London - Like Michael Jackson, his dear friend and fellow plastic surgery fan, David Gest, died before his time – and in strange circumstances.
The music producer and reality TV star was best known for being the fourth husband of Liza Minnelli, a shortlived but colourful union that was derided as the weirdest marriage in the history of showbusiness.
Seemingly united by nothing more than their love of stardom and an apparent penchant for drastic plastic surgery, their marriage baffled many, especially as Gest was widely believed to be gay and Minnelli a bloated alcoholic and drug addict.
Although sudden, his death didn’t come as a complete shock. In January, he had been forced to leave the latest series of Channel 5’s Celebrity Big Brother on medical grounds that reportedly included his suffering from tonsillitis, swollen neck glands and very high blood pressure.
However, less than a week ago, the 62-year-old was photographed smiling and looking healthy as he met fans.
Fellow celebrities who had shared the hardships of reality TV with him paid tribute to a kind and generous man who kept them enthralled with a stream of racy Hollywood stories.
Gest’s friend and former bodyguard, Imad Handi, confirmed his death, saying: “He was not just a huge talent and a dear friend but a showbiz icon.”
That grand title is going a little too far, but he certainly mixed with showbiz icons for much of his life.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Gest counted not only Michael Jackson but also Elizabeth Taylor among his closest friends.
And his successful appearances in Celebrity Big Brother and ITV’s I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! brought him unlikely stardom in the UK.
Despite struggling with health problems in recent years, he had been preparing to kick off a nationwide theatre tour in July with a show featuring veteran soul singers.
The tour was, in the circumstances, somewhat ironically called David Gest Is Not Dead But Alive With Soul. The promotional poster shows him peering out of a purple coffin.
His first tour date was to be in York, a city where he had set up home and where he had recently insisted he would die and be buried, saying: “I love this country much more than my own”.
He certainly loved Britain’s weakness for overnight reality TV stars, describing his delight at the “crazy” experience of being “mobbed in the street by fans”. Gest described his decision to go into the jungle for I’m A Celebrity as “the best thing I ever did”, adding: “I finally realised that people liked me.”
He went on: “I guess people saw the real me and realised I wasn’t just a freak in sunglasses.”
The UK had certainly provided him with a new burst of celebrity, long after he had faded from the scene in the US following his ugly split from Minnelli after just a year and a half of marriage, with Gest suing her amid claims she had regularly and viciously beaten him up.
The son of a businessman in Encino, Los Angeles, Gest was a teenage friend of Michael Jackson and his brother, Tito, who lived nearby.
He recalled them driving around LA singing Downtown by Petula Clark.
Gest later worked as a music industry publicist, starting his career by pretending to be 21 when he was only 17.
“I looked that age because by then I had a beard, moustache and an afro down to my tush [bottom],” he said years later.
He looked after stars such as Tom Jones, Burt Bacharach and Al Green before moving into producing televised performances by the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis and Frank Sinatra.
He remained a vocal supporter of Jackson, priding himself on his public loyalty to the singer as many others deserted him over accusations of child abuse and, later, drug addiction.
Gest was so loyal he even used the plastic surgeon who transformed Jackson’s face. Gest said he had two radical cosmetic procedures in the 1980s.
Labelled a freak thanks to the bizarre appearance that resulted, he later claimed he was an “idiot” to have done it but had been “incredibly unhappy” with the looks he was born with.
He had a nose job and facelift in one operation in 1981, followed by cheek implants and a cleft chin op the following week.
He had a hair transplant in 1990 to address his thinning hair, having a piece of hair from the back of his head removed and attached to the front.
Left with a bald patch in the middle of his head, he would cover it up whenever he went out by applying black eyeshadow to his scalp.
However, Gest insisted rumours that he had tattooed his eyebrows on were untrue.
Cynics said that, at least in appearance, outlandish-looking Gest was perfectly suited to Minnelli, who had also seemingly gone under the surgeon’s knife with equally shocking results.
The couple met in 2001 when Gest was producing an anniversary concert for Jackson.
The star wanted Minnelli, then 55, and Gest insisted his musical conductor check she was up to it first. According to Gest, then 47, the conductor reported back: “She can really sing. But she’s really big and she sweats, and she walks with a walker [a Zimmer frame].”
It wasn’t the most complimentary verdict but, within a week of seeing for himself how the bloated daughter of Judy Garland had exploded to 249lb (112kg) due to her battle against drink and drugs, Gest was living with her.
Minnelli managed to lose five stone and credited Gest with turning her life around.
They married in New York the following year – 2002 – with a star-packed, stage-managed extravaganza featuring a dozen bridesmaids dressed in black, among them the EastEnders star Martine McCutcheon and Petula Clark.
Jackson, acting as best man, gave away the bride and Liz Taylor was maid of honour.
The 1 100 guests who included Joan Collins, Kirk Douglas, Anthony Hopkins and Mia Farrow, watched a ceremony in which the smitten couple were kissing so much that the minister had to tell them: ‘I’m not through yet.’
As they were pronounced man and wife, Gest – who said he liked to sleep on his wife’s left breast –kissed Minnelli in a manner that a witness compared to a drowning man eating a watermelon.
Actor Mickey Rooney assured fellow guests: “Liza’s had a hard life and deserves some happiness.”
Wedded bliss lasted all of 16 months. They separated as Minnelli went back into rehab for alcoholism.
Gest sued her for $10-million, painting himself as a ‘victim of domestic violence’ who regularly fell victim to an overweight, raging alcoholic.
In the worst attack he said he suffered at his drunken spouse’s hands, they were staying at the Connaught hotel in London when she threw a lamp at him and then beat him about the head with her fists.
He claimed the attack left him bedridden and in “virtual constant, unrelenting pain” for the next two years, needing to take at least 11 different medications a day.
He also recounted how, before they married, she once drank an entire bottle of wine in their chauffeured limo before punching him around the head.
Gest claimed Minnelli was so ill and overweight, she was “unable to be effectively merchandised”.
Minnelli denied the accusations, claiming Gest was merely after her money and saying she had “hoped the end of my marriage would be handled with mutual respect and dignity”.
His suit was dismissed in September 2006 for lack of evidence and their divorce was finalised the following year.
Gest, who always insisted that he was heterosexual, said of his marriage: “I never knew a woman could be so cold.”
That same year, Gest proved he could tolerate arguably even more punishing treatment when he appeared alongside Jason Donovan, comedian Faith Brown and ex-newsreader Jan Leeming in I’m A Celebrity.
He finished in fourth place after entertaining fellow contestants and viewers alike with a stream of Hollywood anecdotes as he gamely undertook trials that included standing in a box of insects.
When he appeared in front of Prince of Wales at the Royal Variety Show two days later, Gest received a standing ovation.
An unlikely UK reality TV show sensation, he was given his own series, This Is David Gest, on ITV.
In what was to be his final flourish on reality TV, he entered the Celebrity Big Brother house as a contestant in January this year.
He left nearly two weeks later on medical grounds, having earlier left American reality star Tiffany Pollard in tears after she misheard the news that David Bowie had died and thought she had lost her fellow contestant Gest.
Tributes came in from other celebrities who had joined him on the merry-go-round of reality TV.
Although he was an unknown Hollywood producer until he met Minnelli, Gest insisted he had mixed feelings about being famous just for marrying her.
“There’s a part of me that never wanted to be quote ‘a celebrity’ when I was married... I never wanted to be in the public eye,” he said in a recent BBC interview. “I live a very simple life.”
Daily Mail