The Ian Curtis And Lee Drysdale Story at Pat Dollard

The Ian Curtis And Lee Drysdale Story

April 16th, 2010 (7) Posted By Pat Dollard.

For those of you who don’t read “Deep Thoughts”:

I had a client, Lee Drysdale, who directed the movie “Leather Jackets”. I fired him for a variety of reasons one of which is the following story.

The guy who wrote this song, Ian Curtis, was a friend of Lee’s. Jealous with Ian over some bull, Lee led him to a place where his wife, Deborah Curtis, was having a rendevous with her lover. Ian then wrote this song and shortly thereafter killed himself. After telling me the story, Lee started laughing like a sick f-.

Deborah Curtis had the song’s title inscribed on Ian’s memorial stone.

Lee got his, eventually. He got “Leather Jackets” made off of the name of his then-girlfriend, and according to Lee, soulmate, one true lov his life, Bridget Fonda,. However, Bridget began an on-set affair with her co-star D.B. Sweeney, and Lee told me he caught her giving D.B. a hummer in a car off to the side of the set. Torn between his pride and his desire to be a famous director, he chose the latter and finished the movie, but within weeks after the wrap, he handed me his debit card and said “I may be going insane and need you to have access to my money if there’s a problem”. He then holed himself up in the Chateau Marmont, went insane, and hasn’t been much heard from since.

“Love Will Tear Us Apart” was listed by NME magazine as the best song of all time in 2002.

The song was listed by Rolling Stone magazine at number 179 in its top 500 songs of all time. In May 2007,

NME placed it at number 19 in its list of the 50 Greatest Indie Anthems Ever, one place ahead of another Joy Division song, “Transmission”.

When being interviewed for New Order Story, Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys stated that “Love Will Tear Us Apart” was his favourite song of all time.

The song has also been used in television programs and in films, such as the 2001 film Donnie Darko, in a pivotal scene before Donnie has to leave his girlfriend in order to save her.

Serbian rock music historian and journalist Dejan CukiÄ‡ wrote about “Love Will Tear Us Apart” as one of the forty-six songs that changed the history of popular music in his 2007 book 45 obrtaja: PriÄe o pesmama.

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Some Guy

Never knew the reason for the suicide. Always liked the song though ….and no, I’m not ghey.
mike3481

Pat

When Lee told you that story, that must have been one of those days where one suppresses the urge to kill someone.

http://patdollard.com Pat Dollard

Yes, and the fact is that I was doing Bridget’s agent, a colleague, a favor by representing him, so I was pretty detached from him already as a partner – which is what ones clients really are in an agent/client relationship – that I just moved on from the moment with the mental note of “fuck this guy”, and the man as a “let God sort him out” type.

TerryTate

Hey Pat, forgive me for my lack of knowledge on the entertainment industry, but if he was your client why do you say you fired him? Do you mean you dropped him as a client, or were you employing him somehow?

The way you stated it sounds more like he was your employee, rather than client. I thought the “talent” paid you as the agent to represent them.

I’m not trying to be difficult here, I’m just curious as to how it really works in hollywood.

http://patdollard.com Pat Dollard

It’s slang for dropping a client.
TerryTate

Thanks for the explanation.

I certainly understand the desire to characterize it that way.

In my business (construction related) there are many people of whom I’d like to give a swift kick to the curb if not to their head.

Some of the things I have been told by these people are much like what you have described above.

The only way I could characterize them is despicable.

Knighthawk

Wow Pat,
I thought I was the only one who listened and still do to Joy Division then, New Order after Ian died. Shame how shit goes down.