Biography

During the recording of his "Pussy Cats" album (produced, co-written and co-performed by John Lennon), he kept secret from everyone that his smoking and drinking were threatening his health. It was clear that his once-celebrated voice was not what it once was, but Nilsson, afraid that Lennon would cancel the recording sessions, kept a bucket hidden so he could spit out the blood produced after his coughing fits ruptured a vocal cord.

Was given John Lennon's lambskin-and-wool coat when they first met in England; Nilsson passed it along to his sister (it didn't fit him), who stored it in a vault.

Became active in the anti-handgun movement after friend John Lennon's murder; appeared at several public events for this cause.

He had six children with his third wife, Una: Annie, Beau, Ben, Kief, Olivia, and Oscar. He also had a son, Zachary Nine, from his marriage to Diane.

The Park Street apartment that he owned in London was where Cass Elliot died from a heart attack in July 1974. In September 1978 The Who's drummer Keith Moon died at the same apartment of an overdose of Heminevrin, a prescription drug that he was taking for alcoholism.

[how Pointes et contrepointes (1971) was conceived] I was on acid and I looked at the trees and I realized that they all came to points, and the little branches came to points, and the houses came to point. I thought, "Oh! Everything has a point, and if it doesn't, then there's a point to it".

I get nervous when they start shooting piano players.

I do believe that most men live lives of quiet desperation. For despair, optimism is the only practical solution. Hope is practical. Because eliminate that and it's pretty scary. Hope at least gives you the option of living.

[describing his London apartment, where he lived in the early 1970s] It was just a typical London flat, but it was in a great neighborhood. It was across from the Playboy Club, diagonally. From one balcony you could read the time from Big Ben, and from the other balcony you could watch the bunnies go up and down.

[about his and John Lennon's being ejected from the Troubadour Club in Hollywood) That incident ruined my reputation for ten years. Get one Beatle drunk and look what happens!