Alcoholism created figure skater Christopher Bowman and rock-n-roller Ike Turner
Sometimes, it takes an addict:
U.S. figure skating champion Christopher Bowman, found dead at a budget motel in the San Fernando Valley from “unknown” causes. Bowman, a former child actor who had a part in “Little House on the Prairie” for one season, won the U.S. men’s figure skating titles in 1989 and 1992 and won spots in the Winter Olympics in 1988 and 1992, where he finished fourth. A fellow Olympic champion said Bowman was one of the three most talented skaters of all time and could turn on a crowd in seconds, describing him as a natural athlete with extraordinary charisma. Yet, training was a challenge because practice didn’t interest him, while drugs did. He went to rehab at least twice, once before the 1988 Olympics and again after the 1992 Games. Canadian skater Toller Cranston, in a 1997 book, Zero Tolerance, wrote how drug dealers and prostitutes rang Cranston’s doorbell at all hours in search of Bowman while they shared a home together. This seemed inconsistent with the fact that Christopher, according to observers who didn’t know how he did it, “was always on” during competitions, becoming known as “Bowman the Showman” for his dramatic flair and flirtations with female fans. The explanation, of course, is that Bowman, as he put it in describing his own “human garbage pail” use, felt “invincible,” which compelled him to overachieve (see clue # 1, “over-achiever, due to a need to win at any cost” in the chapter, “A ‘Supreme Being’ Complex” in How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics) and gain the spotlight. Bowman was 40.
Rock-n-Roller Ike Turner, who reportedly married an extraordinary 14 times, dead at 76 from cocaine overdose, with hypertensive cardiovascular disease and pulmonary emphysema listed by the coroner as “significant and contributing factors.” Turner is credited by many rock historians with making the first rock ‘n’ roll record, “Rocket 88″ in 1951, although it was officially credited to the record’s saxophonist and singer, alcoholic Jackie Brenston (Ike wrote the song). But he is perhaps best known for having discovered and then abused his second wife, Anna Mae Bullock, whom he christened with the stage name Tina Turner, who later told her tale of harrowing abuse in the 1987 autobiography, I, Tina and 1993 movie, “What’s Love Got To Do With It.” Although he denied abusing her, in his 2001 autobiography he admitted, “Sure, I’ve slapped Tina…There have been times when I punched her to the ground without thinking. But I never beat her.” Tina apparently didn’t appreciate the fine distinction between being “punched to the ground” and being “beat,” and walked out on him during their 1975 tour. In the 1980s, cocaine addiction drained his finances and he ran afoul of the law numerous times. He said he often prayed, “God, if you let me get three days clean, I will never look back.” While he couldn’t make it to three days on his own, he finally got the help he desperately needed with a legal intervention stemming from an arrest and conviction in 1989. He may have had an assist in staying clean and sober for a time by always being mindful of the reason he missed the 1991 ceremony in which he and Tina were jointly inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: he was in prison. He reportedly stayed sober until near the end (notwithstanding his denial of having beat Tina), when his emphysema was so advanced he was on oxygen and extremely weak. We might surmise the relapse was intended to kill.