Famous Alcoholics

Calling someone a 70’s great might sound like a backhanded compliment, but since Gerry Rafferty sold over 10 million records and his songs are still played with reverence today I think he’ll forgive me… that is if he’s not dead yet. Chronic alcoholic Rafferty snuck out of the hospital this week where he was being treated for liver failure after a particularly harsh drunken binge at a London Hotel. Police have yet to find him since the hospital reported him missing.

Usually when I make a post on famous alcoholics it’ll contain a bio, interesting facts, and sometimes even a TDA salute, but not today. Nope today I’ll just offer a quick prayer, listen to a little of his classic music, and hope that alcoholism hasn’t claimed another life.

Come home Gerry Rafferty, come home and dry.

A United Press International (UPI) press release reads as if describing a modern witch trial with the headline “Lynda Carter Confesses to Alcoholism”. This story is just wrong in so many ways I have to wonder if it wasn't actually written by a computer that rolls relevant data into so-called breaking news stories. Hopefully no flesh and blood (but obviously no heart) journalist has beclowned themself by writing such a thoughtless piece.

First of all, one confesses to a crime or a sin... not a disease. This headline is absolutely insulting and the first line of the story follows suit as if Mrs. Carter in revealing her addiction has committed some crime. It is written as if she should be very ashamed now that she has been convicted of alcoholism.

WASHINGTON, July 5 (UPI) -- U.S. actress Lynda Carter of "Wonder Woman" fame has publicly admitted she is an alcoholic

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Taking advantage of a story about Jamie Lee Curtis and her battle with pain killers that popped up on my news feed this morning, I went hunting for a good picture of her to use for the TDA famous alcoholic feature.

I though it would be cool to get a shot of one her characters that earned her the title “the queen of scream” from the horror movies like Halloween, Prom Night, and my personal favorite, The Fog, but ran across something far better. The photo to the right is of Lindsay Lohan five years ago presenting Mrs. Curtis with an award for helping troubled teens… especially those dealing with alcohol problems. Now that’s a scary picture!

"Being a teenager is really tough," Lohan admits. "But I also see how hard it can be for parents like Jamie. While we were shooting she told me she worked with Teen Line, and I immediately thought that it was amazing that people my age have a resource to turn to. Someone they can call their own age to talk to and get help." ~ USA Today

Ms Lohan may no longer be a teenager, but it would probably do her a world of good to give Jamie Lee a call these days.

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Just as having a mother named “Moon” seemed to denote a special destiny for Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr. out among the stars, it is easy to believe that her alcoholism and eventual suicide played a role in the development of his own addiction.

Known as Buzz” since his childhood, Mr. Aldrin is best known for piloting the lunar module from Apollo 11 and landing it on the moon. He became the second person to ever set foot on the heavenly body for which his mother was named after stepping out of the lunar module behind mission commander Neil Armstrong. Unfortunately, Buzz never handled being second or success very well.

Always an overachiever; he was a jet fighter pilot in the Korean war, obtained an degree in astronautics from M.I.T., and was critical in creating the complex science required to rendezvous module with capsule in orbit before actually performing the maneuvers himself. After the lunar landing, there seemed little left to accomplish. Following an overwhelming media and publicity blitz Mr. Aldrin began to suffer from an ironic sense of inadequacy, depression, and alcoholism.

After we got back, I wasn't prepared to be in the public eye. I traveled around the world and met many people. At one point, we visited 23 countries in 45 days. I also thought that going to the moon couldn't be topped. So I left NASA and returned to the Air Force. But I don't think the Air Force knew what to do with someone who went to the moon. ~ Yahoo

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He was born Jerome Lester Horwitz in 1903, but the world will always forever know him simply as Curly of The Three Stooges. He was probably the public’s favorite of the comedic trio, but more relevant to this site is that he was also the alcoholic stooge. In fact, you can say that alcoholism played a very large role in both the creation and the end of Curly’s comedy career.

The Stooges were created by US vaudevillian Ted Healy as foils and the victims who bore the brunt of his on stage jokes. The trio was made up of the Horowitz brothers who went by the stage names Moe and Curly Howard and long time friend Larry Fine. Mr. Healy was the highest paid comedian of the time, but his miserly manner and alcoholic tendencies eventually caused the Stooges to form their own act and they signed with Columbia Pictures in 1934. Three years later Ted Healy was killed in a bar fight.

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Sober for 2526 Years. Not really, in fact Lynda Carter has much less than the 19 years sobriety misstated in this recent interview in which she discusses her upcoming cabaret act. It’s actually more like eleven years, she went to rehab in 1997. The 19 years is probably just a typo, that ridiculously large number comes from the alleged age of the Wonder Woman character she is most famous for portraying. (check out video at end of post)

Even through the fog of my burnt out synapses I can clearly picture in my mind big Lynda Carter playing Wonder Woman in the late 70’s TV series. And when I say “big” by no means do I mean fat! I mean big hair, big chest, long legs and a big screen presence that impressed even a ten year old... one that understood all too well that there wasn’t a damn thing silly about a scantily clad Amazon princess.

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Alcoholics by nature create so much negative press that sometimes the success stories slip by unnoticed. Fortunately this will not be the case for one of my favorite celebrity alcoholics and host of the CBS The Late, Late Show, Craig Ferguson who hit a rating milestone last week.

The CBS "Late Late Show" averaged more viewers than O'Brien's "Late Night" (1.88 million to 1.77 million) for the first week during which they each competed with all-original shows since Ferguson, a Scotsman, started in January 2005. ~ Fox News

Not exactly a pop culture Einstein I first noticed Craig Ferguson in the Drew Carey Show, where in an apt bit of casting he portrayed a cocaine addict boss. But it was his monologue about alcoholism and Britney Spears that gained my admiration when he obviously worked through part of his own recovery in front of a live audience… and made it funny! One of my favorite lines is at 6:50 when he says, “… one thing led to another and I forgot to kill myself that day.”

So here’s a TDA Salute to Craig Ferguson, a very funny and a very successful alcoholic.

As a weekend bonus follow the story below to see Mr. Ferguson interview another one of my favorite celebrity alcoholics in recovery. Hint: Golf is a major part of his recovery program.

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I took up the challenge to occasionally highlight a famous alcoholic or addict that represents a realistic yet positive image to the public. With the high number of people suffering from addictions, especially among the ranks of the rich and famous, you would think this would be a relatively easy task. It’s not. I guess it’s just human nature to glom onto the drunken excesses or drugged induced antics… I know at least this is true with the press. So it’s a little harder than I thought to find something TDA blogworthy, but with a little creative searching I did find something fitting (unfortunately, a little dated) written by one of my favorite authors, Stephen King.

In this EW article, King is giving his view of the flap over the fabrications James Frey made in his book A Million Little Pieces. He expands upon his critique to make observations of alcoholics and addicts in general while admitting to being in recovery from both forms of addiction.

Substance abusers lie about everything, and usually do an awesome job of it. I once knew a cokehead who convinced his girlfriend the smell of freebase was mold in the plastic shower curtain of their apartment's bathroom. She believed him, he said, for five years (although he was probably lying about that, it was probably only three). A recovering alcoholic friend of mine reminisces about how he convinced his first wife that raccoons were stealing their home brew. When she discovered the truth, she divorced him. Go to one of those church-basement meetings where they drink coffee and talk about the Twelve Steps and you can hear similar stories on any night, and that's why the founders of this group emphasized complete honesty — not just in ''420 of 432 pages,'' as James Frey claimed during his Larry King interview, but in all of it: what happened, what changed, what it's like now. Yeah, stewbums and stoners lie about the big stuff, like how much and how often, but they also lie about the small things. Mostly just to stay in practice. Ask an active alcoholic what time it is, and 9 times out of 10 he'll lie to you. And if his girlfriend killed herself by slashing her wrists (always assuming there was a girlfriend), he may say she hung herself, instead. Why? Basically, to stay in training. It's the Liar's Disease.

And did I wonder, pre-Oprah, if there were other lies in A Million Little Pieces? Nope. I just wondered when they'd start coming out. Because if my own career as a drunk both active and sober has convinced me of anything, it's convinced me of this: Addictive personalities do not prosper on their own. Without unvarnished, tough-love truth-telling from their own kind — the voices that say, ''You're lying about that, Freckles'' — the addict has a tendency to fall back into his old ways. And the chief old way (other than using, of course) is lying through one's teeth. And speaking of teeth, did I believe Mr. Frey's were root-canaled without benefit of anesthetic? Nope. Never did.

Now this is not exactly being a sobriety cheerleader or recovery advocate but it is the truth and it’s coming from a man that’s has walked the walk and is willing to inform others about the reality of the disease. Kudos, or should I say Cujos, to Mr. King for being a positive influence in the recovery world.