The 4th Brother Gibb
The youngest of three famous brothers, Andy Gibb suddenly died not long after his 30th birthday. Leaving behind a once promising career and an unfinished future.
Andy had all the charm, good-looks and talent of his three brother’s; Barry, Maurice and Robin. The added bonus was that he had branched out into acting and began developing his own brand apart from the enormous shadow of his family icons. Imagine being the youngest brother of three of the top construction contractors in the world. Now, you decide that you do not want to join your brothers but you want to build your own business and make it look different adding your own flare. No problem. You have all the support and resources that the family business can provide and you also have the luxury to make this business your own with a wide safety net to mitigate failure. Pretty sweet. Andy had this with singing. Encouraged by his family to go it alone as a solo artist, Andy had the greatest start in the history of the American Billboard charts, with three number one records before his 21st birthday. However, he was haunted by the fact that his brothers had written most of his songs and he was just riding on their coattails.
With good genes and God-given-talent there is always the temptation to blow your opportunity at success. Professional Athletes sometimes collapse into a disastrous career even though they have talent far beyond their peers. There is pressure in knowing you are the best athlete on the planet. Not everyone can shine when the light is brightest. Add in the money and the drive to party hard and things can get ugly fast. Just ask one time Brown’s quarterback Johnny Manziel! After winning the Heisman Trophy and gaining a reputation as one of the most exciting players in college football, Manziel was taken in the first round by the Cleveland Browns in 2014. He started just eight games for Cleveland over two seasons, going 2-6 in those starts. After being released by the team, he would never get another NFL opportunity, leaving many what “ifs” about his career.
“I had a lot more fun going to a nightclub and walking out with two girls than I did putting the pads on and going and grinding it out.” Manziel
With Andy’s golden smile and shy personality he was intensely vulnerable to the ugly trappings of the the Hollywood lifestyle. With the strength of his three older brothers there was no reason to think that Andy was in any kind of danger until he wasn’t able to rebound for the final time. Most people (me included) forget that Andy’s career was floundering at the time of his death and he was broke. If not for his family he would have been homeless as his final days were spent alone on his brother’s estate in England. Only his mother was there to witness his final days.
In September 1987, according to his lawyer, John Kozyak, he filed for bankruptcy in Miami, where he was a resident at the time of his death. Like Whitney Houston many years later, Andy was scheduled to begin singing again with a new record deal. Both Andy and Whitney did not get that opportunity. However, they had been given so many chances in leading up to their death. Both drug addictions strained their bodies to the point of breaking as both didn’t die directly from drugs as their cause but from the years of abuse.
WHITNEY HOUSTON
Weak from depression and the mystery of why Andy was free of drugs but not feeling well, Andy was seeking answers. The doctors at the hospital he was admitted too were still baffled. On March 10th 1988 at around 8:30 AM the attending physician walked into Andy’s hospital room;
“We have to run additional Tests Andy” stated the physician
“Fine” Andy replied.
“Three weeks before he died, Andy was healthy and ready to record again. He just went down hill so quickly? He was in a terrible state of depression. He had gotten over the drugs but the depression remained.” Robin Gibb
On March 5, 1988, Andy celebrated his 30th birthday in London while working on his new album. However, soon after he entered John Radcliff Hospital in Oxford England complaining of chest pains. His already thin frame became even more emaciated with his lack of nutrition even before he was ill in the hospital. He appeared broken from the inside out and abuse of alcohol and drugs only chiseled away at the human body as depression suffocated his soul.
Later that day, Gibb slumped into unconsciousness and died as a result of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle caused by years of cocaine abuse that fatally weakened his heart.
This diagnosis was supported by William Shell, a cardiologist who had previously treated Gibb. With the announcement of Gibb’s death, his ex-wife, Kim Reeder, was not surprised. “I always knew that one day I’d get a call with news like this. It was only a matter of time.”
The Brother’s Gibb gathered in the music studio built on their estate where Andy was living prior to his hospital stay and eventual death. Andy dreaded the day he might require all of his brother’s help to get back on top of his music career. After all his goal was always to make it on his own without the shadow of the “Bee Gee’s”. Seriously depressed about his downfall from success, Andy reluctantly agreed to meet with them at the request of his Mother.
Andy dressed in a blue track suit (popular in the 70’s and 80’s) kept his $200 sunglasses (equal to $500 today) on even in the darkened gray skies of England and the dimly lit studio. Arms crossed and feeling lethargic from an unknown medical condition Andy fought back his resentment by looking down at the ground as older brother Barry spoke to the group about their upcoming follow-up album for 1989. Barry knew Andy would be a valuable contributor with collaborating on some new songs especially because he knew that he had been struggling with writers block on his solo album. As literary and music authors understand “Writer’s Block” can be deadly but also can be helped by other writers working together in a group. This was a soft landing for Andy and Barry fully expected Andy to make a strong comeback on his own just as the “Bee Gee’s” had with their previous album after years of a musical drought. Thankfully the audience was willing to forgive the Gibb’s for the very Disco era music they so loved in 1977, only to later be ridiculed and mocked by the end of 1979 falling into musical purgatory during most of the 1980’s. The audience can be harsh and the music industry even harder.
Andy suffered from breathlessness and abdominal pain and chest pains in the final months of his life. All signs of a heart condition that he may have been suffering from for many years before. Standing with his brothers in their studio he appeared to nod off while leaning against a counter stacked with Billboard Magazines. Before he could hit the floor his brother Maurice grabbed his left arm partly in anger and the other part preventing him from face-planting. Andy awoke as if he had been sleeping for hours almost wondering why his brothers were in the room? This infuriated older brother Barry as he crossed over in front of Maurice and Robin grabbing both of Andy’s shoulder with a little shake;
Andy! stand-up! Are you listening to me?” Barry stated in his loud Australian accent.
Andy, almost in defiance answered harshly back as if his brothers were bothering him and woke him from a long nap? They collectively brought their brother down to the leather couch located behind the the sound board. Andy proceeded to lounge out laying one leg up onto the sofa while keeping the other grounded to the floor passing his right arm across his face as if to block any light that would shine in his direction. Again, the room was dimly lit and the skies outside were an England-typical gray. Andy was exhausted from years of abuse to his body and no one realized that he was losing his life right before their eyes.
The musical side of Andy’s career was reduced to theater where he began with a role in a 1981, Los Angeles production of The Pirates of Penzance opposite Pam Dawber. Apparently Andy loved the excitement of being on stage and said he wished every night could be opening night.
His Broadway debut came in 1982 with a starring role in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. It appeared that Andy may have found a new niche in which he could carve out a great career.
There were even suggestions that he was hot contender for a Tony award after his initial performances in ‘Dreamcoat’. However, his cocaine habit once again came to the fore and he was eventually fired after he missed 12 performances in six weeks. Andy later denied this in several interviews citing that his leaving Broadway was mutual and was due to a singing voice not used to the rigors of daily shows sometimes two performances a day.
Opening Night for ‘Pirates’ was both thrilling and nerve racking for the musically talented but inexperienced actor who was not used to singing at the highest of level several nights in a row. Walking back-and-forth in his tiny dressing room rehearsing his lines often breaking into song so he would not forget the musical portion was interrupted by a knock on the door. It was his co-star and ‘Mork and Mindy’ star Pam Dawber. She brought along a friend for well wishing, her co-star in in ‘Mork” Robin Williams. For a moment Andy was star-struck and honored that Robin would wish him “Break a Leg” before his big debut.
In Gilbert and Sullivan’s version, the Pirates of Penzance are a band of zany lapsed aristocrats who rescue a group of young girls from spinsterhood. The Pirates of Penzance was a lifeboat for Dawber and Gibb who were both experiencing career purgatory. As Mork’s Mindy, Pam Dawber has watched her once top-rated series nose-dive in 1981; likewise, Andy had languished as well.
“My career’s been going nowhere,” Andy admitted before the operetta premiered.
“Let’s face it, I haven’t had a hit for quite a while.” Added a Dawber: “No one seems to know I can do anything but be Mindy.”
Los Angeles Times curmudgeon Dan Sullivan, who had reservations about Dawber and Gibb, declared that the L.A. rendition;
“blows you out of the water.”
Compared to Dawber and Gibb, he sniped, their Broadway counterparts, Linda Ronstadt and Rex Smith, “put you in mind of the high school play.”
That finally put at ease the apprehensive mind of Dawber, as she settled in for a three-month run in L.A. “It’s going to be a pleasure,” beams Dawber. “I love to sing more than anything — more than acting, even. And the magic of having an orchestra blaring out — it’s a real experience.”
Touching Pam’s hand during one of the ‘Pirate’ duets Andy felt the electricity of live performing. As an author of this article and a former stage actor, I understand the thrill of theater and also gasping for air as if it were your last because you are so scared but also loving every minute of it. Andy knew at that moment that this is where he was supposed to be and that he felt the transition of pop artist to stage performer. Maturity into his next phase of his career. Perhaps a new purpose from where he was stuck and depressed and sick with drugs. Perhaps. He felt he was ready to put his obsessive relationship with Victoria Principal behind him along with his notable drug abuse all the while knowing he was walking a high wire act intensely afraid to fall or be viewed as a failure to those who had supported him.
“One of my biggest fears is letting myself down. Not so much people, I have already let other people down. I have already done that an awful lot”.
During one of the epic song solos in ‘Pirates’ Andy felt the strain on his voice pulsating while struggling to hit one of the highest notes. He looked off stage to his friend Pam Dawber for comfort and she knew instinctively that he was in trouble. He felt the wave of failure coming again while all eyes from his family in the audience appeared to him to be judging him. What he didn’t realize is that his family loved him unconditionally and his stage success of failure would never change that. He was able to make it through the performance that night but was riddled with self-doubt.
In December 1987 Barry even took Andy to meet executives of Island Records and he signed his first record contract in 10 years. The next month, hidden away on Robin’s 16-acre estate, Prebendal, in Oxfordshire, he began writing songs for his much-vaunted comeback.
However, it was not to be. “Andy was too sensitive, too delicate,” Freddie Gershon, a former president of Stigwood’s record label RSO once said. “Superstars usually have a tough hide from having doors slammed in their face and hustling. Andy never built up those layers because he never had to.
Andy grew older but he didn’t grow up. He froze in time at about age 17.”
It certainly made me very spoiled [Success]. I thought that it was always going to be that way, always having the number one records. You also get a big ego [too much success early]and it becomes difficult and you’ve got to come back down to earth to control it. Andy NBC “Live at 5-New York”.
Barry Gibb recalled his last heartbreaking conversation with his baby brother: “The last thing that happened between me and Andy was an argument, which is devastating for me, because I have to live with that all my life. And there was a phone call between him and me and I was, sort of, saying, ‘Yeah, you’ve really gotta get your act together. . .’ and ‘. . . this is no good.’ Instead of being gentle about it — I was angry, because someone had said to me at one point — ‘Tough love is the answer,’ y’know? So, for me, it wasn’t, because that was the last conversation we had. That’s my regret. That’s what I live with.
But in early 1987, Gibb went through another drug rehabilitation program and thought he had finally beaten his habits. Gibb now aimed to get a recording contract for release of a new album in 1988. He returned to the studio in June 1987 recording four songs; one of them, “Man on Fire”, was released posthumously in 1991 on a Polydor Records anthology. Another track, “Arrow Through the Heart”, was the final song Andy would ever record and was featured on an episode of VH1’s series, Behind the Music, and released on the Bee Gees Mythology 4-disc box set in November 2010. The songs are co-written by Gibb with his brothers Barry and Maurice. Their demo recordings with engineer Scott Glasel were heard by Clive Banks from the UK branch of Island Records. Gibb never formally signed a contract but the record label planned to release a single in Europe that Spring, followed by another single that summer with the album to follow.
In early March 1988, Barry Gibb had arranged for Island in England to sign Andy, but when he went to England at the start of 1988, he panicked. Gibb missed meetings with the record company and blamed himself for his trouble writing songs. The deal was never signed.
As far back as I can remember my brother’s were always well known. So of course I always got along with people older than myself. Always grew-up with older people. Andy Gibb
Sister Sister
Barry remains the only brother alive with one sibling, a sister, not in the music business for many years. Lesley Gibb, now Lesley Evans, even sang with the band in their early days, but she chose to turn down fame and superstardom for a more conventional life. As her brothers continued to climb to stardom, Lesley remained in the background and away from the limelight. Like her brothers, Lesley also had a talent for singing. In 1969, when the Bee Gees were already international singing sensations, they were slated to appear in London for a live performance. But a few weeks prior to appearing on stage, the brothers had a huge fight that caused Robin to walk out on the group. It was the band’s manager, Robert Stigwood, who called Lesley to fill in for her brother at the sold-out show. Although Lesley wanted no part in her brothers’ fight, she stepped in at the last minute and rehearsed constantly for a month before the live performance.
“It was amazing. I loved it on the night,” Lesley said. “I know Robin watched it and he said he felt very choked up about it”
Luckily for Robin, Lesley never had any interest in show business, and as a new mother to twin daughters, she left her brothers to go home soon after the London show. Robin eventually returned to the band and Lesley went on to live a life of relative obscurity in Australia.
Lucky Stars
Andy Gibb’s last interview in People Magazine December 1987. The next time he would grace the cover be in March of 1988 after his untimely death:
“I’m such a lucky guy”
Weeks before his sudden and premature death, Andy Gibb went flying with journalist Malcolm Balfour over Biscayne Bay in Florida.
“This is what has taken the place of the drugs for me,” Andy was quoted as saying as he and Balfour “took off from Fort Lauderdale Executive airport and headed for the sparkling Atlantic Ocean”.
In some ways you would like to feel that Andy was preparing for the end of his life even though he spoke fondly about the future.
“We only go around once, so why not enjoy it?”
“I have promised myself that from now on I’m going to live life to the fullest..”
The weeks that passed from his last interview led to Andy falling gravely ill after his 30th birthday. His last words to the Doctor was an acknowledgement that more testing was needed to figure out why Andy was feeling fatigued and having pains in his stomach. He passed away alone in a hospital bed from a heart ailment due to years of cocaine and other drugs.
We would like to think that Andy had finally become comfortable in his own skin and that God recognized that Andy was ready. In our world Andy was so young at 30 years old but he had accomplished so much in that short time. His music lives on.
