Dear Amy…

Don’t you know how worried your parents are about you? I know, I know, you’ve heard that one before. But when, hopefully, you’re a parent yourself you’ll understand. I have to tell you, though, the way you’re carrying on at the moment it’ll be a photo finish between your liver, lungs, heart as to which organ will cease working first. And you’ll never have the chance to pass on those talented genes to your children. You’re young and you think you’re indestructible but you’re not – the news that you had early stage emphysema (at just 24!!) should really get you thinking.

You’re probably wondering why I’m writing to you. In a way I feel I know you. No, I’m not some demented celebrity-obsessed stalker. But we do have a few things in common. Just like you I lived in Camden. I also lived just round the corner from the Sylvia Young Theatre School where you trained and…perhaps you guessed it from my name…I’m Jewish like you. Why are you doing this to yourself? You don’t know, of course. Alcoholics and drug addicts never do. Somehow you changed. Just a few years ago years ago you were probably a sweet little kosher, kiss-curled girl with your satchel. Then, as you got older, your rebellious streak got the better of you. You started mixing with the wrong crowd. But what was the right crowd? You became famous so young you never had the chance to find out. Your mind’s no longer your own.

You know you have a wonderful singing voice. That’s been your passport to success. Nothing else. Ok, so you’re flavour of the month right now. But never mistake publicity for popularity. Don’t think the press or paparazzi are really concerned about you. If you died tomorrow they’d just rub their hands together. Then there would be an unseemly race to see who’d publish the first posthumous biography with, doubtless, even more sordid revelations. You see, Amy, Jewish and black celebrities will never be as popular as their white counterparts, unless you’re spectacularly beautiful and – let’s face it – you’ll never be a head turner even if you were sober.

You have talent. That’s what I keep coming back to. Sammy Davis Junior made just that point in his autobiography. He had it tough. I mean vicious racism. Neo-Nazi storm-troopers even ‘picketed’ him. “Go back to the Congo, you kosher coon”, they shouted when he married a white girl. “God made Sammy as ugly as he could and then hit him in the face with a shovel,” commented one writer. The likes of Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte had it easy by comparison because they were beautiful. My point is this – you’ll never be as popular as Kim Wilde in her heyday. All you have is talent. Without that you’d be just another gawky North London Jewish girl with unmanageable hair and buckteeth.

So what are you going to do now? First, deal with the exterior stuff. Camden is the worst place for you. You must leave at once. I mean like yesterday. Just throw some stuff in a bag and get out of there. It’s much too rowdy and it’s full of drug dealers. It’s become a disgusting place. Move out to the suburbs, a nice quiet Jewish enclave – Bushey, Radlett, Edgware or even Enfield where you were born. I know you’re going to say these are boring places but that’s just what you need to get out of the drug scene. Better be bored than dead.

I’m not going to give you a long diatribe about your addictions. You can tell an addicted person to quit but at the end of the day it’s up to them. You may have to reach rock bottom first. Most ‘ordinary’ addicts run into problems: financial, legal, work-related. These serve as wake-up calls that tell you’ve reached the end of the ride. Unfortunately, you don’t have that advantage. Sadly, you’re rich and famous and given the nature of your ‘condition’ that’s a potential killer blow. You’re surrounded by hangers-on who don’t really value you. They just want your money but they don’t care whether your veins bleed, whether your nostril splits open, whether you choke on your own vomit one night after yet another crazy drinking session. They don’t care as long as they can feed off you and share a little stardust. Once you’re dead they’ll move on somewhere else.

Reject the company of other drinkers and druggies. Chances are they’re addicts like you, not real friends. They don’t really care if you get better. Not only would they lose your company (and probably one of their chief suppliers) but the fact that you’re so screwed up makes them feel better. I knew an actor once – he’d been in a few movies and TV series but the booze got the better of him. He went to the drying out farm. Then one day some fellow thespians decided to visit him in the drying our farm and…thoughtfully…smuggled in a little vodka. Are these people friends or just drinking buddies? That’s why you should choose your company much more carefully. Rediscover old friends and never forget family.

I don’t want to read your obituary in the paper soon. But judging by your performance at the concert and the latest pictures you won’t last long. So, as gangster Dave Courtney once said, stop the ride and get off, while there’s still time. After all, Jews shouldn’t self-destruct too young. That’s doing Hitler’s work for him.