anything bad about her, I get real mad. They actually have the gall to criticize her for doing what she does out in the world. They’ll say, “Oh, here she goes again, how many more kids is she going to adopt?” Well, what’s wrong with that? They’re really stretching when they say something bad about her. I guess it makes sense that some cretin is going to attack somebody who’s beautiful and smart and talented. That must be where it comes from.
I’m proud of the way she’s handled having a family. She’s great for Brad, Brad’s great for her. I’m with Connie, who I love. Angie and Brad are doing great. I support them 100 percent. I’m right where I need to be, and she’s right where she needs to be. She and I are still real close, but we keep our friendship to ourselves. It’s sacred. Angie is a little girl and a woman and a teenager and a ghost all wrapped up in one. She deserves everything. She deserves the best. If that’s not what the dirt-mongers want to hear, then fuck them. It’s the damn truth.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
My Term as Mayor of the Sunset Marquis
THE SUNSET MARQUIS HOTEL IS SORT OF MY HAVEN, MY SPIRITUAL home in a way. It’s my favorite hotel in the world. It doesn’t really look like a hotel. It’s nestled there in West Hollywood, kind of out of the way of everything.
I started staying there in the nineties. The place had all these great Jim Marshall photographs up everywhere; Jim Marshall was a rock-and-roll photographer who took all these famous, iconic pictures of people like Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Janis Joplin, the Stones, and just about everybody else. He’s the one who took that amazing black-and-white picture of Johnny Cash shooting the finger.
The bar at the Sunset Marquis was called the Whiskey Bar, which we used to close down on a regular basis. The guy who ran the bar, Wendell (he’s since passed away), was a great dude. It was like hanging out at your own house, in your own living room. Everybody came there. The place is a little more tame these days because I think everything is in some ways. The eighties and nineties and into the early 2000s when I stayed there, it was pretty wide-open.
The waitresses at the Whiskey Bar all wore these catsuits, and on a scale of one to ten, they were all ten-plus. Sometimes at the end of the night Wendell would just close the bar and lock the door and I’d sit there talking to him for hours. Maybe a couple of the waitresses would stick around while they were cleaning up. We just had an amazing time.
Dwight wanted to make a video and write a song about the Sunset Marquis. The video would start with this limousine pulling up, and then you’d see these boots getting out of the limousine. The camera would stay on the boots, and in the frame you would see a bag swinging along. The camera would follow the boots as they walked into a hallway, across a marble floor, and up to a desk, where they would stop. Then you’d hear a woman say, “Welcome back, Mr. Thornton.” The camera would pan up, and you’d see the bag in my hand and me standing there checking into the Sunset Marquis again.
The standard joke is that every time I would get a divorce I would stay at the Sunset Marquis (that is to say, pretty often). In the beginning, I used to go there just to hang out with people, so a lot of my friends from my years in L.A. have been guys I’ve met over at the old Whiskey Bar.
I actually lived at the Marquis for a total of about six years. The first time I lived there for a period of two and a half years in Villa 4 North. During another stretch I lived there for a year and a half in 2 South. Later on I lived there for two more years. This was in the nineties, part of 2000, and a little bit in 2001. When Angie and I first got married, we didn’t have any place to live, so we lived there. After we bought our first house, the one I’m still in now, we stayed at the Marquis while we got the house redone.
The thing about the Marquis is that it’s mainly the music hotel. There were some actors who stayed there—quite a few British actors, actually—actors who I go way back with, such as John Hurt, who’s in the movie I just did, Jayne Mansfield’s Car, and Gabriel Byrne. Richard Harris lived below me for a while. I had some great times with those guys. But at any given time it looked just like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame over there.
When I lived in Villa 4 North, Keith Richards was right below me. Chris Robinson lived in my building when Kate Hudson first started seeing him. There was Deana Carter, the guys from Metallica, the guys from Aerosmith, guys from U2, Dale Bozzio from Missing Persons with, like, eleven different colors of hair and cooler than shit. There were all kinds of music people staying there.
After I split up with their mom, I saw my sons Willie and Harry on the weekends, Friday through Sunday. They were three and four years old, and they would come stay with me at the Marquis. I remember times that my kids were swimming in the pool with other kids whose dads were in Metallica and other bands. I remember one time in particular sitting out there watching my kids swimming while Kirk, Lars, and James Hetfield from Metallica were all sitting around the pool doing the same thing. Willie used to get throwaway cameras and chase Lars around the back lawn all the time and say, “I’m going to get a picture of your butt, Lars!” Lars used to wear these silk shorts all the time, and Willie would chase Lars around trying to take pictures of his ass. I still have some snapshots of just Lars’s ass and these silk shorts, most of them without his face in them so I can’t really use them against him. Those were some good times when I had my sons there.
One time Jimmy Page, who was staying at the Sunset Marquis, sent me a card that said something like, “I really dig your movies, I’m a big fan.” I was like, “Wow! Fucking Jimmy Page!” He’s a legendary guy to me. So I sent him something, I think it was a bottle of champagne. Later on I was doing sit-ups on the floor of this little gym they had in the same building as my villa when all of a sudden I’m looking up some cat’s big khaki shorts and there’s this little boy standing next to him holding his hand. It’s Jimmy Page. He’s like, “Hey, mate, thanks for the champagne,” and I just kind of froze. There I was, lying on the floor, talking to Jimmy Page. We had about a ten-minute conversation, and I never got off my back. I just lay there on the floor of the gym talking to Jimmy Page. After he left, I was like, Did I just lie on my back in the fucking gym here and have a conversation with Jimmy Page? That was astounding.
During the time I lived there, I had been nominated for quite a few awards. I would go to the awards ceremonies, and then, win or lose, I’d be right back at the Marquis, where they would sometimes have after-parties. These days I’m so agoraphobic that I’m really hesitant to get out of the house, but back in those days I didn’t have to get outside the house. The parties just came there. It was a b
usy, amazing place.
I became, like, the mayor of the Sunset Marquis, and to this day it’s the only place I can go in public where I feel protected. I get the same feeling there that I had at my grandmother’s house back in Arkansas. They make everybody that stays there feel like it’s their own home. They don’t let the paparazzi hang around on the street out front, and they don’t ever let people inside who are going to be harassing you. I got to know the people who work there, the housekeepers, the security guys. It’s like a family. They’re very protective.
Today when you walk into the lobby, there’s a huge picture of me on one side and a huge picture of Slash on the other side. They’ve changed the pictures out. It used to be Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, the Allman Brothers, the Doors, Janis Joplin. Now it’s given way to the next guard at that hotel: me, Slash, other cats like that.
I still run in to people there every now and then, good friends like Jed Leiber, a great songwriter/musician whose dad was from Leiber and Stoller, the famous songwriting duo; and Jeff Barry, a great songwriter. I run into those kinds of people there, and it’s as close as it gets, for me, to being part of something like the Rat Pack or whatever, because that’s kind of what we were. I made a lot of great friends at the Sunset Marquis. It was just its own world over there. I wish there were more places like it.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“Game of Shadows”
There was a time
When I walked the streets
Just like anyone
But something in my
Head turned me
Into a setting sun
Now every time I get the call
To walk inside the outside walls
I know I’ll have to play
The game of shadows
The Billy Bob Tapes Page 18