(a suburb of Chicago), to treat his alcohol, drug and food addictions, all at once. Shortly after he met with Williams and the counselor in July 1990, John checked into Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Ill. 'When I saw the footage of the funeral,' John told the Los Angeles Times, 'I thought, 'My God.' I was so fat, so old.' You can see the result of the totality of his addictions in the film of him performing 'Skyline Pigeon' at the funeral of teenage AIDS victim Ryan White: a bloated, pale, frightening figure at the piano. His years in the wasteland of cocaine and alcohol left him veering between manic episodes and inexplicable rages, and the addition of the binge-and-purge nature of bulimia had a ravaging effect on his body. He was a mess and a very public one at that.
