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 Natalie
Cole
Looks Back
Pop
Singer Shares Her Unforgettable Life "I'm so grateful for the way
my life has turned out," says Cole, who has conquered many demons
to find success and personal happiness.
With more than 20 million
albums sold and multiple Grammy awards to show for it, Natalie Cole,
the daughter of legendary singer Nat King Cole, has made a name
for herself. But her amazing success has been accompanied by years
of desperation in a world of drugs, crime, prostitution and failed
marriages.
"I have been to hell
and back," she says. "I have seen the edge. I have seen the dark
side of life." In her brutally honest new autobiography, Angel
on my Shoulder, Cole looks at the often self-destructive
path she has taken and how she has lived to share her inspiring
recovery and comeback.
"Where I'm at now helps me to look back on my life and realize that
I've really had quite a colorful and rich life," she says. "I really
could have turned out to be a different person. I'm so grateful
for the way my life has turned out … It almost seems miraculous
that I would come to the station that I'm at now."
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Her
Father's Daughter
As the second daughter of Maria and Nat King Cole, Cole had as normal
a childhood as was possible for a little girl whose father spent
much of his time away from home. With hopes of one day becoming
a doctor, she left her family in Los Angeles to attend boarding
school on the East Coast.
When she was 14, she
came to the shock of her life: Her father had been
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deathly ill with lung cancer. Less than two months later in 1965,
Nat King Cole was dead at the age of 47. "I don't think that any of
us really realized how much it would fragment us afterwards," says
Cole.
"It unraveled my mom and trickled down to us. And we never healed
again." During her college years at Amherst, Cole began to experiment
with drugs. |
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