PRIDE AND JOY
Interview by Audrey Edwards
Photography can be seen in the NonaNet magazine gallery
Nat `King' Cole and Marvin Gaye were two of our most celebrated men of song. Here their daughters Natalie and Nona talk about their famous fathers, their troubled pasts and their dreams for the future.
THE POLO LOUNGE RESTAURANT IN THE BEVERLY Hills Hotel is one of those celebrity-sighting spots where moguls mix and cut deals, divas preen and profile, and bona fide stars sit at secluded corner tables. On this sunny winter day, Natalie Cole, tall, taut and terrific-looking at 53, is at a semicircular table behind the piano having lunch with Nona Gaye, a shy, smoldering beauty of 28. It is a historic sit-down.
When ESSENCE invited these two women to have a first-ever conversation, we knew the daughter of Nat "King" Cole, the smoothest singer of the fifties, and the daughter of Marvin Gaye, the sexiest singer of the sixties, seventies and early eighties, would no doubt bring common backgrounds and celebrity legacies to the table. But we didn't realize just how far those legacies still reach, or the extent to which shared history has led to shared destinies. Both women have stepped out of the shadow of famous fathers to make their own name in the entertainment field, and, as with their fathers, more binds them than separates them.
The rich, velvety voice of Nat "King" Cole defined 1950's buttoned-down elegance. The lush, sensual voice of Marvin Gaye defined 1970's sexual freedom. Cole was cool and classy, Gaye was fine and hot--tough acts to follow. For Natalie, who lost her father to lung cancer when she was 15, and Nona, whose father was killed by his own father when she was 9, being a daddy's girl has brought great privilege and great pain. In an industry that gave them access because of their famous names and burdens for the same mason, following in the footsteps of legends has meant trip-ups as well as success.
Natalie, whose twenty-second album, Ask a Woman Who Knows, was released last year, is an eight-time Grammy-award winner whose recording spans almost 30 years. Nona, a budding singer, is also an impressive actress whose knockout 2001 film debut was playing Muhammad Ali's second wife, Belinda (aka Khalilah), in Ali. She will also replace the late singer Aaliyah in the upcoming film sequels to The Matrix.
When the two met for lunch, they got on like sisters, showing the affection for each other that Nona's father had had for Natalie's. Both women have sons: Natalie's is 25; Nona's is 5. Both have a history of troubled relationships with men--Natalie is married to husband number three; Nona had a three-year relationship with Prince. And both have a history of drug use, a shared response to the pain of losing fathers much too soon. While this legacy of father love and father loss continues to shape them, it has been their ability to overcome and stand in the light of their own power that ultimately honors a legacy of great art and a legacy of great possibilities.
NONA GAYE: My dad sure loved your dad.
NATALIE COLE: Didn't he do an album of my dad's music?
NONA: Yes, a tribute to Nat Cole, featuring some of his songs.
NATALIE: I think I have a copy. You know, I had just seen your dad months before he died. He was a great guy and a dear friend. I was about to go into rehab. He came over to my house, and it was just the two of us sitting on the steps. I'll never forget that night. We talked about doing an album together. And he talked about your mother, Jan. She had just left him, and he was crushed.
NONA: Oh, yeah, I remember that time vividly. It was really hard because both my mother and father were using drugs heavily. As young as I was, I would think, You guys are not all right. Neither one of you. But even though they never got it together, they couldn't quite stay away from each other. Their divorce was very hard for me and my younger brother, Frank. And since I didn't really grow up with Marvin, we were never close.
NATALIE: My dad and I were pretty close. I was a tomboy, and he had always wanted a son. So until my brother Kelly came along, I was the son. I liked fast sports cars and playing golf. Actually, I don't play golf, but my dad would play golf and I'd chase the balls. He was a terrible golfer.
One of the great ongoing mysteries of my life is why my mother never told us when my dad got sick. I guess she didn't know how. He was probably sick for a year before I found out. He had taken me to a girls' boarding school in Massachusetts in September 1964. He got me registered and everything. But when I came home for Christmas, my dad looked as if he'd aged 50 years. I almost didn't recognize him. So when he died, I was still trying to get over the fact that he'd been sick.
NONA: I had a lot of problems after my dad died that I hadn't even thought about processing. My substance abuse started really early--at 14. It was five years after my father died. I was caught up in taking anything that would help numb the pain. It was hard to know where to put my feelings when they were being shared with everybody. I remember trying to kiss my father in his casket, and a photographer took a picture. I couldn't even say good-bye in private. It was so strange.
NATALIE: I was 15 when my dad died, and I think when a young woman loses a father, it affects her differently than if she's grown. I think my life would have been totally different if my father had lived. I don't know that I would have gone into the music business. I might have gone on and become a doctor, which is what I originally wanted to do. People would just assume that I was going to follow in his footsteps. They'd say things like, "What do you mean you don't sing?" And I'd just look at them and say, "No! That's not what I really want to do. I can do it, but I don't want to." My father was so big it never occurred to me to try to step into his shoes.
NONA: I think one advantage we have is that we're daughters. Can you imagine if we were sons? I think of my older brother, Marvin, having the same name and everything, always having to represent. We're women, so I think the comparisons are a little less brutal--but not much.
NATALIE: Yeah, not much [laughs]. I remember I was scheduled to perform in a little bar-restaurant in Greenfield, Massachusetts. I was like maybe 20, still in college, didn't have a record deal or anything, and nobody knew me. The owner puts on the restaurant marquee: "Nat `King' Cole's Daughter." I said to him, "So where's my name?"
NONA. People don't realize how difficult it is to go up against something like that. I was on a promotional tour when I released my first album at 17. I was signing photographs of myself when this woman came up with a picture for me to sign. I started to sign my name and she says, "Oooh, no, no, wait, honey. Could you sign it `Marvin Gaye's daughter?.'" And you know, I did.
NATALIE: I hope you'd slap 'em if somebody asked you to do that now.
NONA: [Laughs] Yeah, there might be a slightly different response now. There was a point--I don't know if it was the same for you--when it just kind of clicked. It was like, This is what I'm supposed to do--be an entertainer. Even though I've never really had much formal training, I couldn't see myself doing anything else and feeling totally comfortable. I'm working on an album right now, but until I started acting I didn't realize how much I loved it. I had gone to the William Morris Agency to have them represent me in music, and they asked if I was interested in acting. I couldn't believe it. I had always been interested, but you know, music is what got pushed on me.
NATALIE: You captured Khalilah well in Ali. I knew her when she was married to him. She was a very big personality who overshadowed everything when she walked into a room. Always smiling, queenly. And she was very smart. I just loved the way you played her because it showed why Muhammad Ali went from marrying the kind of girl he first married to marrying Khalilah. She was strong. She could protect him and kick anybody's behind. You were really quite good.
NONA: Thank you. I'm just trying to stay focused on my career and my son. If I let a man in right now, I don't think I'd be able to handle it the right way. I have the potential to be self-destructive, so I'm working on being more aware of what I'm doing and who I'm doing it with. For a long time I wasn't aware. I was with Prince for three years, starting from when I was 18....
NATALIE: When we heard Prince was with this little 18-year-old child, we said, "Oh, God! Bless her heart." Prince was ...
NONA: ... not really stable. And I wasn't either. I was still into drugs big time. I never really knew him, and I never let him really know me. I tried to be this woman I thought he wanted, very passive, just letting him lead. He was 16 years older than me. He told a friend of mine he was going to marry me and take care of me. I knew I wouldn't get anything better than that from him, so I believed it. But after that we were in New York, and he asked me to come see his show. Mayte, one of his dancers, flashed the engagement ring he'd given her from the stage. When I asked him about it afterward, he was very evasive and defensive. I haven't spoken to him since. He did marry Mayte. And it upsets me that we ended things that way, because at one point he was really, really important to me.
NATALIE: Girl, you just keep doing exactly what you're doing because if you're going on the path I think you are, there will be more men who will be intimidated--if you haven't discovered that already. It's unfortunate, but so many men cannot handle a woman who's going to be as big as you have the potential to be. It's the way of the world, and it doesn't matter what color they are. They'll all tell you how secure they are, but a couple of months into the relationship they're pissed off because you walk into a room and nobody looks at them. Everybody looks at you, and everybody's going to call him Mr. Gaye. You know it's true.
NONA: Yeah.
NATALIE: When I look back on my life now, I'm convinced that having lost my dad had a lot do with the kind of relationships I got into later on. I was looking for love, looking for that male representation in my life. When I was dating the man who would become my third husband, I finally felt self-sufficient emotionally. I liked myself. I was in my fifties. It took me a long time. I'm not saying that it will take that long for everyone. But once I got to that place where I was liking myself, I attracted the kind of men I wished I had attracted 20 years before.
NONA: Yeah. But it does take time. People around you are very important--your inner circle. These are the ones who will go toe-to-toe with you, look you in the eye and say, "Nona, you are not together. You just need to get over yourself." These are the people you need to have around you. That's so important in this business: Have people around you who will ground you, watch your back and love you no matter what. I just want to push myself to go as far as I can go--as long as it isn't unhealthy for me, you know? I want to continue to do work that, when I look back on it, I'll be really glad I did that.
NATALIE: I'm looking for longevity. That's what you want to be concerned about. It's not about being a flash in the pan. If you desire it, it can be yours. This is all I really have, or all that I really want to do. This is my passion. And I would just say, never forget that you are just like your dad. You're an artist. You've been given a gift. Nobody can take it away from you. It's really up to you to do with it whatever you want.