I'M DON SIMPSON'; AND YOU'RE NOT - Arts & Entertainment - The Independent
Something began to go astray during Days of Thunder. Don played a small part in that movie - an Italian race-driver - and the same year he acted in Young Guns II. "Being Don" was pushing him, making him more aggressive, more cocksure, more assertive. He got into prolonged disputes with star Tom Cruise and screenwriter Robert Towne over the script for the film. And he was branching out with drugs.
For years, Don Simpson had been a cocaine freak, without apparent problems. He had it under control. The blow just kept him firing and moving. But years of cocaine can often lead to paranoia, delusions and depression. More to the point, in 1990, Don was 45. For 20 years he had worked very hard, which in Hollywood is often a matter of keeping up the show of work, of meetings, taking calls, making deals, when lesser people are dropping. Don didn't drop; he was always there, still grinning, in the poker of business. He might be down on someone and still haggling over points. He ate - ice cream, peanut butter, junk food - and he did cocaine; and he screwed hookers. He was never married, or close to it. But he had a well-earned reputation for funding orgies, and word got out - it's a word-of-mouth town - that the orgies were sado-masochistic. He liked to impose pain, indignity and humiliation on women; and then he liked to go away as their friends.
