NATALIE'S TALE OF TORMENT

On Screen And In Print, Natalie Cole Goes Public About Her Troubled Life

She was an elegant addict. She wore feather boas and sequined gowns on
stage, and freebased cocaine in her mansion. She scored back-to-back
platinum albums and multiple Grammys, then celebrated with champagne
and blow. Before coke, it was heroin. Before that, LSD.

Natalie Cole says she kicked drugs in 1983. But it has taken longer
for Nat (King) Cole's little girl, now 50, to go public about her
self-destructive life and 25-year recording career. The singer's
surprisingly candid autobiography,

Angel On My Shoulder, hit stores on Nov. 14, the same day as her CD
Greatest Hits Vol. I. And now tonight she stars in Livin' for Love:
The Natalie Cole Story, a telemovie loosely based on the book
(A-Channel at 8 p.m., NBC at 10).

Despite her pedigree, says the pop/rhythm-and-blues performer, "I'm an
ordinary person under extraordinary circumstances." And ordinary
people are who she hopes to reach with Angel.

"(It's) not for folks who take life too seriously or not seriously
enough. I was just telling the truth, what I've learned."

Though it's true, it will probably sound disingenuous "if I tell you
that God told me it was time to write the book," says Cole, a devout
Baptist since the mid-'80s.

"The idea for the book was actually approached 10 years ago. ... (But)
I don't believe you can write this kind of book and still be in the
storm."

That "storm" was the relationship with her volatile husband, producer
Andre Fischer, whom she married in 1989 and divorced seven years
later. In her book, Cole charges that he regularly beat her, once
smashing her face with a Bible, another time pushing her through a wall.
(Fischer has not responded publicly to Cole's tell-all.)

Cole's account of her marital woes is far from the most sensational in
Angel's torrent of revelations. The child of one of America's most
beloved vocalists made headlines with her confession that, as a
23-year-old heroin addict, she worked as a "come-on" girl for a pimp
in Harlem. And she spares little detail about her alleged childhood
sexual abuse (fondled by an unnamed family member), and her arrests
(shoplifting, counterfeiting cheques, heroin possession).

In the late 1960s and early '70s, while other students at the
University of Massachusetts were smoking weed and dropping acid,
Natalie played for higher stakes. The child psychology major who hoped
some day to open a clinic for "underprivileged kids" developed a
heroin habit.

The cultured young woman whose mother shipped her off to boarding
school in New England was confronted by African-American classmates
who doubted her "blackness." Before that, she had been colour-blind:
Her godparents were Jewish, Frank Sinatra was "Uncle Frankie," and her
father was a close friend of President John F. Kennedy.

Cole set out to find her own identity: She grew a massive Afro and
immersed herself in the campus Black Power movement. She belted Janis
Joplin songs in a rock band called Black Magic and had an
unforgettable sexual romp with a member of the school's basketball
team, a guy named Julius Erving.

Cocky and feeling "superhuman," she writes, "I was ready to try
anything and everything." One sunny day, she asked her boyfriend if
she could try some of his heroin. It was love at first snort.

On her early records, there are no duets with her famous father. The
hazel-eyed vocalist was an insecure singer who ran from Nat's musical
legacy. And though she was signed to Capitol Records, her father's
label, she seldom performed his signature tunes. "When I sang my
father's songs in concert, that was all people wanted to hear. I was
always asking myself, 'Can I measure up?' ''

After joining Capitol reluctantly in 1974, Cole quickly found her own
sound. Her first single with producer-songwriters Chuck Jackson and
Marvin Yancy -- the sassy, horn-driven This Will Be from her 1975
debut, Inseparable -- was an immediate hit. Her roll continued in 1976
with an R&B vocal award for Sophisticated Lady and her marriage to
Yancy.

Despite the admiration of her fans and peers, cocaine entered Cole's
life after the birth of her son, Robbie, in 1978. "I must have been
restless or bored," writes Cole, who quit heroin in 1975 "after a
friend overdosed and died. I started snorting cocaine at one of the
parties I was invited to and then turned (Yancy) on to it."

The couple's cocaine addiction led to paranoia. Although Cole says it
wasn't true, Yancy accused her of having an affair with a member of
her band. The marriage ended in 1981.

"I don't know what I was thinking," Cole writes. "I lost sight of how
happy I was in the beginning. (The divorce) was the biggest mistake of
my life."

In 1985, Yancy suffered a stroke and died.

Cole spent the better part of the 1980s trying to get back on her
feet. Cancelled concerts, pitiful performances and less-than-stellar
records led Capitol to drop her in 1981. In 1983, she entered a
six-month rehab program.

"I've always been an extremist," Cole says. "Some of us have very
addictive personalities, and for some of us, that mechanism gets
tripped up. Mine certainly did. I'm not cured. You never are. The
recovery is a day-to-day process."

It will be a while before she steps back into the studio, she says.

As for her personal life, Cole says she remains a work-in-progress.

"Physically, I've seen a change in my life. No, I haven't had a
facelift or anything like that. I've grown. That's God's countenance."