Charlie Sheen’s career in 2011 was imploding faster that he could say “winning” or drink a vial of his own “tiger blood.” His public slide into the profitable state of media-promoted mental illness was pitiable but hardly new.
I remember the first time I ever met Sheen. It was about 2 am, and I was riding the elevator in the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City, L.A. back to my room. The elevator stopped and Sheen got on with a beautiful and very drunk blonde girl. They were both wearing open bathrobes and leaning on each other for support. Even then in his clearly altered state, he was as handsome as a Greek god and exuded that rare but very real aura of star power.
I was supposed to interview Sheen in the morning for the lame movie I’d just seen about Navy SEALs fighting terrorism so I maintained my journalistic distance and stared straight ahead. The elevator stopped at my floor and as I got off, I could hear Sheen and his paramour snicker.
Matinee idol
The first time I ever saw him was in the movie Platoon. I lined up outside to see it one frigid New Year’s Day in Toronto. As soon as the film unspooled, I knew that Sheen was being groomed for stardom. He had the acting intensity, the looks and the lineage. Wall Street sealed the deal. Sheen was a bona fide star and living the Hollywood lifestyle to the hilt. It didn’t hurt that his father, Martin Sheen, was a well-respected actor and activist, or that his brother Emilio was as popular and laid-back as Charlie was wild and unpredictable.
The next day dawned at the junket and I made the rounds of interviews. Only one person was missing — Sheen. The day wore on and the publicists became more frantic, his co-stars more edgy, until finally Michael Biehn intimated that Sheen was living up to the role he was playing in the movie — an irresponsible showoff who endangers the lives of his fellow SEALs. SEALs, by the way, have a history of getting away with antics that would get anybody else court martialled. As it became clear that Sheen was a no-show, everybody went to the hotel bar for the first of many drinks. Comparisons to Sheen versus other celebrity bad behaviour were widely discussed. The head of publicity appeared eventually and said they were doing everything they could to get Sheen to do a press conference the next day.
Rumours flew that he was holed up in the hotel on a coke and booze-fuelled bender and that the head honchos of Orion Pictures (now defunct) had personally begged him to do the publicity he was contractually obliged to perform. I shared my bathrobe tale, and someone else added that they’d seen him drinking in the sauna with two buxom babes. Who knew? The man’s reputation was already legendary.
Superfly
When Sheen finally made an appearance in the late afternoon of the following day, it was spectacular. After keeping the press waiting more than an hour in a cavernous ballroom, he sneaked into the room and took a seat in the back. But with his super- pimp attire, he didn’t stay unnoticed for long. He was wearing a white suit and gold jewelry that would have done Superfly proud. Topping it off was a snazzy fedora with a feather in the band, and an unmistakable twinkle in the bad boy’s eye. Once Sheen had our collective attention, he passed around headshots of himself in the getup. It is one of my few regrets that I threw that bizarre photo away a couple of house moves ago otherwise I would post it here.
What was most telling about the incident is that Sheen was enjoying himself immensely and clearly didn’t care about what anyone thought. His skin had a greasy shine to it, his pupils were dilated, and if a man could be said to swagger sitting down, he was. I don’t remember much about the actual press conference, or even the stories I wrote, but I have an indelible recollection of the power he wielded that day. He had the rapt attention of everyone in that room because no one knew what he might do next.
When I stopped in at the hotel gift shop later, the woman behind the counter admired my swag bag, which I gave to her, and she told me that Sheen had charged thousands of dollars to Orion outfitting himself at the boutique next door earlier in the day. She said he was an excellent tipper.
Sheen isn’t the first actor to choose booze, drugs and the pleasures of the flesh over a serious film career — although he prides himself as a professional and is always on time and prepared — and he won’t be the last. He’s been hugely successful on his own terms. The Hollywood code of ignoring bad behavior in favour of raking in cash remains sacrosant. I won’t pass judgment on Sheen although I definitely wouldn’t want to be married to him. I’ll leave the finger wagging to the armchair moralists who are thick upon the ground when it comes to the blame game. One thing I know for sure is that Charlie still doesn’t give a damn about what any of us thinks of him.