Around others, we called our son “Baby Brian” or “Little Brian,” hopeful that he would acquire the best personal traits of his famous second cousin and believing that Brian Wilson would once again be part of all of our lives. I even had reason to believe that the injustices committed long ago against both of us, by my uncle Murry, would be reversed.
Tom Hulett, our manager, would have drinks with Landy as a way to keep the door open with my cousin, and in 1986, Landy told Tom that Brian was going to sue Irving Music, the parent of A&M Records, whose Almo/Irving publishing arm bought the Sea of Tunes catalog in 1969 for $700,000. According to Landy, Brian was going to try to win back his publishing rights, and he, Landy, was driving the case.
One of Brian’s representatives called me to discuss the suit, and on December 5, 1986, my lawyer, Robert Kory, and I met with Brian’s attorneys, John Mason and Jim Tierney. They said they believed they could reverse the 1969 sale. Even though it had occurred seventeen years earlier, they said mental incompetency could overturn the statute of limitations, and they were going to argue that Brian was mentally incompetent at the time. My testimony, Tierney said, would be critical in explaining the early days of the Beach Boys and how Murry interacted with Brian. He asked me some questions about Sea of Tunes, and I told him I really didn’t know anything about it, beyond what Brian had told me, which was that he controlled it while his father administered the songs.
I told them I was still unhappy about the many songs that I had coauthored but had never been given credit on nor compensated—I had been cheated, and no one had been held accountable. Tierney said if they won the suit, they would get the songs back so that we could correct the copyright issues. He also told me that they would give me a third of whatever they won in the case. We talked as well about my writing with Brian again, without any interference from Landy.
All of that sounded good to me, incredibly good, as I had given up hope that I would ever regain the copyright of my songs. I assumed that even if I had a valid legal claim, the statute of limitations had expired. That occurred to me when David Lee Roth’s cover of “California Girls” had become a sensation. Even if I told people that I had written the lyrics, who’d believe me? I reached the point that whenever someone asked me what I did for the Beach Boys, I just said I was the lead singer and didn’t mention that I was a lyricist.
On December 22, 1986, just a few weeks after we had met with Brian’s lawyers, they sent me a letter confirming what we had discussed, including that I would receive a third of any proceeds from their suit. That was fine, but what I most wanted was to set the record straight on my songs and to once again work with Brian.
The problem was Landy, who was never going to cede control of the person who was making him rich (Brian was paying him about $300,000 a year) and famous (Landy was profiled on TV and in magazines as the man who saved Brian Wilson). Landy was negotiating with Warner Brothers about a movie on the Brian Wilson/Gene Landy story. The relationship was naked exploitation, and creepy. Landy and Brian once went to a costume party together—Landy dressed as a doctor, Brian as a skeleton. Landy created a company called Brains and Genius, for “Brian and Gene,” a partnership that allowed Landy to pursue his songwriting ambitions while Brian was attempting his comeback as a solo artist. Even after our board meeting in August of 1988, when Landy vowed to reconnect Brian to the group, the “firewall” remained. Landy’s pledge was a ruse to get us to write a letter in his defense against the California authorities.
We never wrote the letter, and Brian’s public behavior continued to unsettle. In 1989, at the end of an interview with Howard Stern, Brian said that appearing on the show was “like taking two amphetamines!”
While the California AG’s office investigated Landy, my brother Stan was not waiting around. He saw a television news report about a lawyer named Tom Monson who had just won a large judgment against a psychiatrist. Stan wrote Monson a letter explaining Landy’s control of Brian and asked Monson if he could help him remove Brian from Landy’s grip. Monson recommended filing a petition for conservatorship, which, if successful, meant that a court-appointed lawyer, or conservator, would be responsible for Brian’s financial affairs and medical decisions.
I contributed money to get the ball rolling, and Stan garnered the necessary support from Brian’s children, Wendy and Carnie; from Brian’s mom; from Carl; and from Marilyn, who in a deposition accused Landy flat-out of “brainwashing” Brian. Aunt Audree said the same thing.
As Stan was laying the groundwork, the AG’s investigation of Landy finally yielded results. In 1989, Landy signed a settlement with state authorities over charges of professional misconduct, including having sex with a female patient. Landy was forced to surrender his license to practice in California, and he agreed not to petition for reinstatement for two years.
The walls were closing in, as Landy’s principal—maybe only—source of income was now Brian, not as a patient but as a business partner. It was all the more reason for Landy to lead the charge against Irving Music. That suit, filed in September of 1989, sought $50 million in lost publishing royalties and $50 million in punitive damages, while the catalog itself, if reclaimed, was thought to be worth much more. Landy was to receive 15 percent of all proceeds.
In December of 1989, my attorney and I met with Brian and his lawyers as well as Landy to review my involvement in the case. I told them that I had drawn up a list of songs that I had cowritten but not been credited on, including “California Girls” as well as “I Get Around,” “Help Me, Rhonda,” “Catch a Wave,” and “Be True to Your School”—several dozen in all, which was only a partial list of the songs that I had written with Brian. I told them that I wanted credit for my songs.
Landy jumped off the sofa, yelled that I had no talent, and asked, “How dare you make this claim now?”
Landy understood that if I were given credit, the songwriter royalties that had been flowing to Brian as the sole author would now be divided with me, which would mean less money for Brian and less for his business partner, Eugene Landy. But I didn’t budge from my demand, and we secured the promises from Brian’s lawyers: if they prevailed, I would receive credit on those songs while also collecting 30 percent of the lawsuit’s proceeds, or a minimum of $2 million.
It was a strange time, in so many ways, as I was involved in two simultaneous legal proceedings with Brian—one allied with him and Landy in their claims against Irving Music, and one trying to drive them apart.
In May of 1990, as Wilson v. Irving began making its way through the courts, Tom Monson filed the petition requesting the conservatorship, and the filing prompted one of the most bizarre press conferences that anyone had ever seen. (The Beach Boys were touring and did not attend.) At the Los Angeles Press Club, Stan was at the lectern, explaining why Brian needed to separate from his “former psychologist,” when he looked up and stopped short. In strode his cousin.
“Why, we can ask Brian,” Stan said in amazement. “He’s here. I haven’t seen him in five years, and he just walked through the door.”
I’ll say this much for Landy—he was clever. When he got word of Stan’s press conference, which was held on a Monday, he sent Brian up to San Carlos, California, that weekend, and there he joined the Beach Boys, unannounced, onstage. He hadn’t performed with us, I believe, in three years, and we didn’t know why he appeared.
Immediately after the concert, Landy sent Brian back to Los Angeles, moving him like a pawn on a chessboard, and had Brian show up at Stan’s press conference. Wearing a tan sports coat and a black button-up shirt, Brian looked to be in good shape. Stan gave him the microphone, and Brian read from a piece of paper: “I have heard of the charges made by Stan Love, and I think they are outrageous, which means they are out of the ballpark . . . I feel great.”
Brian’s lawyer also disputed the claim that Landy had kept him estranged from the Beach Boys. Why, Brian had just performed with the group that weekend!
But Brian clearly wasn’t great. He slurred some of the words, appeared medicated, and was surrounded by bodyguards. Monson had had a difficult time serving him with his summons, so he ran out to his car, grabbed it, and pressed it against Brian’s chest on his way out.
News reports struggled to make sense of a story of one cousin trying to save another cousin against the wishes of that cousin.
The coverage, however, was seen by a former employee of Landy’s, and she gave us our first real glimpse into what was actually happening behind closed doors. We knew we were right in our efforts to free Brian, but it was far worse than any of us imagined.
—
Kay Gilmer, a twenty-seven-year-old music publicist, interviewed with Landy in March of 1990. She applied for the job because she loved Brian’s music—so much that she was not deterred by Landy’s offensive questions.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Do you have both?”
“Do you give head?”
When Landy asked her what she thought about psychiatry, Kay said, “I think it’s for people who are too lazy or too scared to dig down deep and work hard to find solutions for their own problems.”
“My,” Landy said, “you’re a feisty one, aren’t you? Can you start tomorrow?”
She worked at Brian’s studio on Pico Boulevard, and the office assistant, Caroline Henning, took her into her confidence and explained how the office worked. Brian was not to receive any phone calls or mail from his family, and he specifically was not to accept any calls from Gary Usher, one of Brian’s early lyricists. Gary was dying of cancer, and all he wanted to do was say good-bye to Brian, but Landy didn’t like him and would not allow it.
Extreme measures were also taken to isolate Brian from loved ones: Brian’s daughters had formed a singing group, and their first album was out, but any story about them in any of the trade magazines had to be ripped out before Brian could see it.
Even more alarming, to Kay, was how heavily medicated Brian was. Unable to prescribe meds himself, Landy called Dr. Solon Samuels, an eighty-two-year-old psychiatrist who ordered whatever Landy requested, and a pharmacy in Beverly Hills made the delivery. One of Landy’s aides, known as the “surf Nazi,” followed Brian around with a bag of pill bottles, and whenever Brian twitched or lashed out, the aide gave Brian pills to calm him. At times he swallowed eight or nine, of all different colors. Once, after Brian punched a hole in the wall, the aides sat him down, put an IV in his arm, and told him he was receiving a vitamin B12 drip. They would do it again, telling Brian that it was “time for your B12 drip.” Kay didn’t know what was in the solution, but she did recognize the name of one of the drugs dropped off by the pharmacy—amyl nitrates, or “poppers,” used to enhance a man’s sexual experience. Landy received boxes of them. Another time, Kay went into Landy’s office and saw twenty-five different bottles of drugs prescribed to Brian over a three-month period.
Landy frequently told Brian that Carl, Bruce, Al, and I were all “money grubbers” who were jealous of him and were trying to keep him down, and that only he, Landy, had his best interests at heart. This echoed what Brian had heard in the 1960s from his father as well as from some of the hipsters who told Brian that the Beach Boys were dragging him down. Landy seemed to enjoy humiliating Brian: when he had to sign a document, Landy made him get on his hands and knees. Landy or one of his surrogates kept Brian under constant watch, including in his social life. According to Kay, Caroline told her that Landy set up Brian with Melinda Ledbetter, and they double-dated with Landy and his girlfriend. Other accounts have Brian meeting Melinda randomly in a car dealership and dating under the supervision of Landy’s aides.
What was most disturbing was that Landy did not discard long-expired drugs but kept many half-filled bottles on the top floor of the office building. Some dated back to the 1970s, with the names of his famous patients still attached—Alice Cooper or Rod Steiger.
Though Kay had been there a short time, it was no secret that Brian was depressed and lonely. He once said to her, “You know, Kay, do you ever think about looking out into the ocean and swimming and swimming.” Landy’s actions made no sense: why keep these expired drugs within arm’s reach of a despondent, isolated man? She told Landy, “This stuff is dangerous. Shouldn’t you dispose of it?”
“No,” Landy said. “You keep it exactly where it is.” Stranger still were bottles of liquid adrenaline, with syringes, that were kept in a studio desk. When Kay asked about them, Landy said, “Don’t you touch that.”
“Brian can get it.”
“It’s none of your business.”
The final straw came when Kay was sent to Landy’s house to pick up an envelope. She looked inside and saw a revised will and testament for Brian, drafted by John Mason, which left 80 percent of Brian’s assets to Landy and his girlfriend, the rest to Carl and to Brian’s daughters. The document had not been signed.
Was this scenario, Kay thought, really possible? Convince Brian to change his will, and then leave out toxic drugs so that Brian might decide, what the fuck, it’s time to end it all?
The sequence had an altogether perverse logic: Kay heard Landy talk about how much money they were going to collect in the Irving Music lawsuit. Landy had saved Brian’s life when that life generated steady income, but now that Brian stood to collect millions of dollars, that same life, with a revised will, might be worth more dead than alive.
I had long thought Landy to be a greedy bastard and a megalomaniac, but Kay came to a different conclusion: he was pure evil.
She believed that if she stayed any longer, she’d be complicit in Landy’s designs against Brian, but before she left, she searched the office Rolodex and found Gary Usher’s number. She called him to explain why his messages had not been returned. Gary warned her: “If Landy knows that you’re calling me, he’d kill you. He’d literally kill you.”
Two months later, on May 25, 1990, Gary died of cancer at his home in Los Angeles.
Kay left her job after three weeks but took with her some of the expired drug bottles as well as names, phone numbers, and bank account information, all of which she turned over to the California Board of Medical Quality Assurance. When a representative of the agency asked her what she thought of Dr. Landy, Kay said, “If I was assured that he would burn in hell, it would be too good for him.”
Kay also shared her information with Tom Monson, who used it as part of the conservatorship proceedings. Four months after she stopped working for Landy, Kay began getting late night calls. She recognized the voice as someone who worked with Landy. “We know where you are,” he said. “You’ve been a bad girl.” Kay moved to Colorado and never heard from Landy or his enforcers again.
Brian’s memoir was published in 1991, and to promote it, he and Landy were interviewed in October on Primetime Live. Most of Diane Sawyer’s questions, however, centered on Landy’s misconduct. Compared to just three years ago, Brian looked miserable, his eyes unable to make contact with Sawyer, his face contorted, his answers jumbled. Landy was defiant, but his reign was almost over. As Landy’s cash machine, Brian was sputtering. His solo career had not taken off, his lawsuit had yet to produce anything, and Brian, inconveniently, was still alive, so his new will (now signed) did not yield benefits to anyone.
Carl and his own lawyer had taken over the conservatorship efforts, after Stan ran low on money. Carl’s style was to avoid confrontation at all cost, particularly in family matters (he was known by some as the “ostrich”), but he recognized Brian’s dire condition. His lawyer filed a new petition in 1991, which included Carl’s name, as well as Stan’s and mine. With Brian’s entire family unified, and with the evidence against Landy mounting, Brian’s lawyer knew he could never win a trial. In December of 1991, a settlement was reached between Carl’s lawyer and Brian’s lawyer that formally severed Landy’s ties to Brian while allowing a Superior Court judge to appoint a conservator. It would still take months for that transition to occur. Landy, however, had minimal contact with Brian thereafter, but the psychotropic drugs may have caused Brian greater neurological damage than the illegal drugs. Brian struggled for the next several years with shakiness, slurred speech, and mini-seizures.
Dr. Eugene Landy had achieved the near impossible: he saved Brian’s life but left him in worse shape than when he found him.