Brett Smiley
Breathlessly Brett

I don't know who has ever seen them, the good stars.

Surely not Brett, born, lived, and even died always under the influence of bad stars, which are the ones that give you only glitters but keep the gold always out of your reach.

Provided that the notoriety that arrives when you’re ten and finding yourself at nineteen with two hundred thousand dollars in hand, in the land of opportunities and in the year 1974 AD, can be considered illusory glitters.

Maybe it’s not just a matter of bad stars, but perhaps also of wanting to dodge them; and it could also be that Brett didn’t have much desire to escape those somewhat malignant and somewhat mocking influences.

Be that as it may, Brett was born on September 25, 1955, and his horoscope certifies without question that those born on this day are full of hopes and good intentions, trust others, and love to share their happiness and inner peace with friends and loved ones, making the atmosphere around them always relaxed and carefree.

Now it's certain that in Brett’s sky that day there's an abundance of bad stars capable of overshadowing the good omens.

For the record, Brett was born Brett Smiley and this is his name, although it sounds like a stage name from a mile away.

For those who dabble in show business, such a name would be like manna falling from the sky, with that “smiley” that you imagine a thirty-two-tooth smile flaunted walking down a road paved with good intentions leading straight into the jaws of success.

And indeed, this is how Brett’s human story begins, as, at eight years old, he finds himself the protagonist of the musical «Oliver!» directed by one Lionel Bart and loosely inspired by the novelized adventures of Oliver Twist.

Speaking of guys born under bad stars.

But at least Oliver is granted a happy ending.

Brett, no, so that after the grand debut, every attempt to find fortune by treading the boards of a stage or piercing the small and big screen invariably resolves into “Thank you, we’ll let you know.”

Like what he hears in the audition to replace the teen idol David Cassidy in the television series “The Partridge Family,” the first “Thank you, we'll let you know” of a series longer than a telenovela; and then the role of the protagonist in “Cinderella” – what today is labeled as soft porn and that in the gloomy Italian seventies saw corresponding protagonists teachers, high school students, and entire student bodies – and the fleeting cameo in “American Gigolo” have the taste of mockery, success within reach and unattainable, a bit like those signs that say “Look but don’t touch.”

Because how can it end if Brett has a minuscule role in front of a Richard Gere dressed in Armani who is a knockout like he never was nor ever will be over the course of his brilliant career?

There’s always a Richard Gere dressed in Armani in Brett’s life; even when, before “Cinderella” and “American Gigolo,” he puts his pretty face in front of a microphone instead of a camera.

That’s when Richard Gere assumes the appearance of David Bowie.

That’s when the stars watching Brett being born prove to be not precisely bad, rather malicious and mocking, despite the story beginning under the best auspices, perhaps precisely because of this.

Anyhow, it happens that in 1971 Brett meets Andrew Loog Oldham, the manager and producer of the Rolling Stones, and he sees something in Brett; about what Brett is doing in a den of cocaine-peddling addicts, it’s best to draw a veil, but these are the circumstances in which Andrew encounters Brett.

It’s the season of the last, great works of the Stones, that year “Sticky Fingers,” the following “Exile on Main St.”; but that season, the Stones, and those two albums are already past.

London acclaims David Robert Jones, alias Bowie, Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, and his gang of spiders from Mars, in short, the next big thing.

Thus Andrew flies to New York in search of a new face to counter David, finding Brett.

That on the streets of New York, in that season, there also appear five misfits whose appearance also deserves to be veiled, is a matter with specific weight in what follows.

Anyhow, when Andrew decides it’s time for him to return home, he convinces Brett to fly to London as well, with the promise of pouring into his pockets so many banknotes that they wouldn’t even fit into the suitcases the two drag behind them to the airport; where they cross paths with David, just landed from London.

Anyhow, Andrew keeps that promise, and after a few months, Brett finds himself with two hundred thousand dollars, a single, an album soon to be released, the walls of London plastered with his face, which is then that of the most charming boy in the world, forget about the teen idol David Cassidy, the appearances in the right TV parlors counting.

But seeing those TV parlors today, hindsight says the next big thing is someone else and even something else.

But hindsight is today's story, while in 1974 Brett has out his single from Anchor “Va Va Va Voom b/w Space Ace” and a first-rate team by his side: Andrew in the director's chair; the former Small Faces Steve Marriott; and then Kenneth Ascher, David Spinozza, and Jim Keltner, who at the time are John Lennon’s most trusted road companions.

What emerges is an exciting hybrid, born from the intertwining of English-influenced glam rock – that is, massive doses of David Bowie and Marc Bolan, and even a slight sensation of Elton John – with the ragged attitude of street rock 'n' roll of the New York Dolls.

And even Brett’s features reflect that imagery faithfully, somewhere between a randomly picked Doll and Wayne/Jayne County, like so many who hang out at Max’s Kansas City in those frenetic days.

But London is not New York, and Brett’s single sells less than nothing.

The master of the album that should have followed ends up gathering dust in a badly stored box in the basement of the building that houses Anchor.

Andrew takes responsibility for shelving that master, following day after day the disappointing trend of the single’s sales, what one might call a marketing strategy.

Here the paths of Brett and Andrew split.

Here Brett exits the stage, except for a fleeting appearance forty-two years later.

Forty-two years spent decimating two hundred thousand dollars, drinking “... only Asti Cinzano, because it was cheap, pairing it with cocaine ...”.

In 2005, Nina Antonia, a journalist familiar with high-emotional-content biographies – “In Cold Blood,” Johnny Thunders’ official biography, to name one – publishes “The Prettiest Star,” questioning in the subtitle on whatever happened to Brett: that book arouses interest and enjoys a fair success.

Some among the most astute read between the lines that in 2003, RPM – a subsidiary of Cherry Red Records – acquired the rights to that master stored in a box twenty-nine years earlier and resurfaced somehow, printing “Breathlessly Brett,” prodigal son in album form.

Let the fatted calf be slaughtered.

In Brett’s case, however, the fatted calf continues to sleep soundly.

And it’s a pity, metaphorically speaking, because “Breathlessly Brett” is an album that would have deserved its space on the shelves next to “Diamond Dogs,” at least ideally if not physically, chock-full of influences inherited from the remote and near past and legacies for the future, where the inevitable Bowie and Bolan, the Stones, and the Beatles, not to mention solo Lennon, the Monkees and the Supremes, hobnob with Hanoi Rocks and Supergrass, Flaming Lips and Kula Shaker, Verve and Pulp.

In the end, even Brett peeks out again, on January 8, 2016, the day of David Bowie’s sixty-ninth birthday: Brett dies, struck down by AIDS and a life lived on the margins of the wrong side of the road.

Nina and those at RPM remember him, and, in their own small way, report the news.

The next day, some astute editor notices that news and writes a brief obituary to be published the day after, January 10, 2016.

The day of David Bowie’s death.

The obituary for Brett Smiley will never be published.