Natalie Cole

Natalie Cole had it all, then did her level best to screw it up. She did a great job. It took about 10 years to demolish her life. She did a great job. It took her nearly a decade to put it all back together. She did a great job.

It took a long time to do it right in detail, so she decided to write a book about her experiences. The publishing deal with Warner Books for "Angel On My Shoulder: An Autobiography" (written with Digby Diehl) was signed on Jan. 4. Several major networks were interested initially in turning the project into a telefilm, then passed one by one as their development departments most likely were demolished and reconstructed.

In April, the NBC Network suddenly expressed an interest in turning the book into a movie-of-the-week called "Livin` For Love: The Natalie Cole Story" - with the stipulation that it would meet a Dec. 10 air date. Nobody at NBC had seen as much as a galley proof of the book and there was no screenwriter attached. "Angel On My Shoulder" was published on Nov. 8, the same day her 27th album, "Natalie Cole: Greatest Hits Volume 1" (Elektra) was released.

"Things got a little intense," laughs Cole, 50, "especially because the first scriptwriter didn`t work out and it put us weeks behind. Then, I started working with Cindy Myers, who did a phenomenal job. The real problem was that I had just started a five-week European tour at that point, so there was a lot of e-mailing back and forth. In other words, it was just madness.

"Things didn`t settle down until we got Robert Townsend to direct and the casting out of the way," she continues with a deep sigh of relief. "We started in Toronto on Sept. 26 and finished Oct. 20, which is preposterous. When I left the production to promote my book, we were in the ninth revision of the script."

As one of the executive producers of "Livin` For Love," Cole saves a fortune by playing herself from 1984 to the present. Theresa Randle ("Space Jam") portrays the singer/actress from 1970 to 1983; a couple of little girls take her back to childhood. James McDaniel ("NYPD Blue") plays her father, legendary singer Nat King Cole, and Diahann Carroll ("Sally Hemmings") portrays her nurturing mother, Maria. Randy Goodwin ("Girlfriends") appears as one of her ex-husbands, songwriter Marvin Yancy.

"Playing myself was very tough because I had to go deeper emotionally than I did while writing the book," Cole explains. "The written word is quite different when you put it in your mouth and spew it out again as a character. It was a bit like an out-of-body experience. It became very emotional with he chronology of events, to the point where I was crying practically every day. I was relating everything to a dual life; a woman who has a wonderful career while the demons play in the background."

Born in Los Angeles along with three sisters and an adopted brother (who died five years ago of AIDS-related causes), Cole grew up in luxurious surroundings powered by her father`s wealth and fame.

"My dad did a lot of traveling and my mother often went with him, but we had a great house and a warm environment - I had a very good childhood and relationship with both of them," she says. "But once my father died (in 1965, when she was 15), our family fell apart," Cole continues. "I just don`t think my mother was prepared to be a widow and to lose that security that she`d had for 27 years. Emotionally, she found it very, very difficult. She needed that emotional support for herself, therefore, we didn`t get it. She was remarried four years later - to screenwriter Gary DeVore (who drowned as the result of a car accident in 1997) - but it only lasted seven years."

Shortly after her father`s death, Cole was sent to an East Coast boarding school and eventually enrolled as a liberal arts major at the University of Massachusetts. While there, she became a "therapist`s dream," experimenting with alcohol and a number of drugs, including marijuana and LSD.

"It started off socially, out of curiosity, but got out of control shortly after I graduated in 1972," she explains. "I did it all, but my downfall was heroin and cocaine."

She dropped the drug habit for "several years" while married to Marvin Yancy from 1976 to 1980 - by the time their son, Robert, was born - but got back on the needle by 1979.

"I did a lot of dumb, horrible things when I was a druggie," says Cole. "The worst thing was when my little son fell into the swimming pool and almost drowned while I was in my room getting high with the dealer guy. A couple working for me, neither of whom could swim, jumped in and saved him."

But she didn`t say no to drugs until Nov. 29, 1983, after a six-month stay at Minnesota`s Hazeldon Foundation. "I celebrate my sobriety like a birthday every year," says Cole, almost in a whisper. "I guess I was drawn to the recklessness of it all, then didn`t know when to stop. In that situation, you don`t realize that you have a problem until you decide you have a problem, which makes this thing so crazy."

Undeniably talented, Cole`s 1975 debut album, "Inseparable" (recorded during a sober period), went gold, spawned a Top 10 single, "This Will Be," and earned her two Grammy Awards. Straight or doped up, she continued the early success with a string of hit albums including "Natalie" (1976) and the 1977 platinum efforts "Unpredictable" and "Thankful." Her popularity slowed down during the mid-1980s, but she made a favorable impression with the 1989 album "Good to Be Back."

However, Cole wasn`t back in force until "Unforgettable, With Love" (1991), the celebrated homage to her late father where their voices were melded electronically, that sold more than 14 million copies worldwide and garnered seven Grammy Awards. To date, she has sold more than 30 million records and her numerous awards include 13 Grammys.

Looking for new creative outlets, she launched her acting career in a 1992 episode of "I`ll Fly Away" - followed by such cable movies as "Lily In the Winter," "Always Outnumbered" and "Freak City."

Though her six-year marriage to arranger-producer Andre Fischer ended in 1995, Cole leads a happy and healthy life in Los Angeles` lush Benedict Canyon, surrounded by every creature comfort and relieved that her son has found a career as a drummer while working on his master`s degree at the University of California, Berkeley.

She reportedly has been dating a mystery man outside show business for the past four years, but declines comment on the relationship.

"It`s hard to find a good man to put up with a good woman," she laughs, "and then there`s trying to find a guy who will put up with the kind of woman who does what I do."

(c) Copley News Service

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Author: Eirik Knutzen