Sometimes, it takes an addict: addiction explains the lives of Blake Edwards, Bambi Bembenek and Pete Postlethwaite.
Sometimes, it takes an addict:
Writer-Director Blake Edwards, dead from complications of pneumonia at 88. Edwards, who got sober in 1963, married actress Julie Andrews in 1969 and remained sober and married for the next 41 years. Although he had some success after he got sober (“Victor/Victoria” from 1982, “10” from 1979, “The Great Race” from 1965 and, one of the few relatively obscure movies I don’t tire of, 1968’s “The Party” starring Peter Sellers), Edwards directed many of his great movies during a flurry of activity over a few years while drinking alcoholically: “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1961), “The Pink Panther” (1963), “Operation Petticoat” (1959) and, incredibly, “Days of Wine and Roses” (1962), which is often billed as one of the greatest alcoholic movies ever, starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remmick as two addicts on the decline (briefly reviewed in Drunks, Drugs & Debits). Five months in traction resulting from a dive into a shallow swimming pool shortly after high school while in the Coast Guard during WW2, after a night of alcohol-fueled partying, didn’t get him sober. The making of the film however, during which he and Lemmon partied hard, apparently did (Edwards admitted “the film had as much to do with [getting sober] as anything did”). (Lemmon and Remmick got sober long after completing the film.)
Laurie “Bambi” Bembenek, a former Playboy Club bunny and police officer convicted of shooting her then-husband Fred Schultz’s ex-wife Christine Schultz, dead of liver failure at 52. She was sentenced to life in prison in 1982 for the murder, but escaped in 1990 and was recaptured a few months later. She maintained her innocence and, after her original case was set aside she pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and was released on parole in 1992. It often takes multiple addicts to create a story convoluted and interesting enough to attract international attention and inspire a movie (“Woman on Trial: The Lawrencia Bembenek Story,” starring Tatum O’Neal), and hers is likely no exception. She admitted to alcoholism and Fred Schultz, who claimed he was on duty investigating a burglary with his partner at the time of the murder, later admitted they were actually drinking at a local pub. Following Bembenek’s conviction, a career criminal, Frederick Horenberger, boasted of killing Christine Schultz to other inmates while serving a ten-year sentence for having robbed and beaten a former close friend and fellow police trainee of Bembenek’s, Judy Zess, who had been dismissed from the police department following an arrest for smoking marijuana. As pointed out in Drunks, Drugs & Debits, we can’t truly make sense of current events and history without understanding the addiction that was often an essential component in creating those events. However, that doesn’t mean we can always identify which addict is the ultimate culprit when tragedy happens.
And so long, too, to British actor Pete Postlethwaite, dead at 64 of cancer. Described as “wild and true, lionhearted, unselfconscious, irreverent” and “edgy,” Postlethwaite, who when his agent suggested he change his name opted to instead change his agent, had a bulbous nose that was broken playing rugby as a boy and re-broken “in barroom brawls as a man.” Director Jim Sheridan, who is credited as having brought him to international attention in “In the Name of the Father,” described him as having “lived life to the full” and “the most gorgeous human being you ever met….He was a great, great actor.” He also said, “He drank, but he could hold his drink. At the same time, he was the most professional. So he was a weird combination.” Steven Spielberg, who directed him in “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” and “Amistad,” reportedly called him “probably the best actor in the world.” My favorite was his portrayal of Danny in “Brassed Off,” the British film featuring a beautiful version of Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez.” While we can’t be absolutely certain—all too often, the most destructive attributes of alcoholism are hidden behind closed doors—the best explanation for a “weird” combination of attributes as described, not to mention barroom brawls, is alcoholism.
Note to family, friends and fans of the above: the benefit of the doubt is given by assuming alcoholism (they are either idiots and fundamentally rotten, or they are alcoholic/other drug addicts—which would explain the misbehaviors). If alcoholic, there is zero chance that behaviors, in the long run, will improve without sobriety. An essential prerequisite to sobriety is the cessation of enabling, allowing pain and crises to build. Thus far, many have done everything they can to protect the addict from the requisite pain, making these news events possible. The cure for alcoholism, consequential bad behaviors and, ultimately, tragedy, is simple: stop protecting the addict from the logical consequences of misbehaviors and, where possible, proactively intervene.
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