As some of you might remember, Robert Downey Jr. and I ran together a lot back in the late 1980s through the mid-1990s. I always found Robert to be very funny and, of course, very talented. I’m incredibly impressed by how he reinvented himself and became one of the most popular actors of today. It’s a remarkable turnaround when you think back to how things were back in the day. We had so much fun, but of course the damages took their toll. It was a crazy time. There were many nights we spent both together and with people we were dating (or in his case, married to), and I have fond memories of a lot of those experiences. There were also times when things would get woefully out of control, and I could probably write an entirely separate book about all of those nights spent with Robert and other young actors and entertainers who all got caught up in the madness of the Hollywood drug culture.
But I’m not writing this memoir to catalog every single one of those experiences. For one thing, I think it would get old fast. And for another, I’m sure I can’t remember most of them, given how hard we were all hitting it back then. But one night remains vividly etched into my memory; it wound up being a blend of tragedy and comedy, and it sort of exemplifies just how over the top everything was getting.
In the mid-1990s, the industrial band Orgy had recently signed a record deal, and to celebrate we had a party up at Matt Sorum’s house in the Hollywood Hills. Matt was then the drummer for Guns N’ Roses, and he was a cool guy and a great player. A lot of musicians were hanging out with actors then, each fascinated with the other. As I recall, the house (formerly Madonna’s) was a very cool space and was a great place to make music in. There was a studio downstairs, and a bunch of us were hanging out: the guys from Orgy, Matt, Mark McGrath, and Robert and his wife Debbie, among others.
Debbie had gone into the bathroom and didn’t come out for a long time. Robert started banging on the door, and there was no answer. I climbed in through an outside window and shockingly, found Debbie on the floor having some kind of seizure. I wasn’t sure what exactly had happened. We were all doing a lot of drugs—cocaine, smoking heroin, and drinking. It appeared she had fallen forward and hit her head on the sink. But I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that we needed help and needed it fast. “Call 911!” I yelled out. But right away Robert tried to assure me she was okay. “She’ll be fine. We don’t need to call anybody. Don’t move her.” Matt started freaking out: “Oh my god, nobody say a word. Get her out of here! We need to clear the space up right now!” Then he ran out of the room. In fact, everybody started leaving, quickly. The guys from Orgy bolted; Mark McGrath bolted—it was just me, Robert, and Debbie left in the bathroom. She started coming to, but she was groggy. “Debbie, how many fingers am I holding up?” I asked her. “Eighteen.” Things were not looking good, and I still wanted to call 911. I wasn’t going to let her die. Addicts get very paranoid. Nobody wants to call the law; nobody wants to call paramedics; nobody wants anybody official entering the scene. I totally understood this and have been there many times myself. But for some reason, that night I had my wits about me, and I knew we needed to help this woman or else. So I made the call. Within minutes, an ambulance pulled up to the house, and both Robert and I were nervous as two female paramedics came in to try to resuscitate Debbie. Would they recognize us? Thankfully neither one of them did. They were there to focus on the problem at hand, and that made things easier. One hassle avoided.
When they loaded Debbie into the ambulance, they asked Robert if he wanted to ride along. He said no, which really surprised me. “That’s your wife, man. You have to go with them.” “No, no, no,” he assured me. “This will be okay. We will follow up in my car.” I should have known Robert had something else on his mind. We got into his Audi, me behind the wheel because Robert was so fucked up, and started following the ambulance to City of Angels Hospital on Vermont Avenue. “You should be in that ambulance, man,” I said to him. But he had other plans. I saw him on his cell phone, and I said, “What are you doing?”
“We’ve got to pick something up.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Look, I was an addict too. But there was a time and a place for everything. This was not the time to be scoring. But I gave up. He called our dealer and told him we were coming by to pick up an eight-ball. But it didn’t stop there. He also wanted to stop at a liquor store to pick up some vodka and orange juice. I pulled in to a minimart where I saw a liquor store, and I went in to get what he wanted. Me, I was just craving a Yoo-hoo. This is probably a good point in the story to tell you that I believe this was the only night in my life I was wearing white jeans. When I got in the car and started driving back toward the hospital, I shook the Yoo-hoo up before drinking it but forgot I had opened it already. My pants all of a sudden were covered with the brown liquid, and it looked like I had shat myself.
We finally arrived at the hospital, and I said to Robert, “Come on,” as I got out of the car. He refused. “They will recognize me in there. You go inside and see what’s going on. Then come get me.” This was getting stupider by the second. But he was my friend, and I did what he asked of me. This was me all over, I’m telling you. I did pretty much whatever anybody wanted, when they wanted, sometimes putting all common sense aside. Anyway, I walked into the hospital, found the emergency room admittance desk, and asked where Debbie Downey was. “Get in here quickly!” she said. “Obviously something has happened to you!” “Leave me alone,” I said. “I’m fine. I’m just trying to find out what room she’s in.” They were reacting to the Yoo-hoo stains on my white jeans. I explained that I was fine, and the scene got crazier.
They wouldn’t tell me where Debbie was because I was not a family member, and I explained to them that her husband was in the car, that he would come in in a moment, but could they please be low-key if they recognized who he was? They seemed to understand, so I went back outside to fetch him. When I got back out there, I felt like I was watching an outtake from the film Scarface. Robert had white powder all over his face; obviously he hadn’t told me in the car that he had been holding out. He finally got his shit together and went inside the hospital, and Debbie was ultimately okay. Robert and I reconnected later that night, and he seemed genuinely relieved that she was okay. That made me feel better. But this was the kind of thing that would happen with me and my friends all the time. And trust me, I was as bad as any of them. The amount of drugs we were doing was becoming so out of control that we were literally risking our lives and the lives of our loved ones on a regular basis. Again, I’m very proud that Robert cleaned himself up, did his time, and went on to create the career that he has. It’s a great example that it’s never too late. And I think it’s something we all can learn from.