Our legacy’s Stayin’ Alive with a Hollywood biopic
Disco legends the Bee Gees are following in the footsteps of Queen and Sir Elton John with a film about their lives. Directed by Sir Ridley Scott, it’s likely to be a rollercoaster of triumphs and tragedies… often simultaneously
WITH their burnished gold satin jackets perpetually open to the waist, revealing the mandatory gold medallions around their necks, plus bouffant hair and hip-hugging trousers with huge flared legs, the Bee Gees were the disco era’s undisputed stars.
One of the most successful groups of all time, and with epoch-defining hits including Stayin’ Alive and Night Fever, they have sold more than 220 million records.
But with the advent of punk rock and the New Romantics, the trio’s polished glitterball shimmer sparked a “disco sucks” backlash by the end of the 1970s, that turned the group into pop pariahs, exiled from radio and tormented by death threats.
The Bee Gees’ turbulent journey to fame and fortune – shaken by career reversals, tragedy and feuds – is now poised to become a major Hollywood movie from Gladiator and Thelma & Louise director Ridley Scott.
“I’m excited and looking forward to working on the movie, which I’m executive producing,” says sole surviving Bee Gee, Sir Barry Gibb, 77, from his ocean-front home in Miami Beach, Florida.
The forthcoming film follows in the platform-shoed footsteps of recent movie musical biopics including Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, Elton John’s blockbuster Rocketman and the blue suede shoes of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis.
Five years in development, it was originally to be directed by Kenneth Branagh, with Oscar winner Bradley Cooper as the star, but now British director Scott is searching for an all-new cast.
“It’s a story that’s made for Hollywood, a rollercoaster of triumphs and tragedies, a rags-to-riches tale with brothers who came to loathe each other but needed one another to create musical magic,” says Professor David N Meyer, author of The Bee Gees: The Biography. “It’s amazing they stayed together as long as they did.”
It’s a sad irony that Barry Gibb has probably saved countless lives, but could not save his own brothers’.
The British Heart Foundation and its American equivalent have taught millions to deliver life-saving CPR to heart attack victims to the driving beat of the Bee Gees’ hit Stayin’ Alive, yet his brothers – Robin, Andy and Maurice Gibb – are all deceased.
“I’m the last man standing,” Barry has admitted. “I’ll never be able to understand that, as I’m the eldest.”
MAURICE passed away in 2003, aged 53, of complications from a twisted intestine, and his twin Robin died in 2012, aged 62, after a lengthy fight with cancer. Andy Gibb, almost 10 years younger than his brothers, who became a solo star in the 1970s, died in 1988 at the age of 30 after years battling drug addiction and depression.
“My greatest regret is that every brother I’ve lost [went] in a moment when we weren’t getting on, so I have to live with that,” says Gibb.
The Bee Gees’ story is ready-made for Hollywood, with more ups and downs than the London Eye.
“We could put out a song and it was a monster, and then another which would flop,” says Gibb. “We were always being pushed aside, and then fighting our way back.”
Born on the Isle of Man and raised in Manchester, the brothers emigrated with their parents to Australia in 1958, enjoying some minor hits with folkinfused soft rock, before returning to England in 1967.
Their father Hugh was constantly moving his family around the world in search of business wheezes that failed. His three eldest sons were harmonising almost before they could walk.
On the ship to Australia, they entertained the passengers all the way, according to their mother Barbara. Indeed, they never saw themselves as rock stars – rather performers.
This set the Gibb brothers apart from almost all their pop contemporaries. There was no rebellion in their music.
In 1967, their debut US single – New York Mining Disaster 1941 – was issued to radio stations with a label bearing only the song title. Given the band’s accents, some DJs assumed this was a new single by the Beatles and started playing the song in heavy rotation.
This helped the tune climb into the top 20 in both the UK and America. The following year they scored their first UK No 1 with Massachusetts.
But after a string of huge hits, Robin acrimoniously quit to go solo in 1969, and Barry and Maurice soon parted ways.
Gibb admits: “I thought it was all over for us in 1970 – the average group used to have a five-year span. We all wanted to be solo artists, no matter what. But it’s not that enjoyable if you are not actually together.
“The trouble with fame is it takes over everything and it makes you competitive. I got too much attention. Robin didn’t get enough. And Mo certainly didn’t get enough.” Yet less
than a year later, the group reunited, enjoying their first US No 1, How Can You Mend A Broken Heart, in 1971.
But will a movie produced by Gibb dare show the group’s dark inner-turmoil?
“They broke up because Barry was acting like a dictator,” says Prof Meyer. “When Robin and Maurice returned, it was by accepting that Barry had all the power – but that doesn’t mean they liked it.”
But soon their star faded again and, struggling with booze and drug abuse, the band was left “dead in the water”, says Gibb.
“The Bee Gees’ sound was basically tired. We needed something new.We hadn’t had a hit record in about three years.”
Moving to Miami for inspiration, in 1975 the Bee Gees turned to disco, scoring their second US No 1 with Jive Talkin’, followed by Nights on Broadway, introducing Barry’s now famous falsetto. Filming on Saturday Night Fever was almost complete when the Bee Gees were asked to record the soundtrack, writing the songs in a single weekend after reading a rough script.
The 1977 movie blockbuster spawned hits including Stayin’ Alive, Night Fever and How Deep Is Your Love, forever melding their image with that of John Travolta dancing in a wide-lapelled white suit.
With hits such as You Should Be Dancing and Tragedy, the Bee Gees scored nine US No 1s and became synonymous with disco – until the genre’s demise made them subjects of international loathing and bomb threats on tour.
“In their white satin suits, they embodied disco fashion, but tastes changed and suddenly everyone was embarrassed by their disco clothes, and turned on the band,” says Prof. Meyer.
Barry Gibb complained at the time: “We’re just a pop group, we’re not a political force, we’re just making music, and I don’t think there’s any reason to chalk us off because we existed in the ’70s and we’d like to exist in the ’80s.”
Long-time Bee Gees lead guitarist Alan Kendall says:
“I felt bad for them because it really made their career grind to a halt for several years. Admittedly, some of it was their own fault for going with the tight pants, open shirt, medallion thing, but, let’s face it, they were not the only ones who dressed like that.”
AFTER years in the pop wilderness, the Bee Gees improbably enjoyed yet another revival, topping the UK charts with You Win Again in 1987 and, a decade later, reaching No 2 with their album Still Waters. But the internecine family rifts endured.
“Barry and Robin didn’t speak for two and a half years, and Maurice was incapacitated by alcohol,” says Prof Meyer. “Their interpersonal squabbles drove them apart.” Following Robin’s death in 2003, the surviving brothers disbanded the Bee Gees. Even now, the wounds may still be too raw for Gibb to view the upcoming movie. “I can’t handle watching the rest of my family,” he told CBS. “I think it’s perfectly normal to not want to see how each brother was lost.” Though his brothers are gone, Barry still feels their presence whenever he performs. “Even on stage I can see them,” he confesses. “I can smell their breath around the microphone, because we were so used to all singing around one mic. I could tell, ‘Oh, Maurice has had a drink.’” And to this day, Gibb continues performing, hoping for one more career revival – last year releasing his first solo album in three decades. “I think there’s another chapter for me,” he says. “I think I would’ve wanted my brothers to go on, and I hope they would feel the same way.”