On this Father’s Day, let us observe a moment of silence — out of amazement as much as respect — for the late Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.
Until now, the flamboyant singer who died in February was mainly remembered for his 1956 hit “I Put a Spell on You” and a stage show that included a cigarette-smoking skull (named Henry) on a stick and a flaming casket that Hawkins jumped out of.
These days, though, Screamin’ Jay is getting more publicity than he ever did when he was performing. And all because of his claim that he fathered 57 children.
You read it right: 57.
His biographer, Maral Nigolian of Los Angeles, is trying to track down as many of those children as she can, hoping to bring them together this summer. She’s not calling it a reunion — most of the children didn’t know the others even existed — but a gathering.
“All these kids thought they were all alone. Now they realize there are more and more of them, and they’re reaching out,” Nigolian says. “I’m trying to give these kids a chance to connect, to get a sense of validation.”
A lifelong fan of his music, Nigolian first contacted Hawkins three years ago. She was interested in documenting his life; he, though, wasn’t ready to talk. But they stayed in touch and became friends, and after about a year he invited her to his home in Paris. On that visit and on subsequent trips to France, she says, she spent hours in his living room, “him chain-smoking away and telling me his life story.”
And he had a great story to tell — of being born on a bus passing through Cleveland, of being dropped off at an orphanage, of being adopted and raised by Blackfoot Indians, of becoming a Golden Glove boxing champion, of running off and joining the service, of his early days as a musician. And of his 57 offspring.
In his younger days, Hawkins wasn’t exactly a model father. He drifted in and out of women’s lives, often leaving behind children who barely knew their father. But in his later years, he tried to establish — or re-establish — relationships wherever he could.
“I think it was even more important to my father because he didn’t know his father,” says Irene Hawkins, 48, of Cleveland, a daughter by Hawkins’ first marriage. “As he got older he got closer and closer to his family.”
Accordingly, the topic of family was often on Hawkins’ mind during his talks with Nigolian. Last year he discussed the subject of his 57 children.
“Although he was very proud of having 57 kids, he wasn’t real proud that he was nearly 70 and hadn’t focused on the lives of his kids; he was always too busy working on his career,” Nigolian says. “He looked at me and said, `Wouldn’t it be wonderful to one day know who they are, where they are, what they’re doing with their lives?’ He told me I should do that, find these children.”
Nigolian says that after Hawkins’ death, of complications from an aneurysm, she decided to fulfill his dream of bringing the children together. Fortunately, he had left her a road map — their taped conversations. He had been married six times and recalled many of the other women he had had relationships with, and in many cases knew of the resulting children. He just didn’t know where they all were.
Nigolian’s quest began in March when she started a Web page (www.jayskids.com) that asks people who believe Hawkins was their father or women who think they may have had a child by him to submit information. So far, the Web site has had more than 108,000 hits and more than 500 submissions.
“Over half of (the submissions) are jokes and you know right away, but Screamin’ Jay had a sense of humor, so that’s OK,” says Nigolian, who had 91 new submissions waiting for her when she recently returned from a two-week vacation. “But we send them all letters, and then call them. And these aren’t 10-minute calls. I’ll talk to them for an hour, asking questions, getting to know them.”
So far, 10 children have been confirmed. Five more appear to be his children, and another 30 submissions are being looked at more thoroughly.
Still, there’s some thought, largely by his daughters, that Jay may have been stretching things with his total of 57.
“It’s got to be half that or even a little bit less,” says Colette Howard of Cincinnati with a laugh. “I do believe he had relationships with 57 or more women, but not children out of all those unions.”
“If they find 20 kids, I think that’s about it,” says Helen Perez of the Bronx.
“My mother doesn’t believe there are 57 children; she thinks 20 or 25,” says Janice Paris of Newburgh, N.Y.
Howard, 47, Perez, 43, and Paris, 44, are three of Hawkins’ daughters, and all three learned from their mothers who their father was.
Howard says that when she was about 10 years old, “my mother sat me down to watch Merv Griffin or Mike Douglas, one of those shows, and he was on,” Howard says. “She told me he was my father.”
After the show was over, her mother answered Howard’s questions about her relationship with Hawkins. “Then after she told me everything that happened, she said, `Now don’t ever ask me again; I don’t want to talk about it.’ “
Howard’s mother had also been in show business. She was a dancer who began an affair with Hawkins after they were both booked on the same bill in Canada. “She said she immediately fell in love with him, without thinking of the consequences,” Howard says. “About three months later she realized she was pregnant, but she couldn’t reach him because he was always on the road.”
That was usually the way things went with Hawkins. He’d meet a woman, begin a relationship, go back on tour, then usually re-establish contact the next time he came through town.
“And it was then he’d find out they were pregnant,” Nigolian says. “That’s how he knew about a lot of the kids. But then he’d leave, go on to another town and it was a vicious circle.”
Hawkins knew about Colette, and when she was 2 months old came to take her and her mother away. But Howard’s mother refused — there was the little matter of him being married to someone else at the time — and Howard was forever separated from her father. She tried to reach him on a couple of occasions through the years, but was never able to make contact.
Perez, on the other hand, had a warm, though long-distance, relationship with her father.
Her mother met Hawkins when he was performing in Atlantic City. She never told her daughter who her dad was, but had asked her to keep an eye out for any nearby performances “by this guy, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.” In 1991, Perez saw that he was going to be appearing in Atlantic City and told her mother. They went to the show and met Hawkins. A week later, the three got together again.
“She said, `I’ve got to tell you something. This is your father, this is your daughter,’ Perez says. “She had cancer at the time. I think this was closure for her.”
Perez’s mother and Hawkins renewed their friendship. She accompanied him to California, returned home and got a divorce from the man she was married to at the time. “She and Jay were going to get married,” Perez says. “Then he disappeared.”
With that, Perez lost contact with her father, though she tried to find him through the years. She was unsuccessful until about two years ago when a New York newspaper reporter put her in touch with Hawkins’ attorney, who in turn helped her reach Hawkins in France.
Their first conversation was less than loving. She says she tore into him for his disappearing act of a few years earlier.
“I told him, `Whatever you pulled with women was with them. Why do this to your kids?’ After we cleared the air, it was great. We talked a lot, talked about everything under the sun. Relationships, the weather, his health, my health. We sent faxes, cards, but it was mostly telephone conversations.
“I liked to hear his voice. I get home from work at 11 (at night), and with the time difference to France, I’d call him and we’d just talk.”
She also sent him little care packages from home.
“Sanka, Gem razor blades, wrestling tapes and magazines, all the stuff he couldn’t get there.”
Like Perez, Paris was in touch with her father in the last year of his life. And she never had any doubts about who her father was.
“My mother always told me how they met,” she says. “He performed in clubs in Atlantic City, the Philadelphia area. She and her girlfriends must have gone to a club one night. They met him, and he wooed her.”
Her mother and Hawkins moved into an apartment in Philadelphia. They lived together for about a year and a half, but “my mother couldn’t stand his womanizing, and my grandmother always said he was no good.”
The relationship ended shortly after Hawkins’ first wife — to whom he was still married — showed up at the apartment.
“He had promised to marry my mother; gave her a ring and everything,” says Paris. “He just didn’t tell her about his first wife.”
Paris’ mother packed her up and left, and Paris didn’t see her father again for more than 10 years. When she was 11, she and her mother caught Hawkins’ act at the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, N.J. “She still has a picture of me and him from the Latin Casino,” Paris says.
She lost contact with Hawkins after that, until last year when she tracked him down via the Internet. They renewed their friendship first through faxes, then frequent phone calls.
“When we first got in touch, he was a little worried,” she says. “He said that after all these years he didn’t know if his children had any resentment. I told him I didn’t have any resentment toward him. I told him that was between him and my mother. I just wanted him to know how his daughter grew up.”
Irene Hawkins was more fortunate than most of her father’s other children; she and her dad had a close relationship all her life. When he lived in the United States, he would be a house guest every year. He took a keen interest in her life and work (she’s a professional puppeteer). And even after he moved to France, they were in constant touch.
“We talked on the phone so much,” she says. “I told my father everybody’s business. My business, his sister’s business, his niece and nephew’s business, my mother’s business. . . . We talked about my puppets, the Platters, Nat `King’ Cole, Little Richard. Everything.
“He called me all the time — on the job, or at 3 in the morning. Every time he married a new woman he’d call to tell me then put her on the phone to talk to me.”
The saddest call came about two weeks before he died.
“He called and told me he was very sick. He said he wasn’t going to make it. He almost pinpointed the date. He was off by only three days.”
His last contact with Irene was a tape he sent her.
For more than two hours, he talks about his life, discussing things he had never brought up before with Irene, and warning her that after he was gone, there would be stories about him that might upset her.
He also composed a song for her.
“It’s called `A Father’s Child,’ and he sang it for me three times on the tape,” she says. “Every time I hear it I cry and have to turn the tape off.”
Irene has become a kind of unofficial “big sister” for the siblings who are coming forward, filling them in on details of their father’s life (“I know his father’s name; his mother’s name; his blood type”). “I can’t wait to meet my new brothers and sisters,” she says.
But not all of Hawkins’ children are eager to participate. One man in New York said he had long ago dealt with the fact of who his father was, and wasn’t sure he wanted to be a part of the meeting. And one woman contacted Nigolian and said she wished her siblings well and gave the idea her blessing, but didn’t wish to go public.
There’s also the question of Hawkins’ estate, which consists largely of rights to his music. His will went into probate in May, and isn’t expected to be sorted out until the end of the summer, if then.
How the proposed meeting of all the siblings would take place is still up in the air. Ideally, it would be soon, at a site convenient to everyone. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Hawkins’ hometown of Cleveland has been suggested, as has one of the House of Blues locations, all of which could accommodate musical guests. A couple of the siblings have suggested trying to bring the gathering to “Oprah!”
“The main thing right now is trying to get as many kids as we can,” says Nigolian, who is aiming for an August date at the earliest. “I’m at a point where I need help (in finding a venue). We put a thing up on the Web site; we’re open to suggestions.”
But even without a definite date and location for the gathering, Nigolian’s work is paying off.
“I say to myself, `Colette, you’re not the only one who didn’t get the chance to meet him,’ ” Howard says, ” `but look how you’re going to share him.’ My heart is being healed.”
