The Ultimate Biography of The Bee Gees

by Hector Cook

  The Bee Gees’ road manager, Tom Kennedy, remembers Andy fondly. “Most people wouldn’t buy a lion at an auction — well, they might buy it to donate to a zoo, but he took it home to live on his houseboat!” he said. Andy kept the lion cub, named Samantha, on his houseboat until she began to grow too large, and only then was she donated to a Miami zoo.

  His sister Lesley remembered what happened next. She got an urgent phone call from her youngest brother, asking her if she could get him a kangaroo. Later, he made another call, Lesley said. “He [wanted] me to see if I can get a kangaroo for Olivia Newton-John too. I think I’ll quietly shelve the whole thing. I mean, where would he keep a kangaroo — on his boat? Anyway, Mum would probably end up having to look after it.”

  * * *

  “After Kim left me, I was really depressed,” Andy said. “Like for months and months, I didn’t want to do anything. Susie just lifted me right out of everything. She was incredible. I met Susie at a celebrity sports thing in Los Angeles. We had two days of filming together, and in those two days, she virtually heard my whole life story. We came close to being in love. But we never got so involved that we talked about marriage or even living together. We just had a beautiful relationship … At one time it was a bit more — but now we have a kind of brother and sister relationship.”

  “Susie” was British film star Susan George, eight years Andy’s senior. Following their appearance on the US Against The World television sports special, the two were seen together at various show business functions. “Andy and I were the best of friends but there was no affair,” she said later.

  Publicly, Andy was still denying a drug problem, going so far as to criticise his brothers for once using drugs. “It totally puts me off,” he said. “But I can understand the pressures, and they didn’t do themselves any permanent damage.”

  The ruse didn’t deceive Susan George. She recognised his dependence on drugs and tried to help him through it. “Those nights were terrible,” she recalled. “I would try my best and, to be fair, so would he. But it became too much … in the end, you feel helpless. It is really hard to judge what causes that unhappiness that led him into drugs. He was such a natural boy — never a bit fazed by all the success. He had tremendous charisma and vitality, he was always very special to me and always will be.”

  Back in Australia, his estranged wife was waiting for him. “There I was,” Kim recalled, “sitting at home with Mum and Dad, pregnant, believing Andy would be with me for the baby’s birth because he’d promised, no matter what, he would be there.”

  Instead, she received a cruel shock. “Suddenly, the Sydney press were calling me, telling me a press release had gone out saying that Andy and I were getting a divorce,” she recalled. “The divorce papers arrived two weeks before Peta was due. I don’t think I stopped crying until her birth.”

  Not only was Andy breaking his promise to be there for the birth; in a callous twist, the divorce papers served to the 19-year old stated that there were no children from the marriage; in effect, making the unborn child illegitimate. It was that which distressed Kim the most.

  “Everyone thought, back then, that I was after money,” she explained. “They always think that. But it was the principle I was fighting for, not money. The divorce lawyers in America were trying to pretend Andy and I didn’t have a child. They were trying to pretend she didn’t exist. I couldn’t accept that so I fought long and hard [that] it nearly killed me. My weight dropped to 45 kg, and I believe I had a breakdown.”

  A few days after the papers were served, Andy’s personal manager Jim Dayley phoned to find out if the child was born, telling Kim that Andy was off fishing.

  After a difficult 40 hour labour, Kim gave birth on January 25 to a daughter, whom she christened Peta Jaye after her obstetrician. “Kim was very lucky to have Peta,” said Yvonne Reeder. “The doctor thought she was going to lose her. She is heaven-sent, our baby.”

  Andy didn’t contact Kim at all after the birth. “He didn’t even send me a card,” she added.

  As soon she and baby Peta were released from hospital, Kim and her parents began looking through the Yellow Pages to find a lawyer to represent her in the divorce case. It wasn’t going to be an easy fight. With earnings of over $2 million in his first year, Andy could afford the best lawyers money could buy. Kim’s parents mortgaged the family home to finance the legal battle, to try to ensure that Peta would have the acknowledgement that she deserved.

  Back in the United States, Andy told reporters that he did not wish to see the new arrival.

  His parents were a little more forthcoming. Barbara explained that at 18, Andy had become “obsessed” with Kim. “Barry and Andy both married at 18, and in eight months, they were finished.”

  “You get kids of 18 getting married just because they think they can do what they want,” Hugh added.

  “They moved to Los Angeles,” Barbara continued, “and Andy had to go off to do a promotional appearance. It was only overnight, but when he returned, Kim had gone back to Australia. He couldn’t follow her because he had work commitments. So the Australian press wrote that he’d abandoned her without a penny.

  “Then she had a daughter Peta, and the press got on to Andy and asked if he wanted to see Peta, the baby. He said, ‘No.’ Well, the truth is, of course, he’d love to see her. If Andy and Kim had come to live near us, none of this would have happened,” she insisted.

  “My family is keeping me alive, not Andy’s,” Kim said bitterly. “He is giving money to his parents and to his niece, but he doesn’t seem to care for his own little girl. I haven’t got a cent. Andy refused to give me money and he said he would refuse to support me and my daughter.”

  But paradoxically, Kim clung to the memories of the old Andy. “He was just so loving,” she said.

  “That’s why we believe all these things he’s been saying to the press are out of character,” her mother added. “We can’t believe that he didn’t want to see his baby, that he absolutely refuses to give Kim even the minimum support money. That he was cruel to her.”

  Kim flew to New York in early April, and the divorce settlement was fought out in the American courts. When it was all over, Kim was awarded $225,000, of which $60,000 went into trust for Peta. Out of the balance, Kim had to pay all her own expenses; her doctor’s bills, plane fare to and from the States and accommodation there, as well as her legal fees to three international lawyers and the Australian QC representing her. “I tell that story so that people will know what really happens to money when you have to get involved with lawyers,” she said. “There was very little left after all the expenses. And you know, I really didn’t mind. I’d made my point — Peta was officially recognised. That’s all that mattered to me.”

  Kim and her lawyer, Mr L. Gruzman, returned to Australia on April 23 and were met by her family at the Sydney Airport. After a joyful reunion with her daughter, Kim told the waiting reporters that she was looking forward to “some peace and quiet.” She gave no details of the settlement and said she had had no contact with Andy during her three weeks in America.

  “All the discussions were handled by lawyers, we had about 15 between us.” she said. “All I want to do now is settle down with Peta.

  “I just want to look after my baby. I’ll try to give her the best education she can have. If she wants to learn the piano, or if she has a talent for anything, I’ll help her and foster it. But I’ll never force her into anything she doesn’t want to do. I want her to grow up to be a lady, a daughter Andy and I could both be proud of. But most of all, I want her to be happy.”

  * * *

  Just before Christmas, Andy went back into the studio to begin recording his second album, again produced by Barry with Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson.

  “Andy’s got a lot of energy,” Karl said, “and each time, like the first album we did, it has been so amazing to watch him grow to do the second album … I am sure when we do the third one, it will be even another quantum
leap. Each time he grows, the songs come through with more stuff, and he’s feeling it more. He spends a lot more time getting involved in the studio, so I’m looking forward to the next one. There is always a quantum leap when you are dealing with someone that young.”

  “The strongest characteristic to come to mind about Andy is the fact that he’s 20 now, and he’s just growing out of being a teenager,” Albhy explained. “He’s very inspirational. His brothers are more scientific. He’s doing something that they have been doing for years. With Andy, the quality of performance depends on the mood he’s in. He’s sort of a raw talent, very much unharnessed at this point.”

  Andy agreed that his mood was vital to all aspects of his career. “I believe you’re only good when you’re in the mood. If I feel like playing, I’ll play. When I feel like writing a song, I will. On the other hand, my brother Barry has the urge to write every day. He’s constantly writing. It’s his main hobby. I know I can write, but I just get lazy sometimes.

  “I can’t write when I’m depressed,” he explained. “But if I’m feeling okay, I can write about what it feels like when you are depressed. And if all else fails, I can always listen to Randy Newman or Don McLean and feel lifted again. They both construct marvellous songs.”

  Albhy tried to encourage Andy to work with other composers, in an effort to help him develop as a writer and broaden his horizons. “The first one that I got him together with was John Oates of Hall & Oates,” Albhy said, “because he’s a great facilitator … When Robert [Stigwood] heard about it, he called me up and he said, ‘Don’t let him do this, I don’t want him writing with anyone but his brothers.’

  “To me, that was a turning point in his life,” he added sadly. “What could have been … but instead he became The Bee Gees’ little brother, the fourth Bee Gee … When you love somebody, it’s very, very hard to push them out on their own and tell them succeed or fail on your own.”

  In 1979, Andy discussed the possibility of writing with other artists. “There have been times when it’s been arranged, but I always back out,” he said. “I was set to write with Hall & Oates, but I backed out. The only people I can write with are my brothers. I’d be terrified to write with anyone else. Yet the thing is, I know I should be more terrified writing with them because they are — in my mind, which I admit is biased — the very best!”

  Like his earlier singles, ‘Shadow Dancing’ was in sharp contrast to what Andy was writing himself. His most well known songs were a little at odds with what was coming from his own creative soul, but he was to “throw it all away” after this album.

  Barry’s songs for Andy were more ephemeral than those he wrote for The Bee Gees. ‘Shadow Dancing’ was a catchy chorus and a good dance groove, great for radio, not great for close listening. ‘An Everlasting Love’ might rely a little too much on the Barry falsetto backing, and the cycling repeating line of the chorus can become tiresome. But at the other extreme ‘(Our Love) Don’t Throw It All Away’ by Barry and Blue Weaver is a classic song, as suitable for an older singer as for Andy, and even the unnecessary bridge section Barry added for this version can only slightly detract from its beauty (but compare the older Bee Gees take, released later, with Barry and Blue).

  Andy’s own songs continue in the mould of the ‘Flowing Rivers’ songs, like ‘Melody’. Notably, at the UNICEF show in 1979 Andy chose to do one, ‘I Go For You’, instead of one of his hits. None really stand out, but they have a consistent flow. At times, he relied on Albhy’s musical expertise to help translate his ideas into reality. “He’ll sit down at the keyboards and find chords that we’re hearing,” Andy marvelled. “He’s magic. He hears exactly what you’re hearing. ‘One More Look [At The Night]’ — that came across in 10 or 15 minutes.”

  For the song, ‘Why’, Andy revealed, “I wrote all the melody … and I took it to Barry, pretty desperate with it, saying, ‘I just can’t put lyrics to this song. I’ve tried.’ I had tried; I tried for over a month on this song, and I was just on the verge of throwing it over my shoulder and going for another one. Barry put lyrics to it, and it’s now turned out as his favourite song on the album.”

  When Shadow Dancing was complete, Andy said, “I am so much more confident now after doing this second album, dealing with the pressures of proving to myself that the first one wasn’t a ‘fluke’ and that I could write a second album. So now I am a lot more confident.” With the benefit of hindsight, his words sound like whistling in the dark.

  RSO arranged a mini-tour of Europe to promote the new album, with planned appearances in England, Scotland, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden. It was less than a resounding success. On March 6, Andy arrived in London for the start of the tour, but soon there were warning signs that all was not well. During a live radio interview, he fell asleep while he was on the air. Some ten days later he arrived in Amsterdam, where he recorded ‘Shadow Dancing’ and ‘(Love Is) Thicker Than Water’ for the Dutch television programme Top Pop, but the following day, he collapsed during a photo shoot. The tour was cut short, and he flew home to Miami that same day.

  “I broke down, it certainly wasn’t mental,” Andy told Robert W. Morgan in a radio interview. “It was a sort of physical collapse and we had to cut the tour a few weeks short and bring me home to Miami; and that was like a month ago, so that’s it, I just get very tired, very quickly. Having to constantly talk about being successful, until you get used to that, I suppose, is a different thing for a person.

  “I haven’t had a lot of years struggling in the business of non-stop touring and everything else,” he further explained, “so I went out to do a promotional tour of Europe. Well, I’m not really big there, nothing like America. To go out there, naturally, they are really ready there for me to work and we had five weeks promotion and for three weeks we would be going from like six in the morning until two in the morning. I wasn’t eating all my meals, I was getting called away to all these meetings, not being able to finish my meals.”

  After the success of ‘I Just Want To Be Your Everything’, sales of ‘(Love Is) Thicker Than Water’ had proved initially worrying. “It slowed down,” Andy explained. “We were all scared. There’s lots of points where all the record people at RSO said they were a little worried that it was stopping. It didn’t lose its ‘bullet’, but it really heavily lost its jump in sales activity. And then, it picked up and nothing stopped it. So it was not predictable … but it’s still a commercial song. We believed in it. I think the momentum of the first record obviously helped the second a little, but it was, again, a different record.”

  ‘(Love Is) Thicker Than Water’ eventually entered the Top 10 of the American singles chart several weeks after its release, finally achieving the top spot on March 4 by muscling aside The Bee Gees’ ‘Stayin’ Alive’. It remained there for two weeks, before his brothers once again took control with ‘Night Fever’.

  ‘Flowing Rivers’ had been intended for release as a single in the UK at the same time as ‘Thicker Than Water’ reached number one in the USA but was withdrawn in favour of ‘Shadow Dancing’, which was released worldwide in April. It would only achieve number 42 in the British chart, but it became his third consecutive American number one, remaining at the peak position for the next seven weeks and making him the first solo artist in the history of the American Top 40 to have their first three singles top the charts. The song would also be named the number one song of the year on Casey Kasem’s year-end countdown, giving him the top spot two years in a row.

  It was an amazing run of success, but Hugh Gibb observed, “It’s like the old story, too much too soon. I think he was about … 19, when he had his first number one. I think he’s the only person at that time to have three number ones in a row from starting. His brothers didn’t. The Beatles didn’t, but bang bang bang, three number ones in a row … He couldn’t handle it.”

  “[It was] very exciting, of course,” Barbara added, “because this was something he’d worke
d for and he wanted to be a big star. Of course, it did go to his head. I mean, it really did go to his head. He was young, you know.”

  “I got carried away at first on material things,” Andy admitted later, “and I bought… a 308 Ferrari, which was very expensive and very flashy. I don’t suppose it was money — the cost of upkeep and insurance — as much as the boredom that caused me to get rid of it. The novelty wore off. It just wasn’t the right kind of car for Miami.”

  Andy’s appearances on American television were helping to boost his already thriving career. After his first appearance on the Donny & Marie Show, there were rumours that it had been love at first sight for the youngest Gibb brother and the only Osmond sister.

  Initially, Andy confirmed the stories. “She’s a beautiful girl. I never thought it would happen to me but we met and wham! That was it,” he said. “And vice versa. It’s gone a lot further since then. We speak a lot on the phone. And I’ve sent her flowers. Two dozen yellow roses with one red one in the middle.”

  “There’s nothing to it on Marie’s side,” said Marie’s mother, Olive Osmond. “It’s ridiculous. As far as she’s concerned, he’s just a friend. We laugh about it. I don’t think my daughter would marry outside her faith. She’s basically religious. She wants a temple marriage and thinks the ideal age is around 23. Then she’ll settle down and have a family. She and Andy are working together on some records, and there’s no room for anything else. She told me Andy had been calling her. Sometimes he gets kind of lonely and sometimes it’s business.”

  “Andy had a crush on Marie,” Albhy Galuten verified, “and they had seen each other, but … he was doing tons of drugs, and she was not even drinking Coca-Cola. Talk about unrequited love!”