Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories: From This Broken Hill, Volume 2

Michael Posner

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781982176891
• eBook ISBN: 9781982176907
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Literary Biographies

The second volume of the extraordinary life of the great music and literary icon Leonard Cohen, in the words of those who knew him best. Poet, novelist, singer-songwriter, artist, prophet, icon—there has never been a figure like Leonard Cohen. He was a true giant in contemporary western culture, entertaining and inspiring the world with his work. From his groundbreaking and bestselling novels, The Favourite Game and Beautiful Losers, to timeless songs such as "Suzanne, " "Dance Me to the End of Love, " and "Hallelujah, " Cohen is one of the world's most cherished artists. His death in 2016 was felt around the world by the many fans and followers who would miss his warmth, humour, intellect, and piercing insights. Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories chronicles the full breadth of his extraordinary life. This second of three volumes— From This Broken Hill —follows him from the conclusion of his first international music tour in 1971 as he continued to compose poetry, record music, and search for meaning into the late 1980s. The book explores his decade-long relationships with Suzanne Elrod, with whom he had two children, and various other numerous romantic partners, including the beginning of his long relationship with French photographer Dominique Issermann and, simultaneously, a five-year relationship with a woman never previously identified.It is a challenging time for Cohen. His personal life is in chaos and his career stumbles, so much so that his 1984 album, Various Positions, is rejected by Columbia Records, while other artistic endeavours fail to find an audience. However, this period also marks the start of his forty-year immersion in Zen Buddhism, which would connect him to the legendary Zen master Joshu Sasaki Roshi and inspire some of his most profound and enduring art.In From This Broken Hill, bestselling author and biographer Michael Posner draws on hundreds of interviews to reach beyond the Cohen of myth and reveal the unique, complex, and compelling figure of the real man. Honest and entertaining, this is a must-have book for any Cohen fan.

CHAPTER ONE Everyone Started Being in Pain

Leonard approached each moment as an act to be shaped. His life is an art form.

—Jennifer Warnes

Leonard was always searching. Robert Hershorn and George Lialios were the people he searched with for a while. Then Roshi. Then Ramesh Balsekar. Leonard never stopped looking.

—Barrie Wexler

It was January 1971. Five years earlier, Leonard Cohen had insisted that he could make something of himself in music, while continuing to be a poet. Virtually everyone—friends, family—thought he was delusional. On paper, he had been vindicated. Two albums had been released, making him a rising star in Europe, if not in North America, and he was at work on a fifth volume of poetry. His personal life, however, was beginning to unravel. Less than two years after settling in with Suzanne Elrod, he was beginning to feel trapped. That month, Cohen asked his friend Barbara Dodge to drive his car, “a crappy little Volkswagen,” to Miami from Montreal. Dodge had been living in Cohen’s St.-Dominique Street house.

BARBARA DODGE: He gave me the keys one night and said, “Stay in the house while we’re gone.” I’d paid no rent. I was there about six months. I became a close, trusted friend because I did no drugs.

In Miami, Dodge stayed with Elrod and her family, in what she called “a typical suburban house in the heart of the city.” Cohen himself had rented a houseboat.

BARBARA DODGE: It was disgusting. Gaudy, ersatz. It had creepy, fake leopard-skin furniture and purple hues. He was so spaced out. I’m sure he was on a lot of quaaludes. Really out of it. They were taking a ton of that stuff. Suzanne and I would visit.

The Elrod family home might have been a Godfather film set.

BARBARA DODGE: The food was driven over from the Fontainebleau Hotel, an insane amount of food. [The hotel was effectively mob-owned.] Suzanne’s uncle, her father figure, worked for Meyer Lansky. There was a lot of security around—I was followed everywhere—a lot of whisper, whisper, and dizzy, blond babes with heavy New Jersey accents, dumb as cows. Cute, petite women. I think one of them was her aunt, a former dancer from the Rockettes, dyed blond, gangster moll type. [Lansky himself had fled to Israel, but was likely concerned about threats to his subordinates.] The quintessential badass family with a dumb mother. The uncle was in a hospital bed with oxygen tanks and people fluttering around him. So it was clear to me she wasn’t “Suzanne”—she was Susan from Miami, and the biography was a little off. She had big, bushy eyebrows. When I met her, she struck me as being totally naive, like a country girl. She’s so lucky she met Leonard.

SANDRA ANDERSON: In her twenties, to please Leonard and to look more prepubescent, Suzanne underwent a painful and prolonged series of electrolysis sessions to remove all of her bodily hair.

As they had earlier, Cohen and Elrod continued to proposition Dodge.

BARBARA DODGE: They wanted to have sex with me. I told them, “You’ve got the wrong person.” They were doing all kinds of drugs that would make things kinky. But I had an intimate—not physically—emotional relationship with them. Once he realized he’s not going to get me—and he tried hard—he was like a brother to me.

One day, Elrod asked Dodge to drive her to another house.

BARBARA DODGE: She was in there about an hour. A Waspy surfer guy, very good looking. I believed she had an assignation, which indicated she’d have assignations with any number of guys. Years later, I told Leonard and he was really upset. I also think she was purchasing drugs for Leonard. He was using a lot of drugs and she was buying them.

It was during that Miami trip—in a Polynesian restaurant, sipping what he called a “particularly lethal and sinister coconut drink”—that Cohen began writing “Chelsea Hotel,” on a cocktail napkin. Returning to Montreal, the couple rented a one-bedroom flat on Crescent Street, in the city’s hippest neighbourhood. At the nearby Friar’s Pub, Cohen occasionally stopped to sample local bands, including St. Marc Street. In time, he befriended its teenage drummer, Earl Gordon. It was only a moment in Gordon’s life, but, characteristically, Cohen left a strong impression.

EARL GORDON: I’d go up twice a week, hang out and smoke a little. But I’d have to keep running down to play [the next set]. Sometimes, we talked philosophy, Dylan, the Beatles—everything. He was really very deep, a thinker. Leonard, the Jewish Thinker. And he was smart enough to know my limitations. Sometimes, I’d walk out of there and go, “What the fuck?” But I was eighteen or nineteen. When we started talking, I didn’t even know who he was. I just thought he was a nice guy. He and Suzanne wore black all the time, a Gothic look. It was like being in a club. She was always there, always in black, long black hair, gorgeous. He had a camel hair coat he wore a lot. They were into each other, big time. One day, I hear “Suzanne” by Leonard Cohen. I thought, “Oh, look, he wrote a song about his girlfriend.” I only found out about the other Suzanne later. Musically, it wasn’t for me. So our relationship had nothing to do with who he was. I think he even liked the fact that I didn’t know who he was. And every single time we got together, he was up. I never saw him depressed.

BARRIE WEXLER: Most people didn’t realize it, but they were seeing the B-side of what used to be called manic depression, now bipolar disorder. I saw the A-side fairly often when we were alone, and sometimes when Suzanne was present. I didn’t really appreciate then that he was allowing me to witness this crippling interior landscape that he shielded from public view.

STEVE MACHAT: Right now, I’m walking around Miami. I would tell you it’s partly sunny. Leonard Cohen would tell you it’s partly cloudy.

MICHAEL HARRIS: I’ve been dealing with poets for fifty years. Welcome to the club on depression.

BUNNY FREIDUS: I didn’t recognize it at the time, but there was a sensitivity—something. You’d hear it in the songs, anyway. I thought it was his being a sensitive soul. I didn’t know to call it depression.

EARL GORDON: He said, “Come up any time you want when I’m around.” But for weeks, there’d be nobody there. We only sat in the living room. It was as dark as he was. Everything was black. He loved black. I’d come back after two weeks and he’d be in the same clothes. I said, “How long are you going to sit shiva?” Another time, I said to him, “You never have to worry about what you’re going to wear the next day, do you?” He liked the jokes.

BARRIE WEXLER: Cohen went through costume periods like Picasso did painting styles—from all black to a field marshal look, to meditation garb, to his grey suits and fedoras. But there’s a deeper significance here. His consistent dress, his use of the same salutations for greetings and departures—“See you later, friends”—the unadorned homes—these were all reflections of his effort to keep his life, like his words on the page, small and contained. I once asked him what led to his typewriter-like print. He said his handwriting had deteriorated and become illegible. But it became another uniform. Leonard was very studied. In interviews, you see the same lines again and again. This was also true in conversation. I’m not saying he wasn’t spontaneous and funny—he was. But those were off-the-top quips compared to the body of his narrative. He communicated as he wrote, carefully, after much consideration. He dug down until he got to what he wanted to say, then internalized it and made it part of his vernacular.

In Montreal, the circle around Cohen often gravitated to the Rainbow Bar and Grill on Stanley Street, co-owned and managed by Vivienne Leebosh.

VIVIENNE LEEBOSH: Everybody hung out there. I paid the cops off so that people could deal drugs. There were about ten owners, draft dodgers and deserters. Freda Guttman and I were housing them. We took out ads in favour of [Quebec] separatism. No one in the Jewish community would talk to us.

Not everyone surrendered to Cohen’s magnetism.

SYLVIA LEVINE: There was a circuit: the Bistro, the Boiler Room, the Rainbow; later, Grumpy’s. I first noticed Leonard in—it might have been the Rainbow—and asked who that was. The man was posturing, clearly self-conscious, dressed in black, showing his “good” side, as though waiting to be recognized. “That’s Leonard Cohen,” someone said, “trying to look brooding and artistic.” “Suzanne” had already been a hit, but everyone there was “somebody,” or going to be “somebody,” or had been “somebody.” So attitude was parked at the door and everybody talked to everybody. Not him. I remember saying hello—he turned away as though this had been a giant intrusion. Anyway, the tendency was to despise “Suzanne” for being monotonal, pretentious, and self-consciously depressive, so he was no star there. It was generally thought he was a “rich kid” who had moved to Centreville to be hip.

In March 1971, Cohen returned to Nashville to complete work on Songs of Love and Hate. Released that month, the album, he later said, was “over-produced and overelaborated… an experiment that failed.” One day, he took a call from Robert Altman. The Hollywood director had finished shooting McCabe & Mrs. Miller and had gone to Europe to unwind. Altman already knew and loved Cohen’s first album. He played it again in Paris.

ROBERT ALTMAN: When I heard it again, I thought, “God, that’s the music [I want].” Subconsciously, that must have been in my head. Warner Brothers said, “He’s under contract to Columbia. You’ll never get the rights.” So I called Leonard and said, “Hi, this is Bob Altman.” He goes, “You’re kidding! Honey, you’ll never guess who’s on the phone.” I told him my problem and he said, “Don’t worry, we’ll work it out.” It’s that kind of spirit that is so lacking in the industry.

Cohen subsequently met and befriended Altman. He visited his film sets and, at one point, travelled to Mexico with him. He also arranged for Columbia to license three tracks—“The Stranger Song,” “Sisters of Mercy,” and “Winter Lady”—for a modest fee. However, when Cohen watched a rough cut of Altman’s film in New York, he didn’t like it.

ROBERT ALTMAN: My heart just sank. I really just collapsed. And he said, “But I’ll live up to my bargain.”

Cohen then recorded additional guitar work needed for the film. A year later, he called Altman to tell him he’d seen the film again and loved it. That, Altman said, “was the best thing that happened to me.”

With the album locked, Cohen and Elrod went to Hydra in May. Soon after, George Lialios introduced him to Charmaine Dunn, a Toronto model working in the UK. Their romance would begin in a few months and ultimately become a lifelong friendship. The next month, to mark Barrie Wexler’s twenty-first birthday, Cohen and Elrod took him to dinner. Another night, a party was organized in his honour.

BARRIE WEXLER: In his kitchen, before we went, he gave me a poem on Chinese joss paper and said, in his ceremonious way of speaking, “You didn’t think I’d let this purest of occasions pass unnoticed, did you?” It was later published in The Energy of Slaves. Half the expatriate community was at the party, many of them because they’d been told Cohen would likely show up.

By 1971, as stories of Hydra’s sybaritic lifestyle circulated, hordes of young people began to arrive. That summer, Cohen met two young Montrealers over whom he would come to exercise influence—aspiring singer-songwriter Brandon “Brandy” Ayre, and painter and architect Charlie Gurd. Ayre had actually gone to Hydra to meet him in 1969—Cohen was away—regarding him as “the English poet laureate of Montreal, the crown prince.”

CHARLIE GURD: Leonard was pleased to meet younger females, especially. He was generous with us fellow Montrealers. I was amazed by his tan. He was, of course, working full tilt. We liked one another immediately—I thought. Visits to his house every week or so became the norm.

Discretely, Cohen resumed a romance begun the previous year with Darlene Holt, from California.

DARLENE HOLT: He had a little rowboat he’d take me out on. He invited me to his house for dinner. Our relationship was intermittent. Where I was staying, there was a terrace off the bedroom and Leonard would come through the window and say, “Your pirate has arrived.” He would bounce around emotionally. He was always kind of melancholy, but there were times when he seemed very depressed. Still, it was a lighthearted relationship.

The American artists, Brice and Helen Marden, arrived that summer.

HELEN MARDEN: I’d come the previous year. I was going to see Phyllis Major on Spetses and noticed that all the good-looking people got off at Hydra. So she and I went to Hydra. She was very, very beautiful. The second night, she went to meet Leonard. But they knew each other earlier. When she killed herself [in 1976], it was horrible. Drugs were an ongoing concern.

BARBARA DODGE: Brice was Suzanne’s lover on Hydra. She told me all about it.

HELEN MARDEN: For years, Brice made me promise I’d never have an affair with Leonard. And I didn’t. I wouldn’t. Leonard would joke about it: “Maybe one night in a dark alley.” I said, “I don’t think so.” Brice and I did split up briefly and I had different boyfriends, and Leonard said, “Put the children down gently when you’re through.” He was always teasing me.

An aspiring Welsh poet, Morgana Pritchard, arrived with beat poet Gregory Corso. She ended up staying eighteen months, painting to earn a living.

MORGANA PRITCHARD: Marianne [Ihlen] and I had the same birthday. We really connected. She invited me to stay with her. It was a romp of a summer. [Folksinger] David Blue was there and David Jove [né Sniderman, a Canadian underground filmmaker]. There was a softball game—poets versus musicians. Leonard played for the poets. The musicians won, I think. Leonard didn’t come for very long. He was busy with something. One day, I got picked up b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Chapter One: Everyone Started Being in Pain
• Chapter Two: Into the Avalanche
• Chapter Three: Are You in Love with Me Yet?
• Chapter Four: The Soul Shaman
• Chapter Five: How Few Notes Can You Play?
• Chapter Six: Satellites Around His Sun
• Chapter Seven: Gone for Keeps
• Chapter Eight: Desire and Renunciation
• Chapter Nine: Like a Deep Well in the Ocean
• Chapter Ten: The Gift of Stillness
• Chapter Eleven: The Vulgar Quotidian
• Chapter Twelve: Call Me Bubba
• Chapter Thirteen: That’s All That There Is
• Epilogue
• Photographs
• Appendix: Dramatis Personae
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Copyright