Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 17, 1993 TAG: 9302170084
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURA BLUMENFELD THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Long
FIRST BROTHER
Now he's drumming the walls like a bongo, now he's bouncing in his seat, now he's running his palms lovingly over the dark vinyl tablecloth. "Woo! Black leather!" Roger Clinton is out tonight, feeling the music at a Sunset Boulevard club, laughing at every darlin' thing.The band is on a break. Roger's manager of eight weeks, Norman "Butch" Stone, heads for the hallway and corners its lead singer.
"I was wondering if he could . . ." Stone says, "you know, Bill Clinton."
"You mean the president of the United States?" the puzzled rocker asks.
"Yeah, the president's little brother." He wants to sing, Stone says. Can he?
He can, but right now Roger's busy farther down the hall, under violet lights, nuzzling Lulu, a hairdresser with masses of rippled blond hair. She's sweet, this Lulu, stretching a pink V-neck sweater, tiny black jeans. Roger's taking her in with eyes that go wide, eyes that say I'm a 36-year-old man, act like a boy, arrive an hour late for everything, but when I finally do - I'm adorable.
He's like the cute cousin you always had a crush on. He has good hands and kissable lips. His eyes are Bill blue, though they're more manic than his brother's, and he has the same embracing smile.
Endearingly immature, exasperatingly unpredictable, Roger Clinton weeps easily with sentiment, does dandy Deputy Dawg impersonations, brags about driving his new Stealth Dodge at 120 mph, rolls down the window as the car passes a billboard for "Scent of a Woman" and lustily inhales.
Life smells mighty good to Roger Clinton, these days.
Thanks to the ascendancy of "Big Brother," as he calls his half brother, Roger has nailed a 40-city speaking tour for up to $10,000 per appearance, called "A Change is Coming," about turning your life around. A moderately talented club and lounge singer, he has recently signed a $200,000 recording contract with Atlantic (his manager says there's a $4 million, six-record deal in the works). There's an MTV video with En Vogue. And he expects a half-million-dollar advance for an as-told-to book, "Growing Up With Big Brother."
Roger soon will be making more money in a month, his manager says, than Bill Clinton does in a year.
When Lulu reaches for her cigarettes, Roger darkens: "My father died of smoking and drinking." The laughter at the table dies. Roger Clinton Sr., a problem drinker and an abusive father, succumbed to cancer in 1968. Roger is thankful he never tried smoking. ("I have a couple of bad characteristics from my father," he says. "My addictive personality comes from him.")
In some ways, Roger's life has been a struggle between bad genes and good intentions. Sometimes, the good guy wins. Sometimes, he doesn't.
"Alcohol doesn't touch these lips," Roger says with mock gravity, then opens wide, tips his head back and splashes a white Russian into his mouth.
Roger wants to be a pop star. "Music's my friend," he says, "and idle time is my enemy."
He's trying to stick with friends. He's trying to stay focused, to beat a past that includes a cocaine habit of near-lethal dosage, an aborted education, drinking problems, job dismissals, a prison term. Mostly, he wants to make Big Brother, leader of the Western world, proud.
Break time is over, and the band's lead singer introduces a special guest, "Mr. Clinton." The audience looks confused. Roger scoots out of his booth, six white Russians into the evening, and grasps the mike. His face is flushed. He's got a baked potato body, round but taut.
He sings a cranky blues tune. The voice is rich gristle, and it isn't half bad, Joe Cocker on an off night. The audience gets into it, nodding the beat, tapping glasses.
"Standing on shaky ground!" Roger funks rapturously as the rhythm takes his body. "Standing on shaky ground!"
Above this happy, lubricated scene hovers an unavoidable question: Can Roger Clinton survive his great good luck?
You want him to make it because he's so vulnerable, so aggressively earnest, and because you sympathize with overshadowed younger brothers everywhere, and mostly because you want to believe in the redemptive possibilities of dumb luck.
"There's more temptation in his life than ever," Roger's best friend, Mike Pakis, says from Hot Springs, Ark. "Roger used to get in trouble in Arkansas. Imagine what trouble there is for him now in the limelight. Alcohol, drugs, women. I think it's going to be a struggle."
Always into something
It's always been something of a struggle.
He was bright, put in the advanced classes, but school didn't hold his interest. Roger applied his talents to more thrilling activities. By age 6, he was so riveted by the mischief of betting that he wrote tout sheets for the racetrack. At 10, he and his buddies jammed in his garage with their group The Hundred Millimeter Banana. And at 16, he got his first gig at the Black Orchid, a topless lounge.
College couldn't compete with the allure of the nightclub circuit. Roger dropped out of Arkansas Hendrix College and toured with his band Dealer's Choice. His mother and No. 1 fan, Virginia Kelley, trooped to an endless successions of bars, where he often sang her favorite, Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are."
But Roger broke her heart in 1984 when police busted him for cocaine distribution in an arrest authorized by brother Bill. The shame weighed so heavily that Roger contemplated suicide. The whole family went into therapy. Roger went to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. The struggling entertainer who had been snorting cocaine 16 times a day did a year in a federal penitentiary.
Roger lived for a year after his release under the protection of Butch Stone, a longtime friend of Bill's. A string of low-paying jobs followed, a brief drug relapse in 1987 and a couple of arrests - one of them involved an argument with a bartender over the disputed contents of a cocktail.
A break of sorts came in 1990, when Roger spontaneously performed at Bill's fifth gubernatorial inauguration. Little Rock optometrist Danny Thomason heard him and offered to introduce him to his brother, television producer Harry Thomason, also an old Bill Clinton friend. Roger landed a job with Mozark productions in Los Angeles, but it was hardly the big time. He worked as a gofer on the set of "Designing Women," collating scripts, ferrying coffee to actors. He also warmed up studio audiences for "Designing Women," "Hearts Afire" and "Evening Shade" with his R&B band Politics.
Roger's first record is due out this spring on Atlantic Records, featuring several guest stars. Garth Brooks has been named as a possible producer for a song.
These are fast days for Roger. There are more deals in the works, a possible endorsement for Coke or Pepsi. Stone says he's been talking to Dan Aykroyd about bringing back the Blues Brothers, and Aykroyd seems interested.
The idea is that Roger would resurrect Jake. That would be the tubby one, the talented, ruthless, charismatic cad played by John Belushi until he died of a drug overdose, alone in a Los Angeles hotel room.
`The big leagues'
In a few hours, Roger will record his first single, the Sam Cooke song "A Change is Gonna Come." En Vogue will be there, singing backup. En Vogue! Doing backup for him!
Roger drops down and swings his legs over the side of his armchair. The interview is supposed to be about Roger, his music, life in Los Angeles. But all subjects lead him back to Bill.
"This is the big leagues for me," he says of his sudden professional success. "Like it's the big leagues for Big Brother. He's gonna get his number retired. And I hope to get my number retired."
Big Brother used to play basketball with him, take him along on dates. "He was my best friend as much as he was my father and big brother. He was my protector. He was everything."
Then imagine Roger's pain when he discovered that his protector, then governor of Arkansas, knew the police were planning a sting and allowed them to bust him. Ultimately, Roger says he was grateful to Big Brother for reining him in.
"He's not too good to be true," Roger says. "He is good. He is true."
Roger's life is in some ways the story of any younger sibling clobbered by the spectacular success of the one who came before. The presidential brother syndrome. If your brother is Christ, you have a choice: become a disciple or become an anti-christ, or find yourself caught somewhere between.
But there is more cruising in Roger's veins than sibling rivalry.
"I was born on my father's birthday, which I think is a phenomenon in itself, a phenomenon that you should pay attention to," Roger says enigmatically.
The Pepsi Generation
Next morning, Stone, Roger's manager, phones. "I've got a big, big favor to ask," he says, sounding desperate.
They're out of Pepsi. Please buy some two-liter bottles on the way over. Roger has got to have Pepsi. It's really important.
There are certain rituals Roger observes - drinking Pepsi, kissing the mike before he sings, carrying the 1923 silver dollar from his mother in his pocket - that help impose order on the life of a man who is constantly fighting entropy.
So Pepsi is obtained.
They're off to a Tarzana studio to shoot the video with En Vogue. Wait, Roger forgot to shave. Wait, he needs his Secret Service pin. Wait, should he wear these sweat pants? What if he sees the En Vogue women and gets excited?
Finally he's out the door, bounding happily toward the car, a glass of Pepsi clutched in his hand.
Waiting for the Call
"Give him lashes for those blue eyes," the producer says. A makeup man is powdering Roger's face. Roger explains proudly, "I wanted to choose a song that was representative of what my brother stands for - Whoop!!" He got pancake on his tongue. "That'll teach me to open my mouth!"
A few weeks ago, Roger was the gofer. Now a gofer gives up his own shirt because it matches Roger's eyes, and another runs to the store to buy a six-pack of Pepsi.
"I can't believe this!" Roger marvels. "I can't get used to all this attention."
"Get used to it," jokes Terry, one of the En Vogue singers. This is when you like Roger the most. He is flabbergasted by his own sudden celebrity, and genuinely humbled by it. After a shoot, he thanks everyone profusely, even the forklift operator, and then, overwhelmed, cries. Despite all his immoderacy, Roger Clinton is a really nice guy.
The prez was supposed to phone. He's scheduled to appear briefly in the video, playing sax. He should have called already to confirm. But he's been in meetings all day in Little Rock.
"He'll be calling within two hours," Roger promises, vaguely anxious.
The director tells En Vogue and Roger: "Where this black hole is on the wall, will be Bill Clinton doing a sax solo."
The camera rolls. Roger turns to face the black hole, closes his eyes and sings, "Brother! Brother! Please help me!"
"Gorgeous!" yells the director.
Hours pass and Bill is still "in a meeting."
"He's a workaholic," Roger explains embarrassedly, on hold. He's been on hold for a while.
Finally, a voice calls out, "Roger, your brother's on line one." He skids out of the studio, into the control room. "Big Brother!
"Hey!" he says in to the phone, breathless. "I know, you're really busy. I'm here with En Vogue and representatives from the video company. We want to patch you through."
Pause. And then a change of tone. Surprise, then defensiveness, then anger.
"Yeah. Not if you don't want to. What? I don't know anything about this!"
One of Roger's handlers, it seems, was trying to strong-arm Bill's assistant into agreeing to the video shoot. Roger said he knew nothing about it. Big Brother is evidently not happy.
The En Vogue women file into the room, smiling excitedly. The president is going to talk to them! Roger delivers on his promise. "Big Brother wants to say thank you," he tells them.
Bill is on the speaker phone. "Can you hear me?"
"Hi!" the women say, mouthing screams.
"I hope you had a good session. I called to say how excited I am about this record you're making and I hope it turns out great."
The president's voice sounds flat and drained. It's 1:30 in the morning in the East, after a long day of hassles. Roger says goodbye. "I love you. Talk to you tomorrow." And turns to apologize about his brother's exhaustion.
It turns out Big Brother is not going to be performing on the video. Something about a possible conflict of interest.
Keywords:
PROFILE