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| Rob Pilatus |
| Born: 6-8-1965 Died: 4-2-1998 ........of an overdose |
| Fabrice Morvan and Rob Pilatus were two homeless kids who met on the streets of Munich in the 1980's. They decided to join forces as a dance act and became a sensation throughout the city's club scene. But when record producer Frank Farian signed them with a promise to do their first single and instead contractually forced them into creating a lip-synching act for some prerecorded dance tunes, what seemed like the culmination of a dream became the start of an international nightmare. Rob had been born in New York in 1965, but grew up in Munich, spending some time in an orphanage after his parents (an American soldier and German stripper) gave him up for adoption. Fabrice was born in 1966 on the island of Guadeloupe, lived in Miami for a time, and moved with his mother to Paris; he had been a skilled trampoline athlete until he suffered a neck injury in a fall. Both skilled dancers, the two had met sometime circa 1984 and were attempting to make it as singers, dancers, models, or whatever they could. Their exotic look and long dreadlock extensions were just what Farian was looking for. "Milli Vanilli" was the brainchild of Farian, who'd previously masterminded the European disco group Boney M. and the session-musician rock outfit Far Corporation. Seeking to fuse European dance-pop with elements of American rap, Farian assembled a number of session musicians and vocalists, including rapper Charles Shaw (an Army veteran) and two middle-aged American singers living in Germany, Johnny Davis and Brad Howell (some accounts give his name as Howe). Realizing that he had a marketable record but a distinctly unmarketable image, Farian hired the two aspiring models and former breakdancers to pretend to be the group in videos, concerts, and interviews. The first album, "All Or Nothing," was released in Europe in 1988 and was an instant success. Retitled "Girl You Know It's True" the record was issued in the U.S. in early 1989. Its catchy, lightweight pop-rap proved equally popular with American audiences; "Girl You Know It's True" raced up the pop charts to number two, and the next three Milli Vanilli singles, "Baby Don't Forget My Number," the ballad "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You," and the Diane Warren-penned "Blame It On The Rain" all hit number one. "Girl You Know It's True" sold an astounding seven million copies in the U.S. alone; internationally, Milli Vanilli sold approximately 30 million singles. In December 1989, as the fifth single "All Or Nothing" was climbing the charts on its way to the Top Five, rapper Charles Shaw revealed to a New York reporter that Pilatus and Morvan had not actually sung any vocals on the album. Shaw quickly retracted his statements (apparently paid off by Farian to keep quiet), claiming that they were merely a PR stunt for his own album. None of them knew how long success would last -- but they all knew it was on the line when Milli Vanilli won a 1990 Grammy Award as the odds-on favorite for "Best New Artist." Success (or at least fame) was beginning to go to the duo's heads, particularly Pilatus, who was given to extreme mood swings and erratic behavior, and developed a cocaine problem. In an interview with Time magazine, Pilatus compared himself and Milli Vanilli favorably to Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Paul McCartney, and Mick Jagger, and was roundly ridiculed for his statements. Rob and Fabrice knew it was a matter of time before they were found out, and threatened to announce the truth to the public themselves if Frank Farian did not allow them the opportunity to bolster their careers against the inevitable backlash by singing on their next album. Instead, Farian decided to cut his losses and held a press conference to put his own spin on the group's creation -- and destruction. So Rob and Fabrice were publicly vilified, while Farian and Arista -- Milli Vanilli's label, which falsely claimed ignorance of the whole matter -- got off scot free. They were stripped of their Grammy (ironically, the committee had justified its vote by citing the duo's "visual impact"), and a class-action suit was filed against Arista Records, allowing anyone who believed they'd been defrauded into purchasing the group's records to apply for a rebate. Arista dropped the group and deleted "Girl You Know It's True" from their catalog, making it the biggest-selling album ever taken out of print. In 1991, Farian attempted to re-form Milli Vanilli with the original session vocalists (including female backup singer Gina Mohammed), this time crediting them and billing them as The Real Milli Vanilli, while also adding a Pilatus/Morvan look-alike named Ray Horton. However, the resulting "Moment of Truth" album flopped. Pilatus, meanwhile, was unable to deal with the sudden fall from grace; after mixing alcohol and prescription drugs, he slashed one of his wrists in a Los Angeles hotel, then called police and reporters to the scene, where he had to be removed from the balcony he was threatening to jump off of. Attempting to prove that they really could sing if given the chance, Pilatus and Morvan regrouped in 1993 as Rob & Fab; however, with their credibility damaged beyond repair, their self-titled debut reportedly sold only 2,000 copies total, despite an appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show. Farian had also attempted yet another album, this time renaming his group Try 'N' B and retooling the lineup again to enhance its visual appeal (which meant discarding the original singers); however, "Sexy Eyes" also stiffed. From there, Pilatus hit rock bottom. Beginning in 1995, he was arrested for several separate incidents in Los Angeles involving assaults (including one man he attacked with a metal lamp base), vandalism, and attempting to break into a car. Convicted of four different misdemeanors, he was sentenced to several months in jail in 1996, and did the first of numerous stints in drug rehab centers for his cocaine addiction. Pilatus eventually returned to Germany; in April 1998, his body was found in a Frankfurt hotel room after he mixed a fatal combination of pills and alcohol. |
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