VIDEO – BETTER WITH AGE, LIKE A FINE… –
March 24, 2023 – I couldn’t sing, I couldn’t work, I couldn’t do anything. I had troubles with my vocal cords, which were caused by, I’m sure, the bulimia, but probably also by the drinking. And I really lost a year: If you look at my history, you’ll see that in ‘77, about 40 or 50 shows were canceled during that year … That’s a career-killer. And not only that, but I couldn’t even sign a contract [for future shows], because I couldn’t sing. So, I then ran into what we call my “Eskimo.” He was wonderful actor, very famous, who was also a terrible alcoholic. He was always on the cover of this and that magazine, in New York, falling out of a bar…
Which actor was it? Do you not want to say?
He’s gone now, so I can say it was Patrick O’Neal. And he was my Eskimo. I was always working on my body, doing exercises, going to the gym, still trying to stay fit even though I couldn’t work, and I went to a dance class where Patrick’s wife, Cynthia, was in the class. And I said, “What happened to Patrick? I don’t ever see him anymore in the papers.” And she said, “He stopped drinking.” I was shocked. I always saw him out and about and I would think, “Good going! Somebody’s gotta keep up the level here!” [laughs] And she said, “Do you want to talk to him?” I didn’t know him from Adam, really. I’d never met him. But she said, “Here’s his phone number, just call him. He’s on a set.” And I called him and left my number and he called me back, and I got out a big piece of paper and started writing everything down he told me. And I did everything he told me to do. He said, “I know what’s the matter with you, and you’re going to get well. You’re going to go into treatment.” So I did, and thank God I did that and got sober. That was really where my life started. And then I had surgery on my throat, on my vocal cords — the same surgery, actually, that Julie Andrews had, but it didn’t work [for Andrews] because it was easy to screw it up.
