COVER STORY : Brian Wilson’s Rocky Reality : As the ex-Beach Boy confronts past demons and ponders his future, family members and lawyers go to court arguing he can no longer control his life

The front door of Brian Wilson’s three-story, beachfront home in Malibu stands invitingly open on a recent cool morning.

From the entrance, you can see through the house to the ocean, where the fog is still blocking any trace of sunshine. The legendary--but long-troubled--Beach Boy is dressed in a sport shirt, jeans and moccasins, and he seems relaxed and upbeat.

On any given day, Wilson wakes up about 8 a.m., runs two or three miles along the adjacent Pacific Coast Highway, then returns home and slips alone into his yellow Corvette convertible. He then heads to the West Los Angeles office building/recording studio that he shares with Eugene Landy, the controversial psychologist he credits with rescuing him from years of depression and drug use. Frequently, he’ll visit his gym, meet with his attorney and go to the movies.

Does this sound like someone’s prisoner?

Brian’s brother Carl thinks this daily show of self-sufficiency is just an illusion.

To him and other family members, Brian may be able to do the rudimentary things for himself, but Landy is the one who makes the crucial decisions in his life--including financial ones.

The family members have gone to court to separate Brian from Landy, who they claim has brainwashed Brian to gain control of his millions. They’re asking that an independent conservator be appointed to oversee his affairs. Brian is contesting the legal action, insisting that he is competent to run his own life.

Even in the early-morning calm of Wilson’s home, the tension stemming from the court fight hangs over him like the fog over the ocean.

Stopping by a piano in a small downstairs room, Wilson--who is about 6 foot 3 and a trim 190 pounds--begins playing a song that he wrote recently for the Beach Boys. The tune has a classic good-time feel, somewhere between the instant accessibility of Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock” and Wilson’s own “Fun, Fun, Fun.”

Suddenly, he stops playing and frowns.

“I should give the song to the Beach Boys, but I don’t know,” he says, a flash of anger in his tone. “Those yokels, those idiots go and ruin my life. . . . My relatives have definitely assaulted me with the conservatorship case. It has cost me so much money and so much anxiety.”

Wilson looks back at the piano keys, as if replaying the song in his mind. He looks at the visitor’s tape recorder and barks, anxiously: “Don’t play (the song) for them. . . . I should give it to Crosby, Stills & Nash or Michael Jackson . . . anybody you can conceive of could (record) it.”

Nobody ever captured the myth of teen-agers frolicking carefree in the Southern California sun and surf as seductively as Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys did in such early ‘60s hits as “Surfer Girl,” “California Girls” and “I Get Around.”

Glenn Frey has said one of the things that lured the former Eagle to Los Angeles from Detroit was all the good-time images in Beach Boys records--images framed with complex vocal harmonies that Brian had learned from Four Freshmen records and irresistibly appealing, yet also sophisticated melodies.

Those feel-good records about an endless summer made the Beach Boys the biggest rock group in the world until the Beatles came along. But it was another dimension of Beach Boys music that cemented Brian Wilson’s reputation as a mastermind of contemporary pop.

In such poignant songs as “In My Room” and “Caroline No,” Wilson stepped back from the cheerful teen imagery to deal with issues of self-doubt and, ultimately, loneliness. Even if Wilson didn’t write most of the lyrics, the themes--and the marvelous design of the Beach Boys’ musical framework--usually reflected his viewpoint.

From “Don’t Worry Baby” in 1964:

Well, it’s been building up inside of me

For, oh, I don’t know how long

I don’t know why ,

But I keep thinkin’

Somethin’s bound to go wrong .

Don Was, the respected record producer whose credits include Bonnie Raitt’s Grammy-winning “Nick of Time” album and Bob Dylan’s “Under the Red Sky” album, says Wilson’s albums with the Beach Boys stand as a “textbook” on making records.

In the ‘60s, however, much of the pop world was confused by the sudden melancholy strain in Wilson’s work. In retrospect, it’s easy to see where the sadness came from.

The Beach Boys wasn’t just a group to the outside world, it was a family. The saga began in Hawthorne in 1961 when Brian Wilson, younger brothers Carl and Dennis, cousin Mike Love and high school chum Al Jardine joined together in a band. After a few false starts, they parlayed Dennis Wilson’s idea of a song about surfing into a hit single called “Surfin.”

Between 1962 and 1966, the Beach Boys registered more than a dozen Top 20 singles, most of them written, arranged and produced by Brian. But the strain was too much. His own obsessive urge to come up with new hits and more inventive music contributed to a nervous breakdown--and he turned to drugs, including LSD, to ease the pressures and pain.

Though various books on the Beach Boys’ troubled journey have told of the fighting among the members of the group and the Wilson family, the darkest account is contained in Wilson’s new autobiography, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice--My Own Story,” which will be published Oct. 21 by HarperCollins:.

I’ve always thought my dad never should have had kids. . . . Dad was a tyrant, possessed by an explosive, unpredictable temper. He yelled at his three boys constantly, especially his oldest, who happened to be me.

Although he saw himself as a loving father who guided his brood with a firm hand, he abused us psychologically and physically, creating wounds that never healed. My mother often drank, I suppose to ease her pain; my brother Dennis is dead; my brother Carl is remote and uncommunicative. Dad instilled in me a predisposition to mental illness that left me a cripple.

The abuse outlined in the book includes the time his father, an aspiring songwriter who managed the Beach Boys for a while in the ‘60s, reportedly hit young Brian with a two-by-four, a blow that Brian claims left him deaf in his right ear. There’s also the time his father allegedly forced the youngster, as a form of punishment, to defecate on a newspaper in the kitchen in front of his parents.

Wilson says it was painful recalling the childhood memories for the book--”like digging something out of a grave . . . and I said, ‘No, no, we can’t do this.’ ”

But he now feels it was therapeutic to explore the old memories. Looking across the room during the morning interview at his house, he says, “It helped me to understand myself a little better.”

He seems agreeable when asked if he’d give some of his feelings today about key people in his life, but he flinches at the mention of the first name--his father, Murry Wilson.

There’s something sweet and disarming, almost childlike about Wilson. It’s as if he forgot somewhere along the tortured trail just how to disguise his feelings. Instead of filtering his emotions, he’ll sometimes express his feelings with the innocence of a youngster.

“You didn’t need to bring that up, did you?” he says, clearly upset at the mention of his late father’s name. Briefly, Wilson looks so unsettled that he might get up and leave the room. But he finally joins back in the conversation.

“There’s a lot of anger,” he says, regarding his father, who died in 1973. “I can understand intellectually (why he hit me), but my feelings won’t accept it. He got beat to hell all the time by his dad and he attacked me, assaulted me with this tremendous amount of aggression . . . boom !”

His reaction to other family members:

* His mother, Audree, who has joined in the conservatorship suit with Wilson’s daughters, Carnie and Wendy, who are in the vocal group Wilson Phillips:

“I relate my mom to high school. . . . She had a way of waking me up that was so tender. Other than that, I can’t relate to her. . . . I’ve tried (in recent years), but I can’t.”

* Brother Carl: “He’s just sort of gotten out of control and I think it’s time to . . . reason with Carl, to say, ‘Look, let’s have a meeting in person.’ I asked him a couple of times . . . and he says maybe, but he never calls.”

* Brother Dennis, who drowned Dec. 28, 1983, after a day of partying. For years Dennis, who was also heavily into drugs, was Brian’s closest friend.

“I didn’t think much of why he died as much as the fact that I missed my buddy . . . ,” Wilson says, in response to Dennis’ name. Pausing, he looks down at the floor again. “I don’t know . . . I don’t know if I want to talk about that.”

Asked if he ever wonders why he had the strength to survive and his brother didn’t, Wilson says sharply:

“No, because I don’t think that (question’s) fair. If he had lived, he would have been able to prove that he could survive, too. . . . He just didn’t get the chance . . . I at least didn’t drown.”

Like almost everything else in his life, Wilson’s book, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice--My Own Story,” is being debated. The question is whether the autobiography is really Wilson’s story or a tale orchestrated by Landy.

In a biting examination of the Wilson-Landy relationship in the Oct. 5 issue of Billboard magazine, editor Timothy White declares that “the entire text (of the book) . . . reads suspiciously like a legal brief to underpin” another court action that Wilson is involved in, a $100-million action to regain control of his early publishing rights.

Wilson maintains in the Los Angeles Superior Court suit that his father sold the rights to the Beach Boys’ catalogue of songs in 1969 to the publishing firm of Almo-Irving against the songwriter’s best interests and wishes, at a time when Wilson was emotionally incapable of stopping him. Almo-Irving and the Los Angeles law firm of Mitchell, Silverberg & Knupp--also named in the suit--deny acting improperly.

Others could also argue that the book reads like Exhibit A in Wilson’s defense in the conservatorship case--since the book, which is dedicated to Landy, is a glowing testimony to Landy. In fact, Barry Langberg, the family attorney in the conservatorship case, does express doubts about the authorship of the book.

“You have to remember one thing about that book,” Langberg says during an interview in his Century City office. “Why does Landy get one third of the royalties of the book if he isn’t one of the authors of the book? He obviously is--and obviously a good deal of what is in the book is Landy talking as much as Brian talking.”

But Todd Gold, a writer in the Los Angeles bureau of People magazine who wrote the book with Wilson, insists the views in “Wouldn’t It Be Nice--My Own Story” represent Wilson’s thinking--not Landy’s.

Gold, who has also written celebrity bios with Drew Barrymore and Louie Anderson, says: “Brian told me everything about his life . . . the drugs, his marriage . . . It wasn’t Landy. . . . I never once, in two years, went through Landy to make an appointment with Brian.”

Gold does recall that it was difficult at times to get Wilson to deal with issues in his life.

“What I found out was that he was very sensitive of being reminded of his failure . . . as a husband, as a person, as a father. He didn’t like it even though it wasn’t as if he could have ever helped it or corrected the situation. I just think he’s pretty aware of his shortcomings. . . . In his own words, he has said, ‘I’m feeble now.’ It must be devastating to remember being sharper than you are now.”

Does Gold see Landy as a hero or villain?

“He’s heroic in the sense he saved Brian’s life,” Gold maintains. “Brian needs a strong figure to latch onto . . . to help motivate him. Brian needs someone who is going to fight his battles, stand up for him.”

Part of the issue that has led to the conservatorship case is whether Landy stood up for Wilson or for himself.

Langberg says bluntly: “One point that Landy always makes . . . is that he saved Brian’s life . . . and he may have. But let’s use another example.

“Let’s say you have a heart attack today and Dr. Jones does a triple-bypass and saves your life. I think you ought to be real grateful to him and pay his bill, but I don’t believe that gives him the right for the next 12 years to take over every aspect of your business life and your personal life and make a fortune from you.”

Even Landy’s worst enemies concede he probably saved Wilson’s life. Yet even Landy’s best friends suggest the psychologist was probably wrong to have entered into business arrangements with his former patient.

Landy, who holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Oklahoma and pioneered a “24-hour therapy” technique where the therapist and his assistants exert control over every aspect of the patient’s life, first became associated with Wilson in 1976.

Wilson’s wife, Marilyn, sought Landy’s help at the time in rehabilitating the singer-composer. Over the years, several doctors and psychologists had worked with Wilson, but none apparently were able to break through Wilson’s shell. Still, the relationship was initially short-lived; Landy stopped working with Wilson after a few months because of a dispute with the Beach Boys’ management at the time.

According to various people involved, Wilson began to again withdraw after Landy was removed as his therapist. He continued in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s to go on stage with the Beach Boys at times, but his presence was generally considered more symbolic than active. At some shows, he would simply sit at the piano and stare into space.

By late 1982, Tom Hulett, who had taken over management of the Beach Boys in 1981, felt Wilson had so deteriorated that the band ought to rehire Landy.

In a famous rock quote at the time, Hulett said: “I got very scared. I worked with Elvis and saw what he went through. I also helped bury Jimi Hendrix. I told the other guys in the band that if we didn’t do something, Brian was going to be the next headline (death) in Billboard.”

Landy, who had a reputation in Los Angeles of being the “shrink to the stars,” and a team of helpers then took over Wilson’s life, overseeing his every move for months--while trying to isolate him from the bad influences, including drug dealers, who were supplying him with everything from cocaine to acid.

After three years, Landy felt Wilson had made enough progress to enter a more normal life--and it is at this point that he began what he describes as “social rehabilitation.” The psychologist arranged for Wilson to see another therapist and he entered a formal business relationship with his former patient. They called their company Brains and Genius.

Mark Meador, who was Landy’s attorney for much of the psychologist’s years with Wilson, thinks in hindsight that it was a mistake for Landy to enter into these business relationships. But he dismisses “brainwash” claims as absurd.

“The allegation in the conservatorship is that Gene has exercised undue influence and has brainwashed Brian,” he says. “The reality is that anytime a business matter has ever come up between Brian and Gene, I have always represented Gene and negotiated with Brian’s professional representatives. I have never negotiated with Brian.”

Don Engel, who has been Brian Wilson’s personal attorney since early this year, thinks it is inappropriate to discuss the Landy-Wilson relationship. Yet he attests to his client’s competency.

“During the last six months, I am reasonably convinced that not only is he not unduly influenced by Gene Landy but that he has, when necessary, been perfectly able to make difficult, independent decisions.”

Engel adds, “This is one of the most difficult situations I’ve had to handle as an attorney. I’m advising Brian and I have to take into account Brian’s genuine feelings about Landy--that he is grateful for Landy’s saving his life--while at the same time I’m trying to give him my best professional and independent advice.”

Even Landy, however, now calls the business dealings a mistake.

“No, I would never do it again,” he says during an interview at the Brentwood Bar & Grill. “The reason is I am . . . out here on a limb, all by myself (with) all this collective evidence that points at me and says I am a terrible human being . . .

“It is shaping up to look like Brian is the victim, the family are the heroes, I am the villain in this piece. (The truth is) he’s on his own . . . self-sufficient. He’s gone away to a spa this week. . . . When he gets out, the first thing he’s gonna do is see his girlfriend. . . . Yes, Brian Wilson has a girlfriend. . . . It took years and years of therapy to get him to even consider dating.”

Langberg thinks most of Landy’s actions are self-serving efforts to derail the court proceedings. The case is scheduled to begin in Santa Monica Superior Court on Nov. 18.

“Carl doesn’t like being painted as a greedy, overbearing person out for his own end, when the opposite is the truth,” Langberg says forcefully. “If anyone can show me one thing that Carl Wilson has done since the start of this conservatorship proceeding for his own aggrandizement or for his own benefit in relation to Brian, I’ll kiss their feet.”

Langberg won’t estimate until the trial begins how much money he believes Landy has made from his association with Wilson, but he calls the amount “exorbitant” and brands as unacceptable Landy’s financial demands for a permanent separation from Wilson.

Normally confident and energetic, Landy appears drained and discouraged as he sits in the Brentwood restaurant and agrees to discuss for the first time all of his financial dealings with Wilson. He complains that his relationship with Wilson, rather than bringing him a fortune, has left him worse off financially than if he had remained in private practice. (See story on Page 63.)

As Landy tells it, he received less than $3 million, gross, over the last eight years--or less than the $500,000 a year he believes he would have earned if he had stayed in practice as a psychologist.

Langberg disputes the amount that Landy has received from Wilson and also asks how Landy can estimate his income as a psychologist, considering that in 1989 Landy voluntarily surrendered his license to practice psychology in California as part of a settlement with the state involving charges of professional misconduct. As part of the settlement, Landy admitted to a single charge of unlawfully prescribing drugs and agreed not to petition for reinstatement for two years.

To demonstrate that they are independent agents, Wilson and Landy agreed in April not to see each other for 90 days, during which an independent psychiatrist could examine Wilson and file a report with the court. The pair have since decided to extend the separation and end their business ties.

Preliminary attempts at a division of funds were made during the initial separation period earlier this year, but Carl Wilson’s representatives found Landy’s demands excessive, Langberg says.

Landy, however, maintains that he is just asking for a fair share of the Wilson-Landy partnership, whose assets include Wilson’s two solo albums and the autobiography.

“Brian’s lawyers, Carl’s lawyers, my lawyers are all involved in sorting this out,” he says. “Getting out of business together is like a divorce. They add up how much there is, then you buy out the other person.”

What about Brian Wilson’s music?

Wilson’s self-titled solo album, released in 1988 by Warner Bros. and Sire Records, was an unexpected pop delight of the ‘80s--a widely heralded work that recalled the exhilarating sweep of the Beach Boys’ most endearing recordings.

But there were heated battles behind the scenes with the record companies on one side and Landy/Wilson on the other. When they began work last year on a follow-up, Landy and Wilson made the record without Warner Bros. or Sire input, and the record was flatly rejected by the companies. One key problem, according to Landy and Wilson, was the album’s lyrics--largely written by Landy and his longtime companion, Alexandra Morgan, an actress and writer.

“We went (to Warner Bros.) with our hopes up, so we were disappointed that they didn’t like it,” Wilson says, after listening to a playback of the album at the Brains and Genius recording studio.

Landy and Wilson then asked for Wilson’s release from the label and those negotiations are under way. A Warner Bros. spokesman declined to comment.

Meanwhile, Wilson has been talking to producer Don Was about making an album together. If arrangements can be worked out, Was hopes to put Wilson together with various other lyricists.

“I started re-listening to Beach Boys stuff about a year ago,” Was says, “and Brian’s stuff is phenomenal, not only the ‘Pet Sounds’ stuff from the ‘60s, but even his ‘70s stuff. He took things further as a producer and arranger than anybody.

“There is absolutely no question that he has all the chops musically. It might sound ridiculous, but in my heart, I feel his best work is ahead of him. He did some background vocals (recently) on a Ringo Starr record and he did five vocal parts . . . sounds just like the Beach Boys . . . in about 12 minutes. It was amazing.”

Before an album, however, Was would like to put some of today’s pop and rock artists together with Wilson in a tribute film that would feature new versions of some of Wilson’s songs--not necessarily the hits, but songs that Was feels reflect the character and soul of the Beach Boy.

“The crazy thing is I don’t know that the average kid in Kansas knows there is any difference between Brian Wilson and Mike Love. To them, they may both just be guys who sang about Hondas. I want to show that this is a guy whose contribution to pop music is as great as anybody’s.”

With the start of the conservatorship trial just five weeks away, Langberg professes confidence. He says he has seen the report of the psychiatrist who examined Wilson during the trial separation with Landy and, while he won’t share the information until the trial, he feels the evidence is very favorable to his case. Landy counters by saying Wilson’s attorneys will present convincing medical evidence of their own.

Meanwhile, Landy vows to throw a 50th birthday party next year for Wilson regardless of the conservatorship verdict, but says he’s eager to get on with his own life. Landy says he’s not sure about his next step, whether he wants to reapply for his state license or do some writing.

“Our breaking up is not only beneficial for him, but very beneficial for me,” he says. “I have a life to get back to . . . my own star to follow. I don’t need to have all these crazy people in my life. I love Brian, but it will be worth not seeing Brian to not deal with all this craziness.”

For the first time since his psychology internship in the ‘60s, he is in therapy. “I have a lot of anger,” he says.

It’s fitting that Wilson, who wrote so many great songs about the beach, lives by the ocean. He never surfed, of course, in the old days--one of the great ironies of his life. And even today, he says he enjoys watching people playing on the beach, but he doesn’t feel comfortable joining in.

“I never could surf,” he says, sitting on a rock by the back steps of his home as a photographer takes his picture. “I tried surfing and I got my head zapped. . . . I prefer looking down at the ocean, the waves. There hasn’t been a single night here where I’ve gone to sleep without the waves. They put you to sleep.”

Before going to sleep some nights, he watches television; his secret passion is the home shopping channels. “Sometimes, I’ll lay on that couch and watch QVC for two hours a night,” he says, sheepishly.

Meeting Wilson for the first time can be deceptive because his smile tends to be frozen--the result, he says, of muscle loss suffered during one of the beatings he received as a child. He also tends to be shy and reserved, giving him the appearance of someone with limited capacity to express himself.

But Wilson has made remarkable strides since the early ‘80s and now can be quite articulate. He doesn’t overdramatize his recovery from the drugs and demons, but he does take quiet comfort in the various steps involved in piecing his life back together.

“Everything was a new experience,” he recalls, with the sound of waves in the background. “Just driving a car. I could get in it, steer it. It was like being a new person.”

Yet he admits that he has certain limitations--and the jury in the conservatorship court will be asked to determine the degree of those limitations.

He seems essentially positive. “I remember the good more than the sad. The creativity outrides the sorrow by twice, by two-fold.” But there is also a genuine sense of regret over how much of his life was simply thrown away.

“It was the brain damage from the cocaine and the acid and the amphetamines and the downers . . . and the marijuana. . . . My memory was wiped out. . . . I got some of it back, but there’s some I can’t get back.”