Another extract from Dear Boy.
It
is the beginning of 1976, and Keith is living in Los Angeles, in a
three-bedroom house in Sherman Oaks, largely because the mansions of Beverly
Hills and Bel Air are no longer affordable to him. He is not a happy man.
A man of
extremes, the Keith Moon at ‘home’ in the Valley – confused, insecure,
insomniac, struggling with alcoholism, impatient for the next Who tour, dreaming
of an acting career while doing nothing of note to pursue it – felt compelled
to make up for it when on public display. The occasion that February when
Oliver Reed threw a secret fortieth birthday party for his older brother (and
right-hand man) David at the Beverly Wilshire became one of Keith’s most
exhaustive and explosive ‘performances’.
It can be told factually or
anecdotally. As with so much that happened around Keith, everyone has a
slightly different recollection. Best perhaps, to leave it to the memory of the
raconteur actor who arranged the occasion.
“I invited some people that I knew,”
says Reed. (Annette [Walter-Lax – Keith’s girlfriend] recalls it as one of the
few events they attended where the Hollywood crowd outweighed the music
industry.) “And Keith asked if he could invite Ringo and people like that. I'd
always heard about these girls jumping out of cakes, but I'd never seen one. So
I got this girl who volunteered to jump out of the cake and introduced her to
my brother beforehand at the cocktail party, and there was Keith rolling his
eyes, he couldn't wait. We sat the girl next to David, everything went fine,
and I got a sign from the man and went into the kitchen, and Moon was up like a
rat out of a drainpipe, and the girl undressed and went into the cake. And the chefs
helped ice her in.
“We went back and sat down. This huge
great cake with 40 candles on it was dragged down, and then boom! Up came the
girl out of the cake, with her boobies hanging out of the top tier: 'Surprise
surprise!' And with that Keith picked up a bun or a bread roll and threw it at
the girl. And with that the man that I used to travel with, his wife picked up
a bread roll and threw it at her husband, and then the husband threw one at
somebody else and then they all started throwing bread rolls about the place.
Moonie then got up and started grabbing all the tablecloths – the pink ones
that I'd ordered to go with the pink crockery – and dragged them off the
tables. All the crockery went up in the air. He then went and jumped on the
table and got these pink chairs and started smashing the chandeliers, and I
just dived at him and dragged him across... I dragged him into the kitchens...
He had gone completely berserk.”
It had happened in a flash – mere
mischief mutating into Moon mayhem, a party ruined, a room destroyed, damage to
be paid for, apologies to be made. Oliver Reed had never witnessed anything
like it. And for all that he loved his friend and, according to many of those
who knew them both, was a bad influence who brought out the worst in Keith, the
behaviour shocked him. He could only put it down to drugs. It wasn’t the kind
of sudden madness that a few cocktails would bring on.
There was more to it than that. “He'd
cut himself. He'd cut his hand. So I held it above his head while they called
the ambulance. He was on the floor and someone was keeping his head down and
his mouth shut. And then the ambulance fellows came in, gave him a jab, calmed
him down and took him to hospital. After which I went back upstairs. The people
had screamed and run out because of Moon sprouting blood everywhere and the
whole thing was in chaos, the waiters were going crazy, and bodyguards were
punching people out... And Ringo was sitting at the table, just shaking his
head like he'd seen it all before.”
The bill for replacement of
chandeliers, new carpets, crockery and so on ran into tens of thousands of
dollars, footed by an Oliver Reed who never dreamed of asking his friend to pay
up. “And I’ve never been allowed in [the Wilshire] since.”
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