ANDY WILLIAMS on CBS SUNDAY MORNING

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/18/sunday/main5394688.shtml

Exerpt from Andy Williams New Book Released Today

Excerpt:

I grew up in the hungry 1930s when the Great Depression threw millions out of work, and overfarming, overgrazing, and a seven-year drought turned land to dust from Texas to the Canadian border. I can remember days when the wind blowing from the south carried a fog of choking black dust that blotted out the sun and left us gasping for breath. It settled on every surface and drifted like snow against walls and fences. There were two early summer days when it never got light as an endless dust storm raged around us, and over the next few days we heard on the radio that the winds had carried it right across the country, blanketing even the streets of Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., and Boston with black dust.

With their crops dead, their soil stripped away, and their land worthless, millions of dispossessed farmers and sharecroppers abandoned their homes and began a long hungry trek in search of work. Even in Wall Lake we saw rickety trucks passing through, piled with the possessions of gaunt families in threadbare clothes. Every night Dad came home with tales of hobos dodging the railroad "bulls" in the freight yards and riding the boxcars from one coast to the other, seeking work or a new beginning.

Hollow-eyed figures also haunted the highways around us, some making for Des Moines and Chicago, others with their faces set to the west, heading for California. Their shoeswhen they had anywere falling apart, and their clothes were so dust gray that they seemed to merge with the earth as they trudged slowly on. I can remember peeping from behind the shutters as they slowly shuffled past; it was like watching a parade of ghosts.

We were luckier than many in those long, hard years, but although we never were short of food, we were perennially short of money, and there was very rarely any to spare for new clothes. Mine were all hand-me-downs, but if our clothes were sometimes worn and threadbare, Mom made sure they were always clean. Any missing buttons were always replaced at once, and holes and tears were darned.

Our house in Wall Lake was always filled with music. Mom had the radio on from morning to night, tuned to a country music station, and she sang along as she did the washing, cooking, and ironing. I would often join in with her in my piping little treble voice. One of my earliest memories was of sitting on the kitchen floor, nibbling on a just-baked cookie, and clapping my hands as Mom sang a country tune and did a little dance just to make me laugh.

Dad was also very musical; he had learned to play half a dozen instruments at school and had a good singing voice. In those pre-television days our entertainment was homegrown: sitting around the piano in the evenings and singing together. When I was little, I'd stretch out on the worn, warm floorboards with my head under the piano stool and watch my father's feet on the pedals; for some reason that fascinated me. Our standard repertory was hymns, because my parents and my two older brothers formed the Presbyterian church choir; it had not even had one until Dad volunteered himself and his family. They rehearsed at home, and when Dick saw his mom, dad, and older brothers singing, he wanted to join in.

I didn't want to be left out, either, and tried to sing along with them as they practiced. At first I got black looks and demands to "hush up, Andy. We're trying to practice here." I'd let me shoulders sag and my head hang, stick out my bottom lip, and make my slow, mournful exit from the room, hoping that my dad would call me back and let me take part. It didn't happen, but the next day I'd be back, singing along until I got kicked out again. I used to vary my tactics. Sometimes I'd join in from the start and keep going until I was told to hush up; other times I'd sit silent in a corner while they sang the first couple of hymns, and then I'd join in, singing as quietly as possible. If any of my brothers cast an eye in my direction, I'd snap my mouth shut tight as a clam and put on a look of injured innocence.

Finally, when I was seven, I wore my dad down. He interrupted choir practice and said, "Andy, sing this verse on your own for me." When I had finished, my dadnever lavish with praise in case we got swelled-headedjust grunted, gave a brief nod, and then said, "All right, why don't you come and sit over here and practice with us?" From then on I was a full-fledged choir member.

The very first time he heard his four sons harmonize together, my dad became a man with a dream and a mission in life, convinced that we had a future as professional singers. The Williams Brothers were formed on the spot with my dad as manager, impresario, agent, PR man, and factotum. From that moment on, just like the main character in Death of a Salesman, my dadthe Willy Loman of Wall Lakefulfilled his dreams through us. We all loved singing at home, in school, at church, or anywhere, and Dad encouraged, trained, and nurtured us, forever pushing us to practice harder and longer. He wasn't really a clichéd, pushy "showbiz" parent, but I think he genuinely believed that singing might be a passport for us out of Wall Lake, Iowa, getting us out of the rut and giving us the chance to improve our lives in a manner that would never be open to us if we stayed where we were. And he was very cunning in some of the ways he went about keeping us in line with his vision.

Although Dad was our driving force, his idea of the right way to get us motivated had lasting effects. Time and again he would tell us, "You have to practice harder, because you're not as good as the others out there." It wouldn't have been so bad if he had said, "Come on. You're not as good as you think you are. You have the talent, but you still have to put in the work." The way he phrased it was a real body blow to our self-assurance. Whether as a result of this or not, my oldest brother, Bob, always had a negative outlook and never thought we were talented enough to perform professionally, and perhaps because I was the youngest, my dad's comments seemed to affect me even more than the others. I really took them to heart. I don't hold this against my dadhe was doing what he thought was bestbut it crippled my self-confidence. I worked as hard as I could, but I still didn't think I was good enough, and even now, seventy years later, despite all the success that has come my way, I still think I have to work harder because I'm not as good as the others out there.

I felt very proud the first Sunday that I followed my parents and brothers up onto the platform in the church as a member of the choice, even if it was composed only of members of my family. As I looked up, for the first time in my life I found myself facing an audiencethe congregationbut they were people I had known all my life. The familiarity of the setting and the faces looking up at me meant that I didn't really feel and nerves at all. At the end of the service my dad gave me another of those curt nods of approval: I had passed the test.

The Williams Brothers' first professional performances were also pretty low-key. We sang at a church social and then at an Iowa Farmers' Association picnic, and didn't get paid for either of them. Our first paycheck came when we sang at the wedding of the daughter of one of the neighboring farmers. After we had serenaded her with "The Belle of the Ball" and "If You Were the Only Girl in the World," her father, teetering between smiles and tears as he gazed at his only daughter in her white wedding dress, allowed his emotions to overcome his normal prudence and pressed a $10 bill into Bob's hand, saying, "Here. Share this with your brothers."

My share turned out to be $1, which didn't seem a very fair division of the spoils to me, but since Bob was ten years older and very much stronger, it was pretty much take it or leave it, so I took it. It would be nice to think that the first dollar bill I ever earned was framed and hung on the wall as an inspiration, but in fact I spent it on sodas and candy in the café before I got home that afternoon.

One day in the spring of 1936 the sleepy familiar rhythm of our lives was broken when Dad announced that we had outgrown Wall Lake, and if we were every going to amount to anything as professional singers, we had to move. He had applied to the railroad for a transfer to a new job in the big city, Des Moines, and he was certain we would soon be singing on the radio station there. Bob heard Dad out in silence and then said, "Are you out of your mind? We're not good enough to sing on the radio. It'll be a disaster."

Dad just told him, "You wait and see."

A week later I said a tearful good-bye to my school classmates and friends in Wall Lake. My best friend, George, the son of the hotel owner, came over to the house just before we left. "You will come back sometimes, won't you Andy?" he said, his eyes shining with tears.
I was too choked to speak, and Mom answered for me: "Of course he will, George. You know

Des Moines really isn't so far away."

After George had gone, a forlorn little figure trudging back across the dirt road, I took a last look around the house. I wanted to capture in my mind's eye a snapshot that I could always recall, but the furniture, our possessions, and our precious piano had been loaded into a truck earlier that morning. Without them the house already seemed remote from me, a cold and empty shell, not the warm and happy home I had known.

Dad and Bob carried the battered family trunk between them while the rest of us straggled down the hill behind them, carrying a ramshackle collection of bags and boxes. We crossed the railroad tracks and lined up on the platform as the train that would take us to Des Moines rounded the shoulder of the hill. In my misery the train whistle sounded even more plaintive and desolate than usual.

We boarded the train, and as it pulled away from the platform, Dick and I pressed against the window for our last view of the little wooden house on the hill, the only home we had ever known. Then smoke and steam swirled around the railcar, and by the time it had cleared, our house and Wall Lake were lost to sight. It would be many years before I would see them again.

Reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from MOON RIVER AND ME by Andy Williams, 2009.

Happy 50th Birthday TONY ROI!

Happy 50th!

Paul Revere will Return to MOON RIVER THEATRE

Hi friends,

We are so excited about our new 2010 contract at Andy Williams Moon River Theater in Branson, Mo.

Paul Revere and The Raiders will be doing our full length fun show next season, just like the good 'ol days with groups like The Comets as the opening act.

Bill & McKenna Medley will be performing down the street at The Starlight Theater and we will miss them alot. The Raiders will still be performing as Bill's "road band" for special concerts outside of Branson.

This is a real win, win for us all. We are looking forward to having a great time here next year and will continue to have a blast here in Branson, Mo at Andy Williams Moon River Theater.

Please pass the word and we'll look for ya next year!

Sincerely,

Ron Foos

Yakov Ponies Up a Few Bucks to Branson Schools

Branson entertainer Yakov Smirnoff made a donation of nearly $2,000 to the Branson School District on Friday, according to a press release from the district.

The $1,985 donation was the result of a $5 donation for each adult ticket sold to Yakov’s Moscow Circus. The total was distributed in five different checks to five schools in the district: Elementary East, Elementary West, Primary, Intermediate and Junior High.

ANDY WILLIAMS:"The Day I Dropped Acid"

(From Andy's new book MOON RIVER AND ME)

As the king of easy-listening music he revelled in a refreshingly wholesome image during the drug-addled Sixties.

Yet in a fascinating – and movingly honest – new autobiography, Andy Williams, now 81, makes a confession that will stun his millions of admirers...

The Sixties brought me some of the happiest times of my life – three beautiful children, a smash-hit TV show, sell-out concerts and gold albums – but they ended in sadness when I split from my wife Claudine.

The turmoil of our break-up led me down a shocking and unexpected path, especially for someone seen as a wholesome, all-American entertainer. I experimented with LSD.
I first met Claudine Longet in 1961 when I was performing in Las Vegas. By that time I was appearing regularly on TV and had a number of hit singles, including a No1, Butterfly.

Precious moment: Andy with wife Claudine and children Noelle and Christian at home in July 1965

Claudine was 19 and appearing at a Folies Bergere show. She didn’t speak English and my French was useless, but we were able to communicate enough to date for the entire time I was in Vegas. After my stint finished, I followed Claudine back to Paris, where I proposed. Her English must have improved because it took her just a fraction of a second to say yes.

We married in December 1961 and two years later our daughter Noelle was born. We went on to have two more children – Christian was born in 1964 and Bobby arrived in 1969.
That same year, I returned home after being away on tour for two weeks. As I poured Claudine and me a glass of wine each, she told me we needed to talk.


‘I can’t go on living like this,’ she said. ‘The kids and I hardly ever see you and when we do, you’re preoccupied, or on the phone with your manager, or the studios. And...’ She paused for a moment. ‘And things aren’t the same between us.’


She was right.


The thrill I used to get when I saw her walking towards me had faded. The private, intimate looks we used to exchange were less frequent, but until that moment I had not understood how far down that path we had travelled. Claudine had fallen out of love with me.
We knew what we were losing, but we couldn’t undo what had already been done. I think it broke our hearts, but in the end we agreed to split.


My marriage was over and I had to live with the knowledge that I bore responsibility for that. The decision made, there seemed no point in delaying so I packed a bag and moved out.
Being on tour was a way of hiding from my problems for a while, but they were still waiting for me when I returned. Whether because of the parting from Claudine or for other, less tangible reasons, my life was in turmoil.

I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t happier with my life. Why wasn’t I feeling well physically? I decided to get a full examination at the Scripps Clinic near San Diego, California.

'My Marriage to Claudine was over and I was responsible'

The last person I saw there was the psychiatrist. It was a surreal moment as I lay on the black leather couch in his book-lined consulting room, while he sat behind me in a straight-backed chair with a notebook on his knee.


It was such a cliched scene – I had seen it in films a hundred times. It was all I could do not to laugh, even though my reason for being there was entirely serious.


After I told him my life story, he said: ‘You might be helped by taking LSD treatments.
You could see a shrink for years trying to find out why you’re not happy, but with LSD you might do that in just a few sessions.’


LSD was at the time seen as a miracle drug, although doubts about it were beginning to surface, as Timothy Leary’s ‘turn on, tune in, drop out’ rhetoric drew unfavourable Press.
I persuaded Claudine to try LSD with me. I wonder now if I had really accepted we had split up for good or whether I clung to the hope that somehow it might be all right again.
In fact, by the time the first session was set up, the Scripps Clinic had bowed to pressure and ceased doing LSD treatment. Instead, I flew alone to Canada and stayed for a couple of weeks at a clinic while a doctor named Ross MacLean administered LSD and another hallucinogenic drug, mescaline, to me in different doses and supervised my trips.


The session took place in an antiseptic-looking room, watched over by Dr MacLean and his assistants.


The LSD was in liquid form, dripped on to a sugar cube or a tiny square of blotting paper. It was odourless, colourless and tasteless.


The mescaline was solid and had a bitter, musty taste – the first time I took it, I was sick. For my first LSD experience, nothing seemed to be happening at first.
‘I don’t think it’s working,’ I told Dr MacLean. He smiled and said: ‘Give it time.’


Then things did start to happen – shapes began shifting and changing, while colours and sounds intensified. I became absorbed in one object or sensation, totally unaware of anything else around me, but then I’d snap back to reality, spiralling in and out of awareness of my surroundings. I fought it at first, feeling a wave of panic at the loss of self-control, but as the drug took hold I relaxed and was engulfed.


Hours later, when I began to come down again, I could not have told you if minutes, hours or even days had passed. Dr MacLean gave me different visual stimuli and played different kinds of music, from soft and sensual sounds to marching bands, and noted my reactions.

'I spiralled in and out of awareness'

I experienced the things that most people did when taking psychedelic drugs – the intensely heightened senses, the beauty of colours and sounds, the contrasting phases of feeling. One moment, I would feel like I was a lord of the cosmos, the next I would be focused on a microscopic detail – a coloured thread fluttering in the breeze, or specks of dust hanging in the air.


LSD gave me powerful feelings of euphoria – some sex-related – but also a sense of fear and despair. During one session I was even born again – not in the evangelical sense, but in believing I was experiencing the very painful physical sensations of birth.


I’m not sure if LSD did me any good, but one thing did come out of my stay at the clinic.
It was probably the first time in years I had taken a few days away from my career.


Between the LSD sessions in Canada I had time to reflect on the direction my life had been taking and to examine my priorities. I came to realise my children and my relationship with my family were the things that really counted.


Sadly, that realisation had come too late to save my marriage; it was fractured beyond repair. That had been my fault and I had to face up to life without Claudine. Although we separated, there was no personal animosity between us, just sadness that our relationship had come to an end. Even after we divorced in 1975, we remained on good terms. It was such an amicable divorce that we used the same lawyer to represent us.


As part of the settlement, Claudine kept our beachfront house in Malibu. Despite what had happened, I was determined to remain a good friend to her, if she ever needed me, and to be a good father to our children.


I tried to fit family life around my work as much as possible and sometimes I took the children on tour with me, but they also had to deal with the drawbacks of being children of a celebrity.
Noelle once said: ‘I loved being with you, Papa, and always wanted to be with you. The only problem was that everybody else in the world did, too.’


In one way the break-up of my marriage may have been less traumatic for my children than for other kids. I had been away on tour so often they were already pretty much living just with Claudine and seeing me only at weekends and holidays, an arrangement that continued in much the same way after we split.


Years later, my son Bobby admitted that for years he hadn’t realised his mother and I were divorced. In my less self-aware moments, I might almost have taken that as a compliment. But what it really revealed was how distant I must have been in the years before we separated.
It has been said that the only inscription you never see in a graveyard is ‘Wish I’d spent more time at the office’, and my greatest regret is that I didn’t spend more time with my children when they were young.


Despite growing up with every material advantage, my children haven’t become spoiled, rich kids, celebrity fodder for trashy magazines. They are grounded, normal people.
For that, Claudine must take the lion’s share of the credit.

Why I had to say No to Frank Sinatra’s wife

Frank Sinatra and I were neighbours for a while when he was married to Mia Farrow.


My relationship with him was good, although it is doubtful things would have stayed that way if he had seen an incident with Mia one night.


I was having a drink at a popular nightclub, when Mia walked over and said: ‘Andy, do you want to dance?’

Neighbours: Andy in the Sixties with Frank Sinatra - 'a loyal friend who had a vindictive side'

As soon as we started dancing, she put her arms around my neck. Fooling around with Frank’s wife on a crowded dancefloor wasn’t a smart move and I tried to ease away, saying: ‘Mia, this really isn’t a good idea.’ She laughed.

A few seconds later, two of Mia’s friends came over, disentangled her from my neck,
and said: ‘Come on, Mia. Time to go home.’ Sinatra could be a loyal friend, but he had a vindictive side.

I saw that one evening when I was having dinner in Palm Springs with Frank and about eight other friends, including the actress Lucille Ball and her husband Gary Morton.

Frank seemed relaxed, wise-cracking, until a drunk accidentally spilled red wine over Morton’s suede jacket. Frank’s mood changed instantly. Although the drunk offered to pay for cleaning the jacket, Sinatra fixed him with a look that would have frozen a martini. He then muttered something to his bodyguard Jilly, who took the guy outside and broke his nose.

It was a mystery to me how someone like Sinatra, who could sing with heart-melting tenderness, could act with such cold cruelty.

So poor and hungry I ate my dog’s food

I was just five when my three elder brothers and I first sang in public. Our father Jay was our driving force and moved the family from Iowa to Los Angeles to get us work, leading to radio shows and a contract with MGM.

But it was Kay Thompson, a singer, dancer, pianist and comedian, who persuaded us to become a nightclub act, cutting Dad out of the picture. The Williams Brothers went on to be highly successful, but by 1953 we had split and I moved to New York to work on my solo act with Kay.

I had always harboured a huge crush for Kay, despite her being 19 years my senior, and soon our work together became more than strictly business. A new career was not going to be easy. After the adulation I had enjoyed in the Williams Brothers, my early appearances as a solo singer were a brutal comedown.

I was earning so little on tour that I couldn’t afford to have my tuxedo pressed, so I made it a rule never to sit down in it.

The low point came in an unsavoury hotel in Cleveland, Ohio, where cockroaches could be heard scuttling across the floor.

I didn’t have two cents in my pocket, had not eaten all day and only had my dog Barnaby for company. That evening I gave Barnaby his dog food – big chunks of horsemeat and gravy. I was so hungry and it smelled so good that I ate a whole plateful.

Fortunately after that low point, I got a slot on NBC and a deal with a small record label. In 1957, Butterfly went to No1.

Moon River was recorded in more or less one take in 1962, as the time booked in the studio was running out. I never released it as a single, but it has become the song with which I’m always identified.

ANDY WILLIAMS: "OBAMA Wants the Country to Fail"

September 29th, 2009

Andy Williams has accused President Barack Obama of being a Marxist with communist associates.

The 81-year-old 'Moon River' singer told the Radio Times that he was very close to Democrat Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968.

Williams said: "I was very close to Teddy Kennedy, too, and his death recently brought it all back. What a tragedy. Had he lived, I think Bobby would have been a great president."

However, he added of Obama: "Don't like him at all. I think he wants to create a socialist country. The people he associates with are very left wing. One is registered as a communist.

"Obama is following Marxist theory. He's taken over the banks and the car industry. He wants the country to fail."

Andy Williams Explains Giving ZSA ZSA GABOR Crabs

Tuesday, October 6 2009

By ANDY FLETCHER, Senior Entertainment Reporter

Andy Williams has explained the story behind the rumour that he gave actress Zsa Zsa Gabor crabs.

The 81-year-old veteran pop star admitted that he was asked to pass the parasitic insect on to the Hungarian actress when he was at a military camp with her. Williams claimed that Gabor's diva behaviour annoyed the army crew, who signed a petition asking him to sleep with her.

"[Zsa Zsa] had the general of a military camp we played at out of bed at 3am and demanded he get her a down pillow because she couldn't sleep," he told Metro. "It's not easy to find one of those on an army base.

She was a pain in the ass.

"I got crabs from a toilet seat at one of the army bases. Towards the end of the tour, about 60 people from the crew and cast signed a petition asking me to sleep with Zsa Zsa and give her the crabs."

When asked whether he was tempted to go through with the act, he joked: "No, it wasn't in my contract."

Andy Williams tells of Hard Times Early In His Career

Branson crooner ANDY WILLIAMS was so broke during the early days of his career, he stored his suit in a meat locker to keep it fresh. The MOON RIVER hitmaker travelled to New York to launch a solo career in the early 1950s after his siblings ended their Williams Brothers quartet. But he fell on hard times as he performed on the Big Apple's nightclub circuit - and developed a unique way of saving money on his laundry bills.

He tells U.K. TV show This Morning, "When I went to New York, I was really struggling. I didn't have any money and I realised that I couldn't sit down in my clothes if I'm going to do three shows a night, so I stood up all the time. There was sometimes a meat locker, so I would hang my suit up in the meat locker and shiver there until the next show. And then when I put on my suit it looked kind of good. It was crisp! It was a little chilly though."