The Smiley Smile Message Board

Which scenario is most likely?:

1) A shrink is found for Brian who actually gets him working reasonably well (whilst accepting that miracle cures were never gonna happen with his condition)

2) Another Landy fills the void and the history is no different

3) There are no medical options and Brian dies at some point between the mid-70s to mid-80s, in a similar trajectory to Dennis.

Number three.

Brian would probably have died.

Definitely number three. Landy is a monster, but also the only reason Brian is still alive.

I'd think that there would have been another shrink, but one who wouldn't have been nearly as controlling as Landy, so Brain would have kept up his drug abuse and died from it. So a combination of 1 and 3, I guess.


This makes me think:

If Brian would have died, would Dennis' death have been any different? Would he have been depressed by what happened to him, so much so that it happened sooner, or would he have been scared straight and tried to quit his substance abuse?

1 - we wouldn't have got Love You

2 - Brian would have died, by summer 1983 if not before.

4)  There's no way to tell. Since Landy schooled in California and spent most of his career treating people in California, the space-time continuum would have been radically changed  for everyone in the state( if not the world) and it's very possible that Brian might never have even started taking drugs or fallen to the family madness. 

Great Scott!

What songs from the first Landy era did he have a hand in?

Was he really the only therapist of his kind? I know Brian accepted him because he was unorthodox. Couldn't Marilyn have found another unorthodox therapist had Landy not existed? Maybe one that wouldn't have done the damage Landy did. (This is not to say Landy didn't say Brian's life, but maybe someone else could have too.)

(http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg188/bcbsessions/loveville.jpg)

1 I would think.

What's worse than your number 1 if your number 2 had come into effect, we wouldn't have got SMiLE, TLOS and TWGMTR. So a Landy was better than nothing.

I refuse to believe that there was no one else in the world capable of treating Brian's condition other than Landy.

I agree 100%. There are those who could have taken on Brian and not exploited him in the process.

It would have been another quack doctor. What Landy did was unethical and illegal and it only worked because of that. No one can hold a person prisoner against their will and that's what it took. Any legit doctor would have just seen him on a therapy appointment basis, not moved into his house 24/7 with body guards who wouldn't let him out of the house without supervision. The taking-Brian-prisoner-and-keeping-him-away-from-drug-buddies was the part that was effective in keeping Brian from harming himself. But it was completely against the law and only a criminal type would be able to do that whether it was Landy or another so-called doctor.

Brian should have been committed. Not a 30 day voluntary observation stay, a proper Court sanctioned stay at a rehab facility.

I've always felt that Landy saved Brian's life. I only wish that Landy or anyone for that matter had gotten involved with Dennis. Was there ever an attempt to get Dennis committed to a rehad facility? Dennis probably would have beat the sh#* out of Landy's people if they tried to intervene. I wish they had tried, though. So sad that Dennis left so young.

You forget that Brian was making decent progress in a 'normal' psychiatric manner with another doctor during the 80's, but said doctor was killed in a hiking accident and so they got Landy back again.


What I mean to say is, like Mike's Beard said, Brian could have absolutely been treated in a normal fashion. Send him to rehab. A live-in carer is not 'illegal' or 'out there' and you ignore that Landy imprisoned him from his own family, not just his 'drug buddies' like, ooh, Van Dyke Parks, his girlfriend (Melinda) or the band.

So much about Landy's 'treatment' nearly killed Brian, which you seem to be ignoring.

If I recall, it was discussed by the band/management, but either a) Landy wanted similarly extortionate fees or b) it was dismissed as impossible to get Dennis help.

Whilst there's no evidence he wrote any lyrics to Love You, 15BO, or Adult/Child tunes, Landy did force Brian to sit and write songs every day as part of his therapy during the first 'era'. Apparently, as well as Love You, there are lots of songs with titles like 'Carnie, Stop Flicking The goshdarn Lights On and Off' or some such. It's the probable reason why a lot of the Adult/Child material has weird lyrics - that pressure to just write ANYTHING constantly would probably get anyone writing songs about putting out cigarettes, the new baseball season, your missus, the fact that dinner's ready, or going to the cinema.  

Steve Schwartz in 1977 iirc

A person's marriage, mental illness, and drug addiction is a personal matter, so I don't want to appear judgmental, but...

It is so ironic that, after several years (1967-1975) of Marilyn not appearing to being overly proactive, when she does decide to do something a little more drastic or proactive (bringing in Landy), it turns out the way it did. I mean, of all the people she could've chosen, damn, it had to be Landy. I'm not blaming her, don't misunderstand.....But, for a minute, think if another doctor would've been brought in, and at least save Brian from dying of a heart attack or overdose until if/when he recovered (and that's not a given), how differently things would've turned out. When Landy was brought in for a second time, it was thirty years ago and Brian was only 40 years old. Do you ever wonder how differently those thirty years would've been for Brian, personally and professionally. Don't try, it's impossible...

I hope THIS one is on MIC  ;)

Along with those long rumoured boots of "I'm hungry, have we got any cake in the house?", "Who left the bastard tap running upstairs?"  and "Here Carnie, have a snort on daddy's heroin stash".

Landy did seem like a good idea at the time, remember that. Mental illness was not so understood 40 years ago, no matter how good your intentions. And plus, Marilyn had been living most of her adult life married to Brian Wilson, who had been getting increasingly ill pretty much since 1964.

People mentioned Dr. Steve Schwartz, who was killed in a rock-climbing accident in 1977. Does anyone "in the know" here know well Brian was doing with Schwartz. I read somewhere that Brian was crushed to hear that he died.

Brian seemed to be doing well for a few months after Landy was out of the picture. Could Dr. Schwartz have stopped the great slide that led to Landy Part II?

After lots, and I mean LOTS of reading and studying up on Brian's life, and this period, i'd say the following:

Landy physically saved Brian Wilson's life, and was one of very few who could've done this.
The real question is, could anyone have saved Brian MENTALLY, the man inside the head?
I believe not, Brian needed music since he was a kid to vent his feelings, when the Beach Boys (and others)
began to doubt his music, they basically took away his way of venting, and he exploded with fear, anxiety... etc.

So I believe Landy saved what could be saved, he didn't necessarily save BRIAN but he saved the man that was Brian Wilson.  

Landy drugged the guy illegally with very strong perscriptions. There are things the general public doesn't know happened but Brian almost died more than once. Brian in 1976 and even 1982 would not be who you see neurologically today if not for Landy. The vibrating jack hammer leg of the fall of 1976 is often overlooked. Yes he was doing in then too.I give him zero credit. He was the only one in the whole story without a redeaming bone in his body.

I was just thinking about this the other day. Going by the pictures and footage I've seen, Brian was in obvious horrible condition and had many problems with substance abuse and mental illness. But by the last few months of 1982, and into January 1983, was Brian THAT BAD? It seems to me that Dennis was always the worst of the two. I wasn't there to see it, and I don't have any "insider information", but I always thought Dennis was in far worse condition. I can't remember where at the moment, but I've read a quote or two that by the last few months of 1983, Dennis was ten times worse than Brian ever got.

IIRC, Brian didn't see him long enough for it to make any drastic improvement, but it was very promising that Brian was responding well to 'normal' (ie not Landy's house arrest) treatment - I thought it was mentioned in Carlin's book but I can't find it.

With all due respect -

I did my reading too. IMHO Landy saved Brian's body (a prerequisite for saving his brain, as a physical entity, too, of course, that is trivial). But Landy also turned Brian into some sort of slave, a puppet, and Landy was master of the strings attached to the puppet. I do not know whether Landy used his professional knowledge to construct a duplicate of the Murry-Brian relationship. He may have done this, but he may also only have been led by his own immense lust for fame, and his greed. At any rate, his prescription habits were entirely unacceptable, as Peter Reum will attest. Ames Carlin wrote telling paragraphs on this in his biography. IIRC, Landy talked a will-less and obeying Brian into changing his last will and testament, so that Landy would inherit 50% of Brian's assets. That is morally, if not legally criminal. And  had Brian's family, IIRC on Carl's initiative, not removed Landy from Brian's life, then we wouldn't have seen Bri on the reunion tour. Instead, he would have been dead, or with much, much luck, be sitting in some nursing home, in a chair, not knowing who he was any more.

Great points Don, the bottom line is Landy a true villain.

Anytime anybody says "Only Landy could have saved Brian's life" they are swallowing the self serving bullshit that the good Doc built up around himself throughout the media in the 80's. Any number of competent, efficient, highly trained psychiatric nurses could have helped Brian and they would have done so without getting him to make them the main beneficial in his will!!

Look Brian suffered from major drug addictions and mental illness, but he is hardly unique in this - many others have had the same or similar conditions. The only difference being that Brian Wilson is considered one of the greatest musical masterminds of the last century, most other people are not. My point is that much of his conditions are treatable. They can never be completely cured but they can be made manageable to a degree (and have been).

Alice Cooper survived Landy and is doing great today. Most people knew Landy was nuts, but didn't do anything to control him. But nothing was done for a while to free Brian and therefore Brian was a prisoner in his own mind from Landy's control drugs.

Good points, well made (goes for SMiLE Brian's words too). Perhaps the perception of the general public of the psychological and psychiatric professions was different in the '70s and '80s. I seem to notice that these experts had more of a god-like status way back then, they were put on a pedestal. It was utterly hip to have a personal shrink, and their opinion was valued above anything else. Our era is different, and we have a more sober look at such experts. And that is good. My personal experience is that these doctors themselves feel more relief than regret that this has happened. This is also partly due to the fact that biological psychiatry is not frowned upon any more, but is fully accepted as a great aid in making mental disorders manageable, as The Birds puts it so aptly. Thus, new imaging techniques of the brain, and ever more refined types of medication, have helped to balance things out in this field.

"vibrating jack hammer leg"? What's that?

One leg used shake up and down like crazy. I read how the 1976 SNL camera shots were going to focus on it until an irate fan made it clear it was in bad taste. Forget where that story is maybe in an old Add Some Music fanzine.

There's that skit on the 1976 SNL where Brian plays an airport security cop, and he's shaking like crazy. Of course, it might be nervousness in front of the camera in addition to his condition at the time.

I can't recall if he was shaking on the 1976 Mike Douglas Show but I think he was.

I'd love to see that SNL skit.

He doesn't do much except stand in the background.

*nevermind*  ;D

I usually don't like to quote myself, but I thought I'd bring this question up again to hopefully instigate a discussion. The "Brian versus Dennis" question interests me. Although, Brian didn't have the added mental anguish of multiple lovers and wives as Dennis did. I'm not sure if that came out right.  :-\

Sadly, this is a no-brainer. If Landy was never born, then there would be no Wilson Brothers alive today.
He may have turned into a crook and over-medicated Brian and controlled everything he did, but face it: Brian would be dead otherwise.
For saving Brian's life and making Brian physically look the best he ever was, I'm eternally grateful for Landy.

Other stars didn't have a Landy but had other doctor's.  Although we'll never hear what Elvis or Michael Jackson think about it now.  The point being, that for all Landy's faults Brian may have ended up with another doctor and might have ended up in a worse place.  He's still here, making music, has a loving family around him, and I think he is probably glad about that.

Has Alice ever talked about his time with Landy, and was it 24/7 as well?