Saving Amy Read online

  daphne

  barak

  Daphne Barak is one of the few leading A-list interviewers in the world who conducts a wide range of sit-down television interviews with celebrities, heads of state, royalty, Hollywood stars and musicians. Her exclusives and television specials air and are printed in the leading outlets, in their own languages, in many countries around the world, including USA, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Switzerland, Ireland, Croatia, Russia, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, Arab world, Pakistan, India, Far East, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand.

  Daphne owns her library, which consists of more than 200 filmed interviews, including Obama and Clinton specials, exclusives with Pakistani leaders, Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, Mike Tyson, Muammar al-Qaddafi, Robert Mugabe, Nelson Mandela, O.J. Simpson, Mother Teresa, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Benazir Bhutto, Eric Clapton, Lindsay England, Lisa Minnelli, Mia Farrow, Robert De Niro, Johnny Depp and Michael Jackson.

  Daphne spends a lot of time with her interviewees, uncovering the issues in-depth and ensuring that a whole new picture comes alive with each exclusive.

  Praise for Daphne Barak’s work

  ‘You really understand what freedom of speech is.’

  – Nelson Mandela

  ‘While there are six degrees of separation [between people], Daphne has only one…’

  – Hillary Clinton, 12 January 2004, New York,

  – referring to the friends and colleagues Daphne invited in a very private event in support of her election campaigns

  ‘Daphne, I need a bulldozer … Only you can make it happen…’

  – Benazir Bhutto to Daphne during her house arrest under Pervez Musharraf’s regime, when her house was surrounded overnight with cement blocks to prevent access

  ‘This is a rare interview for a Western journalist at a time when Mugabe’s reputation has sunk to new depths. It’s a fascinating insight into a mind of a dictator.’

  – Channel 5 (UK) on Daphne’s interview with Robert Mugabe

  ‘I have long been a great admirer of your extraordinary journalism, your capacity for empathy and your excellent news judgment. Only you could have found yourself in [this] position, at the very centre of a story which all the world is fighting for… And only you could have coped so well…’

  – Sunday Times (UK), commenting on Daphne’s scoop after Michael Jackson’s death and the St Lucia diary of Amy Winehouse

  ‘…The host and executive producer of the special, “Our Son Michael Jackson” (with Elisabeth Murdoch), [Daphne] interviewed the parents of Michael Jackson [within 48 hours of his indictment] … That’s the extraordinary television show!’

  – CNN

  Amy Winehouse

  1983–2011

  This edition published in 2011

  Printed edition first published in 2010 by New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd

  London Cape Town Sydney Auckland

  www.newhollandpublishers.com

  Garfield House, 86–88 Edgware Road, London W2 2EA, United Kingdom

  80 McKenzie Street, Cape Town 8001, South Africa

  Unit 1, 66 Gibbes Street, Chatswood, NSW 2067, Australia

  218 Lake Road, Northcote, Auckland, New Zealand

  Text copyright © 2011 Daphne Barak

  Copyright © 2011 New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd

  Daphne Barak has asserted her moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.

  ISBN: 978 1 84773 670 3 [Print]

  ISBN: 978 1 78009 179 2 [ePub]

  ISBN: 978 1 78009 180 8 [Pdf]

  Publishing Director: Rosemary Wilkinson

  Publisher: Aruna Vasudevan

  Project Editor: Julia Shone

  Cover Design: Cabin London Ltd

  Inside Design: Rebecca Longworth Book Design

  Production: Melanie Dowland

  saving amy

  daphne

  barak

  This book is dedicated to Ehud Barak,

  Miriam Barak and Dov Barak.

  contents

  Preface

  Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

  What Is It About Men

  You Know I’m No Good

  There Is No Greater Love

  Alcoholic Logic

  Love Is A Losing Game

  Amy, Amy, Amy

  Wake Up Alone

  Beat The Point To Death

  Some Unholy War

  Notes

  Discography

  Acknowledgements

  I am sitting with Amy’s parents, Janis and Mitch Winehouse, in a London hotel. Amy is in hospital – one of the many times she has been hospitalized during the last few years. Her parents are divorced and there is this uneasy tension in the room because Mitch left Janis for another woman, Jane, who is, in fact, his wife today. But for the sake of my documentary ‘Saving Amy,’ they are here united in front of my cameras.

  ‘Janis, do you think Amy wants to live?’ I ask Amy’s mother.

  Janis sighs. ‘Amy actually said in the early days, “I don’t think it will last long… I think something will happen to me.”’

  ‘It is part of being bulimic,’ I comment. ‘After all, Amy’s first sign of [an] addictive personality – before the drugs and alcohol – was bulimia.’

  Janis considers this. ‘Mmm. Yes. I think it’s a case of [that] with Amy. Please God she gets better… It is a condition that you do not cure. It is always there.’

  I turn to Amy’s father. ‘What do you think, Mitch? You told me Amy almost died twice recently. Do you think Amy wants to live?

  ‘She has got a tremendously strong will,’ he says. ‘As I said to you the other day … [in] six months, two years, she will always be a recovering addict. There is no such thing as anybody who is cured. Some of the finest therapists are recovering addicts because they have been there. And I can see a situation in a year or two’s time where she will start to help people because who will know better than her?’

  ‘Janis, you started to tell me that Amy always had brushes with death,’ I comment.

  ‘I have had that experience of Amy nearly dying so many times in life – there have been many, many times where she could have died.’

  ‘It has happened a number of times?’ I say, shocked.

  ‘Yes,’ Janis confirms.

  ‘Yes… That was Amy. That was Amy.’

  preface

  ‘…Sounds Afro-American: is British-Jewish. Looks sexy: won’t play up to it. Is young: sounds old. Sings sophisticated: talks rough. Musically mellow: lyrically nasty.’ This is the paradox that was Amy Winehouse, according to music journalist Garry Mulholland.

  What else? …Award-winning musician. Flamboyant pop star. Style icon. The new Brigitte Bardot. A once-pocket Venus. Drug addict. Alcoholic…. The list of words used to describe the phenomenon that was ‘Amy Winehouse’ is, it seems, endless.

  Arguably, one of the greatest and certainly most original talents to emerge in the 21st century, Amy fascinated and continues to fascinate us all – even in death. Her life – if you believe the paparazzi – was one endless soap opera. Her thoughts on everything from the weakness of an ex-boyfriend to how she felt about her Dad and his infidelity are immortalized in her music (in the songs ‘Stronger Than Me’ and ‘What Is It About Men’ respectively, which are both included on Amy’s 2003 debut album, Frank) for everyone to hear. And, possibly part of her great appeal was that she really didn’t appear to care.

  Since Amy Winehouse first came into most people’s music
consciousness after the release of the critically acclaimed, platinum-selling album Frank (2003), mostly about that same ex-boyfriend, followed by the Grammy-winning Back To Black (2006), she was seldom out of the news. Her turbulent on-again, off-again relationship with former husband Blake Fielder-Civil, her dramatic performances on- and off-stage and her relationship with her father, Mitch, or mother, Janis, grabbed headlines around the world. And, everyone loved to read about Amy. Everyone certainly had (and still has) an opinion about her – her music, her marriage, her behaviour, her addictions, her hair…. Everyone knew ‘Amy’… Or, perhaps that’s what she let them think.

  Why, then, was it such a shock when the news of Amy’s death filtered through? Why did everyone profess such great surprise?

  The idea for this book arose in 2008, when Mitch Winehouse first asked to meet me in London. At that point, Amy Winehouse was in the news, less for her talent and more for her alleged addictions, erratic behaviour, hospitalizations and her relationship with Blake.

  We met, a couple of times, at Les Ambassadeurs, an exclusive private member’s club in Mayfair, where Mitch impressed me by seemingly talking frankly about his daughter. He wasn’t defensive and he didn’t appear to take offence at any of my questions.

  At our second meeting at the club, in November 2008, when Mitch was actually beginning to convince me that this might be an interesting project and that we should start filming, he said something that caught my attention, something which I immediately understood.

  ‘Daphne, at the end of the day, I’m going to talk only once about my private life – my family’s private life – do you understand?’

  Well, of course, I understood. Who wants to share his private life, his family’s private life, especially a complicated one, more than once? Once is usually hard enough.

  During the course of that meeting, we discussed making a documentary film, one that should be from Mitch’s viewpoint, to show how addiction not only affects the person who is afflicted but also how it impacts on his or her immediate family, extended family, friends, and so on.

  At one point, after I had asked Mitch how this talented and charismatic young woman had reached this point, he gestured to the photograph that he had been clutching throughout our meeting. It showed a young, beautiful, big-eyed Amy Winehouse, brimming with confidence. Staring at it, Mitch told me that Amy had been holed up in London, in bed, hiding under the covers, for weeks now.

  Suddenly Mitch’s mobile rang. His face immediately lit up.

  ‘It’s Amy!’, he exclaimed.

  He chatted with his daughter briefly before hanging up.

  A short while later, his phone rang again, and it was Amy. Mitch was obviously pleased, but for the rest of our meeting, I noticed that he periodically glanced at his phone nervously, almost willing it to ring again.

  He finally admitted to me: ‘I am worried when I get a phone call from her or her security [people] because I don’t know what bad news I may get. But when I don’t hear from her or her security, I am worried as well – what might have happened [sic]?’

  Then, Mitch said the words that cemented my decision to make the film: ‘When Amy’s addiction began, I went to private doctors, to experts, to learn about the problem. I had no knowledge, nobody to talk to. You feel so helpless, yet we can afford, financially, more than other people who face the same problem. So if I can share what I have gone through, and what I have learned, and by doing so help at least one other family … then this is what I would like to do.’

  That’s how it all began…

  My meetings with the Winehouses over the next few months, in London, Switzerland and St Lucia, were certainly never dull and I learned a lot about their relationships with each other and their daughter through our conversations, their interaction with each other and my own observations of them – and this book is the result of that time.

  Saving Amy is based not just on the taped interviews, but also on my diaries and personal notes and recollections while spending time with Mitch, Janis, Jane (Mitch’s wife) and Amy, herself.

  This book was never meant to be a biography, but it is an exploration of addiction. Through the words and first-hand experiences of those closest to Amy Winehouse, my aim was always to show the love, fear and powerlessness, indeed, the emotions that most families experience as they watch firsthand the spiralling out of control of their loved ones. In this case, the subject may have been a young woman who was certainly one of the most talented musicians of her generation – but having a talent doesn’t make addiction any easier to live with.

  The one constant throughout our discussions is the love that Mitch and Janis often expressed for Amy. But my interviews and meetings with the Winehouse family, and, indeed, with the many other people who I have interviewed over the years and who have discussed addictions with me (and these include Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson, Liza Minnelli, Kathleen Turner, Barry Manilow, Kid Rock, Art Garfunkel, Michael Bolton, Charlton Heston, Donatella Versace, Roberto Cavalli and Omar Sharif), have raised many questions with me about the nature of addiction and how it is caused.

  While, without a doubt, Amy Winehouse was loved, was that love healthy? How much of her addiction was fuelled by something in her past? How much stemmed from the relationship that Amy not only had with her father, but with others, such as those existing between Mitch and Janis, Mitch and Jane, Jane and Janis, and Mitch with all three of the women in his life?

  Is it possible that families sometimes fuel the addictions of their loved ones, admittedly without necessarily knowing that they’re doing so? And, what can be done to break this cycle, when it does happen?

  These are just some of the questions I had to ask myself both during filming and also off camera when I spoke to these people individually and watched how they interacted with each other and with Amy, herself. Now, for me, one question, out of all of them, still stands out: What happened to Amy Winehouse in the past that made her want to pursue the path that she followed?

  will you still love me tomorrow?

  In any story, whether a film or a book, the usual place to start is at the beginning. So, when we start filming Saving Amy in November 2008, it seems right to go back to the place where Mitch Winehouse and his first wife, Janis, grew up – in London’s East End.

  Much has been made about Amy Winehouse’s ‘normal’ family upbringing, the North London Jewish community in which both she and her parents grew up and the influence that her grandmother Cynthia, Mitch’s mother, in particular, had on the young Amy. Family plays a big part in Amy’s life, as becomes increasingly evident in the discussions that I have over the next months with the Winehouses and, later, Amy herself.

  Amy’s family has shaped the way in which she’s grown up, the decisions she’s made – even the kind of musician she’s become – and this place, where Amy’s parents grew up, is an integral part of all that, of helping to explain how Amy has become the person she is today.

  Mitch, accompanied by my film crew and I in my two limousines, drive around the places where he grew up as a child.

  ‘This is Albert Gardens1,’ he tells our chauffeur. ‘And this is the place where I grew up and where my Mum grew up. As you can see, even now it is very attractive. It was actually built for sea captains, so I was told; I don’t know if it is true or not. It is a nice place.’

  Mitch lived here when he was younger and went to school in Stepney, about half a mile from where we’re currently sitting. The whole of this part of London is rich in culture and history, a place where Jack the Ripper walked the streets, where immigrants first settled when they came to England, where local Jews, Irish dockers and Oswald Mosley’s black shirts came to blows, as Mitch tells us, on Mansell Street, in what became known as the Battle of Cable Street2.

  ‘There was no racial tension,’ Mitch says, ‘or anything that I can remember as a child – not in this area.’

  It’s obvious that Mitch loves this place. With great pride, he points out the maternity hospita
l where his mother and her twin sister, Lorna, were born, and talks about the cinema that used to be there, the Troxy-Gaumont. That picture house and one in Mile End formed a big part of his life growing up: it was in these places that his grandmother, ‘Bubba’, could be found most days, and which formed a microcosm of life in the East End.

  ‘I can tell you some stories,’ he reminisces. ‘… You couldn’t watch the film because people were eating, they were chewing, they were laughing, they were making love. It was fantastic. It was great times. When you look at it now, it is still nice, isn’t it?’

  When I ask Mitch to tell me a bit about his mother, Cynthia, and the effect she had on him and on Amy, he comments emotionally: ‘… A lot has been written about my mum and her influence on Amy, and of course this place [Albert Gardens] had the greatest influence on my mother and on me because this is where we both grew up and you can see even today what a lovely place it is….

  ‘I think a place; your upbringing has got a lot to do with your character.’ He adds, ‘I still love it here: it’s funny isn’t it? It is like my home.’

  When Mitch was a child, he lived at 31, Albert Gardens. And, it’s here we end up. His grandmother lived in the house from the early 1920s until her death.

  When we arrive there, we walk along Albert Gardens. Mitch comments that every house here was Jewish when he was growing up.

  ‘There are still a few old Jews here today,’ he adds.

  ‘This is the house,’ he says, stopping outside one of the buildings. ‘The same front door. There used to be a board there, because they were dressmakers so they would put a board and the board would say they need a felling hand, which was someone who pressed. They would need a presser and the vacancies would be up there. That was our lounge down there. That was our front room.’ He points to various rooms as he speaks.

  I have to admit I’m quite surprised at the size of the building. It’s big, maybe three or four storeys high. I say this to Mitch.