Daniel Stephen Sugerman (October 11, 1954 – January 5, 2005) was the second manager of the
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
–based rock band
the Doors
The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, comprising vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most influential and controversial rock acts ...
. He wrote several books about
Jim Morrison and the Doors, including ''
No One Here Gets Out Alive'' (co-authored with
Jerry Hopkins), and the autobiography ''
Wonderland Avenue: Tales of Glamour and Excess''.
Early life
Sugerman grew up in
Beverly Hills
Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. A notable and historic suburb of Los Angeles, it is located just southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Beverly Hil ...
. His family’s neighbors were
Fred Astaire,
Steve McQueen and
Raquel Welch. At eleven, his
Jewish-American
American Jews (; ) or Jewish Americans are Americans, American citizens who are Jews, Jewish, whether by Jewish culture, culture, ethnicity, or Judaism, religion. According to a 2020 poll conducted by Pew Research, approximately two thirds of Am ...
parents divorced and his mother Harriet moved Danny and his siblings to
Westchester, Los Angeles where she lived with a patent attorney who was a harsh disciplinarian. Danny attended
Westchester High School in Los Angeles, where he regularly authored articles about The Doors in the student newspaper. He attended summer camp near Lakeshore City, California with
Todd Fisher, Steven Crane Jr. and sons of golfer
Ken Venturi and
Don Knotts
Jesse Donald Knotts (July 21, 1924February 24, 2006) was an American actor and comedian. He is widely known for his role as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife on the 1960s sitcom ''The Andy Griffith Show'', for which he earned five Emmy Awards. He als ...
. Danny graduated from Westchester High School in 1972.
Career
He began working with the Doors when he was 12 years old, answering their fan mail. At age 17 he replaced the Doors' original manager,
Bill Siddons, following the death of Morrison in July 1971.
He later went on to manage
Ray Manzarek's solo career and first album. He was also
Iggy Pop
James Newell Osterberg Jr. (born April 21, 1947), known professionally as Iggy Pop, is an American singer, musician, songwriter, actor and radio broadcaster. He was the vocalist and lyricist of proto-punk band the Stooges, who were formed in 1 ...
's manager for a period, and produced his song "
Repo Man", before they both ended up in mental hospitals suffering from drug and alcohol addiction. It was during this time that he was also manager for the L.A based glam/punk band,
The Joneses, whose founder and lead singer,
Jeff Drake, supplied them with high quality heroin.
He also wrote ''Appetite For Destruction: The Days of Guns N' Roses'' in 1991.
Personal life
For a short while in the 1980s, Sugerman dated actress
Mackenzie Phillips.
In 1993, he married
Fawn Hall, who had been one of the principals in the
Iran–Contra affair. They remained married until his death. They briefly met
MP3.com co-founder
Rod Underhill while Hall was employed there. Underhill later stated that "Sugerman was very interesting. He had appeared to go out of his way to appear visually like Jim Morrison. Same type of haircut, similar clothing. The similarity was uncanny." Sugerman discussed his idolization of Morrison in detail, in his autobiographical book ''
Wonderland Avenue: Tales of Glamour and Excess''.
In ''Wonderland Avenue: Tales of Glamour and Excess'' Sugerman went into detail about his
heroin
Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a morphinan opioid substance synthesized from the Opium, dried latex of the Papaver somniferum, opium poppy; it is mainly used as a recreational drug for its eupho ...
addiction and his involvement with drug dealers. At one point, he found solace in
Buddhism
Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
, though he did not mention his interest in his memoir. It ends with a two-page chapter that reminds the reader of drug users whose behavior he described in previous chapters, and he says that as of 1988 they are all dead, incarcerated or, in one person’s case, doing his third stint in “a residential addict recovery facility.”
Death
Sugerman died on January 5, 2005, in Los Angeles, from
lung cancer.
Doors Manager Danny Sugerman Dies at 50: Doors manager, writer succumbs to cancer
By Steve Baltin, January 6, 2005 12:00 AM ET. Accessed via the internet June 26, 3013
Books
*'' No One Here Gets Out Alive'' (1980, with Jerry Hopkins)
*''The Doors, the Illustrated History'' (1983)
*''Wonderland Avenue: Tales of Glamour and Excess'' (1989)
*''Appetite For Destruction: The Days Of Guns N' Roses'' (1991)
References
External links
*
Sugerman Interview
on addiction, Hollywood, and drug policy from December, 2000, accessed August 20, 2013
Obituary
in ''Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason.
The magazine was first known fo ...
'' magazine accessed October 9, 2006
Obituary
in '' San Diego Union-Tribune'' accessed October 9, 2006
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sugerman, Danny
1954 births
2005 deaths
21st-century American Jews
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers
Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Deaths from lung cancer in California
The Doors
Jewish American non-fiction writers
Place of birth missing