Lights, Camera, Bump!

ENTERTAINMENT | DRUGS

Written by Nathan Cosmic (he/him) | @nathan.cosmic | Contributing Writer

Illustration by Sahana Vijayaraghavan (she/her) | @_sahana.shavij_ | Contributing Illustrator

An age-old ingredient in Hollywood is cocaine. If you had to replicate Tinseltown on an alien planet, you'd have to import tons of the nose candy. Similar to the events depicted in Damian Chazelle’s Babylon, Hollywood is notorious for a culture of hedonism. It is no surprise then that the industry is fueled by cocaine.

In the early 20th century, when anti drug laws were lax, cocaine, opium, and morphine were the popular drugs. Weed and heroin were also legal. The societal use of cocaine was widespread and was integrated into popular products and medicine. Coca Cola once contained the drug. Soon, cocaine became the era’s ‘white gold’. The more you had of it, the higher you were on the social ladder, because of its hefty cost.

A film like The Mystery of the Leaping Fish, released in 1916, highlights how permissible cocaine was in this era. The poster describes the comedy film as a “cocaine classic”. The Mystery of the Leaping Fish depicts a Sherlock Holmes-type detective solving cases while being a cocaine addict. In one scene half his face is covered in the drug.

In the early days of Hollywood, cocaine was already rearing its ugly head. Regarded as the first Hollywood scandal, actor Olive Thomas’s premature death is a melancholic example of cocaine’s fatal power. She often attended “champagne and cocaine orgies” with her husband. Drugs are rumoured to have caused her marriage to fracture and untimely death.

In 1910, President William Taft made a report to the State Department stating that cocaine was “more appalling… effects than any other habit-forming drug used in the United States.” This led to the Harrison Act in 1914. The act strictly regulated the distribution and sale of drugs. By the start of World War One in 1914, 48 states had outlawed the nonmedical use of cocaine. Dr Hamilton Wright, the Opium Commissioner under President Theodore Roosevelt, warned that Americans “have become the greatest drug fiends in the world.” In 1911, he told the New York Times that the nation's drug habits had gripped America “to an astonishing extent.” Moreover, Wright stated “our prisons and our hospitals are full of victims” of drug addiction.Cocaine had turned from a ‘wonder drug’ to a drug synonymous with society’s destitute. But in the 70s, America and Hollywood relapsed. Cocaine was everywhere. President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse as “public enemy number one”.The 60s and 70s marked the birth of the counterculture revolution. Individual expression was paramount, and with it came feminism, sexual autonomy, gay rights, and the peace movement. From the counterculture revolution came New Hollywood and auteur filmmakers who had an identity that resonated and reflected a changing America. Filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and William Friedkin were at the forefront of this cinematic revolution.

During the resurgence of cocaine in the 70s the drug became immensely popular with Hollywood. Known as the “champagne of drugs”, cocaine could easily be obtained on film sets, clubs, discos, hotels and dinner parties. One of the most famous cases of a Hollywood lifestyle fuelled by cocaine, is John Belushi’s. Cocaine was integral to the comedians and musicians’ life. The drug eventually led to his early demise at 33 years old. Blueshi had become analogous with drug addiction. His best friend, Penny Marshall, describes how people on the street would hand him drugs:. “And then he’d do all of them. He’d be the kind of character he played in sketches or Animal House.” Blueshi was so synonymous with his concoction of cocaine and heroin, that the combination of the two drugs is sometimes anecdotally referred to as a “Belushi”.Belushi’s co-star Dan Akroyd and director John Landis both recollected how cocaine was involved in the production of Blue Brothers. Landis once found a “mountain of cocaine” in Belushi’s trailer. His addiction went so far that the drug started being accounted for in his film budgets, with the rest of the crew in Blue Brothers using cocaine as a ‘reward” for late-night shoots. 

A significant number of films produced in the 70s and 80s had cocaine included in their production budgets. Actor Dennis Quaid, recalled that cocaine “was even in the budgets of movies” as well as that “everyone was doing it.”  In the film Caddyshack, the drug was “driving everyone” on set, with a star of the film Michael O'Keefe describing the experience shooting the film as a “permanent party”. In addition, the cast of Caddyshack stated that there was “really good cocaine” on set.Director Paul Schrader recounts having cocaine offered to him for the first time on the set of the 1978 film Blue Collar.  According to Schrader, his associate producer insisted it would “help [Paul Scharder] work better”. His frequent co-collaborator, Martin Scorsese, was hospitalised in New York because of his cocaine addiction. In Scorsese's Raging Bull, released in 1980, the film's last frame is of the quote: “All I know is this: once I was blind, and now I can see.” At first, Schrader, who co-wrote the film with Mardik Martin, was confused by the inclusion of the quote. But Scorsese explained it was a remorseful reminder to himself about how his cocaine addiction nearly killed him.

Scosese’s introduction to cocaine was born out of disillusionment. After his hit 1976 film Taxi Driver, he was set up to direct the musical drama New York, New York. The film soon proved difficult for Scorsese when the production became tumultuous. Because of Taxi Driver's success, Scorsese didn't want to be a one-hit wonder. He turned to cocaine to battle his inner demons. To Scorsese, cocaine was a therapist that could help him through his struggles in life. Until it didn't. In 1978, he nearly died and had to be hospitalised as years of abusing cocaine had finally caught up with him.

Hollywood’s obsession with cocaine carried on well into the late 80s and early 90s. Renowned author Stephen King was “coked out of his mind,” when he made Maximum Overdrive, his directorial debut in 1986. Jean Claude Van Damme, during the production of 1994’s Street Fighter, was reportedly consuming $10,000 dollars of cocaine a week. His addiction spiralled so out of control the studio responsible for the film hired a wrangler to try and control his habit.

Hollywood's thirst for the drug decreased significantly by the mid 90s, as the deaths piled up and harsher punishments were dealt. By this time, America had seen a dramatic increase in heroin use. But cocaine addiction is still an issue in Hollywood. Robert Downey Jr., John Mulaney,  Demi Lovato, Bradley Cooper, and Drew Barrymore all have harboured addictions to the drug. Charli XCX, with her smash-hit album Brat, alludes to consuming cocaine. Will Hollywood continue to be “bumpin' that, bumpin' that, bumpin' that”?