Cover Story:
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Andrew Myler, left, Bo Foxworth, Bruce Greenwood, Casey Sander and Greg Kean play sunny stars. |
Cover Story:
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Andrew Myler, left, Bo Foxworth, Bruce Greenwood, Casey Sander and Greg Kean play sunny stars. |
It's no secret the story of the Beach Boys, the pop vocal group that sold the world a golden vision of California consisting of convertibles, bikinis, endless summers and crashing waves, is also a story of drugs, mental illness, alcoholism and child abuse.In fact, say writers and others associated with this weekend's TV movie, "The Story of the Beach Boys: Summer Dreams," the very tragedies that haunt the band to this day are an important part of what makes the Beach Boys the quintessential American pop group.
"It's really the story of an American family and how they struggled with problems that are happening on every block in this country," said Steven Gaines, whose book "Heroes and Villains: The True Story of the Beach Boys" was the basis for the two-hour movie. "It's the story of three brothers and a father."
"Summer Dreams," which can be seen at 9 p.m. Sunday on KABC (Channel 7), stars former "St. Elsewhere" actor Bruce Greenwood as the Beach Boys' drummer, Dennis Wilson, who had been fired from the group because of his alcoholism, and who drowned a few days after his 39th birthday in 1983.
Actor Greg Kean plays Brian Wilson, the talented but troubled composer-singer who led the group out of suburban Hawthorne to worldwide fame and then crumbled under his emotional problems. The movie concentrates chiefly on Dennis, who is often seen as the heart of the Beach Boys, and Brian, who is seen as the brains of the band. The third Wilson brother, Carl, the steadying force who kept the band going through tough times, is seen as a relatively minor character.
Using the Gaines book as the basis, screenwriter Charles Rosin had to walk a fine line in creating dialogue for key scenes after it became clear the Beach Boys would have nothing to do with the production. Not even the band's original recordings appear on the soundtrack, and the group's hits have been re-created for the production.
"The boys are not commenting on the project," confirmed Beach Boys spokesman Sandy Friedman. "They've been contacted by the press internationally, nationally and locally. The television show was unauthorized. Nobody came to them about it."
Still, there's no denying the bare bones of the group's story. Dialogue in the recording studio at the group's beginning may have been created for the film but some of the more unpleasant details in the film have been documented previously. This includes the story of how the Wilson brothers' domineering father, Murray Wilson, punched a teen-age Brian in the ear with such force that he has never heard his songs in stereo, (although over the years Brian has offered conflicting reasons for his hearing disability).
Greenwood said the hardest part of the Dennis role was "the only person that knows how it was, was him, and he's not here anymore. We made a sincere effort to be honest and tell it as we saw it, but if you don't have input from the guys who were really there, you're going to miss stuff."
The film did get assistance from actress and independent producer Karen Lamm, who wed Dennis in 1976 and again in 1978. She is portrayed in the film as the one true love of his life, although he comes across as a tireless womanizer.
"At first, I didn't like the way Dennis came out," Lamm said during a recent interview. "He reflects on me, so I went in to make the changes. The changes that needed to be made were Dennis, Brian, myself and Audrey (the boys' mother). The characters are much clearer now. In the beginning, they had Dennis as a joker of sorts, but that was the way he covered up his sensitive side. But when he drank, he was a completely different person."
The film, directed by Michael Switzer, starts out with the death of Dennis and then flashes back to the early '60s, when the three Wilson brothers, cousin Mike Love and school chum Al Jardine, form a band and promptly hit on the topic that caught the imagination of the world -- surfing.
An amusing scene occurs when the band members find out that their record company has decided to call them the Beach Boys. They had originally wanted to be called the Pendletones, after the checked shirts popular among the beach crowd.
"At least we could've gotten free shirts from the company," one of the boys grumbles in the often humorous film. "But it's better than being called the Lifeguards."
Kean's Brian undergoes dramatic physical changes in the movie that clearly mirror his slow withdrawal from everyday life and those around him. At one point, he apparently balloons to more than 100 pounds and confines himself to his bed for weeks on end.
"Drugs were probably more a by-product of his other problems," Kean said of his part. "He was never able to please his father. He never got the congratulations or even a warm handshake from his dad. Brian's story is very interesting."
Greenwood believes the Beach Boys' story is relevant for a number of reason. "One of the primary ones is the drug situation is worse today than it has ever been, and part of the story chronicles Dennis' unfortunate descent into that world," he said. "A guy with abundant spirit and love of life ends up in pieces."
Among the lesser-known elements of the group's story portrayed in "Summer Dreams" are encounters with convicted killer Charles Manson, and the origins of Brian's highly publicized reliance on Eugene Landy, a therapist with unorthodox treatment methods that included actually living with his patient.
"Manson recorded 10 songs with Dennis," said author Gaines (who also co-wrote "The Love You Take," a biography of the Beatles, with former Beatles aide Peter Brown). "The Beach Boys put Charles Manson on the charts."
Manson and Dennis co-wrote a song called "Never Learn Not to Love," which was released as the flip side of the single "Bluebirds over the Mountain" in 1968. "Manson's original title for it was 'Cease to Exist,'" Gaines said.
Greenwood, who has a part in the new feature film "Wild Orchid," said he jumped at the part of Dennis when he learned it was open. "I knew this was something I really wanted to do," he said. "There was a grueling audition process, and when I finally got the gig, I was ecstatic."
"We had a riot doing it. We even met at my house on the weekends to run over stuff. It was one of the best working experiences I've had. We all were really bummed when it was over. We wanted to go on tour."
"This is a very dark and shocking story," Gaines said. "The music personifies good-time California, but what's shocking is the story behind their lives. Can you imagine one family having all this going on?"
He added:"There will always be a Beach Boys. They're the ultimate American band. They're a legitimate part of our culture, part of the fabric of American life. It was through the Beach Boys that a billion people around the world fell in love with California. Nothing sold the state and the lifestyle as well as their music. They'll be around forever."
Ultimately, the group's story is one of banding together in times of trouble, Gaines said. "This is a family that stayed together. That's more than you can say for Sonny and Cher."
Said Lamm: " If they ever did a story on Beach Boys' wives, they'd have an eight-hour miniseries."
While the degeneration of Dennis and Brian is colorfully documented in the film there were some scenes from the book that were too graphic for television, Lamm said. Much of that material involves Murray Wilson, who died in 1973.
"I've heard so much about the mental anguish, as well as physical abuse," Lamm said. "He would beat the hell out of a couple of the boys, mainly Dennis, so I think the movie shows as much as needs to be seen. You get the point. This is a guy that tortures his children"
At one point, the bank fired their manager-father, who then turned around and sold the group's song-publishing rights for a relatively small sum.
Gaines thinks one reason the Beach Boys refused to have anything to do with "Summer Dreams" might be the concern that they would not have the final say in the project. "The Beach Boys like to control everything about them, and they had no control over this," Gaines said.
Lamm has another view: "I guess there was no money to be made for them. It wasn't economical for them"
Whatever the reason, there have been no rumblings from the Beach Boys' camp of displeasure or potential litigation over the script.
"I gather through their silence, they don't have much of an issue with it," said Greenwood.
Summer Dreams: the story of the Beach Boys
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