To a generation of fans he epitomised American cool. As one half of the Seventies’ TV cop duo Starsky & Hutch, David Soul captivated women with his blond, Nordic looks, and appealed equally to men by racing around the streets of fictional Bay City, California, in a red Ford Gran Torino.
But while his death, aged 80, ten days ago brought back nostalgic memories for millions, to those closest to him it re-opened painful wounds.
Married five times and a father of six, Soul was, by his own admission, a ‘wayward’ dad whose glittering Hollywood career crashed in a haze of alcohol.
It culminated in a horrifying attack on his heavily-pregnant third wife which left her with broken fingers – and his reputation destroyed.
When The Mail on Sunday approached that wife, Patti Carnel Sherman, last week, she said simply: ‘The old adage ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all’ is what sticks in my mind. We had three wonderful, handsome, intelligent and talented sons together and for this I thank God.’
The death of David Soul, an actor that captivated TV audiences for a generation, has reopened painful wounds for many of those who were closest to him
David Soul was, by his own admission, ‘wayward’. Soul was ordered to attend anger management after attacking his pregnant third wife Patti Carnel Sherman
David Soul was the epitome of American cool for a generation, as one half of the legendary TV duo ‘Starsky and Hutch’
One of those sons, Andrew Solberg, 38, (Solberg was Soul’s real surname) is less reticent about discussing the father whose selfish pursuit of women, alcohol and fame caused emotional wounds which are still raw.
‘We had a complicated relationship and at times I hated him, resenting him for abandoning me and my brothers,’ Andrew said last night in his first-ever interview. ‘I struggled to understand and know him. My father had his demons.
‘I have similar demons and can’t say that if I was him, I’d have handled them any better.
‘He had a very large ego and had to feed that – which is what made him consume copious amounts of alcohol. He struggled with alcohol and he struggled with women.
‘When I was a kid, I wondered: ‘Why doesn’t he want to know me?’ That’s tough on a kid. I was someone with a famous dad who was more interested in having fun, chasing his dreams and chasing booze and women.
‘When you are a kid, that is hard to deal with. But I understand it now. He was lost.’
Andrew, a budding actor who also runs a barbershop in the picturesque town of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, blames his own descent into alcoholism (he is now sober) on his father. Touchingly, he says the pair reconciled and found peace during a phone call, just days before Soul died in London.
Andrew had just finished filming his first low-budget movie. ‘I constantly wanted his approval,’ he says, his voice cracking with emotion. ‘I told him about my acting and for the first time he told me the words I’d always wanted to hear. He said: ‘I’m proud of you.’ ‘
Andrew blames his father’s turbulent childhood for the demons that drove him to self-destruct at the peak of his fame.
Born to a Lutheran priest father and a mother who dreamed of being a singer but gave it up to raise five children, Soul felt ‘stifled’. He learned to play the guitar and developed a passion for music while his father preached in Mexico.
When the family returned to their home town of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Soul got his high school sweetheart, Mim Russeth, pregnant. Soul said: ‘I knew there was no alternative but to marry her. I couldn’t tell my parents because their strong moral code meant they would have come down on me with the wrath of God.’ The marriage ended after just 18 months when Soul found Mim in bed with his best friend. Soul had a nervous breakdown and was locked up in a psychiatric ward for his own protection.
He fled to New York where he became part of pop artist Andy Warhol’s notorious ‘Factory’ of ‘louche young things’ and hinted he was sexually abused as a ‘little boy-toy’. Soul began singing in clubs and then moved to Hollywood to perform on a variety show – which led to a career as a bit-time actor.
A role in the Dirty Harry sequel Magnum Force, starring Clint Eastwood, inspired producer Aaron Spelling (who created Dynasty and Melrose Place) to cast him as Sergeant Kenneth ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson opposite Paul Michael Glaser, alias Sergeant Dave Starsky, in Starsky & Hutch, which ran from 1975 to 1979.
The show epitomised Californian glamour with its laid-back humour, red and white-striped Ford Gran Torino and, of course, its gorgeous leading men. ‘Dad was handsome but looks were never something that interested him,’ his son Andrew says. ‘He always found being a sex symbol embarrassing. It tormented him. He didn’t feel worthy.’
Soul parlayed his fame and pin-up status into a successful music career, getting two British No.1s, with Don’t Give Up On Us in 1976 and Silver Lady a year later.
Once, when he arrived at Heathrow during the height of his fame, he was greeted by 5,000 screaming women.
David Soul and his fourth wife, Julia Nickson. Their marriage collapsed quickly as David Soul battled with alcoholism
David Soul had six children, and his son Andrew Solberg recently described their troubles. ‘At times I hated him, resenting him for abandoning me and my brothers,’ he said last night
Series Starsky and Hutch, in which he co-stared with Paul Michael Glaser, was so successful it was later turned into a feature film and a video game
In one interview he teased that he ‘got drunk’ sharing two bottles of gin with Princess Margaret.
He said: ‘Paul [Glaser] and I took her to lunch and we emptied a couple of bottles of gin. She told us the Queen Mother loved Starsky & Hutch and called us ‘nice boys’.’
A second marriage, to actress Karen Carlson, ended in 1977, reportedly due to his growing alcoholism. That marriage produced a son, Jon, now in his fifties.
Soul was at the peak of his fame when he married Patti Carnel Sherman in 1980, and was expected to follow other Seventies TV stars such as Michael Douglas to Hollywood fame and glory.
However, Patti was seven months pregnant with their second son in 1982 when Soul attacked her at their Bel Air mansion.
Soul had returned home drunk from the set of a miniseries called Casablanca in which he was replaying the role of Humphrey Bogart.
Patti later told People magazine: ‘He started cussing me out in vile, poisonous language. He was violent with his tongue so I knew he was going to be violent physically.
‘Every time there has been violence with David, there’s been beer or wine on his breath. Now when I so much as smell it, it triggers a fear in me.’
Soul beat Patti so badly he broke bones in her hand and fingers. She had two black eyes. He sat on her seven-months pregnant tummy for 20 minutes. ‘He cut my lip and it began to bleed. I was scared to death,’ Patti said.
She called the local Bel Air security patrol who summoned police.
Soul was hauled off to jail but released 90 minutes later after posting $500 bail, a pittance to a man who was reportedly earning more than a million dollars a year.
He avoided prison by agreeing to anger management therapy and spent years trying to atone, speaking at meetings for victims of domestic violence.
He claimed ‘awful, awful remorse’, but his dreams of a glittering Hollywood movie career were in tatters.
The marriage stumbled on and produced another son – Andrew – in 1985, but the couple finally split when Andrew was two.
Andrew told the MoS: ‘His work was more important to him than his family. I’ve talked to my mum and she’s forgiven him.
‘I used to blame her for leaving him. My dad never had the mindset to truly be a father.
‘He liked the image of what a father might look like but he didn’t like the work that came with it.’ Andrew recalls being shown photographs of Hollywood parties, including one which showed him being bounced on the knee of the actor Laurence Olivier.
A second marriage, to actress Karen Carlson, ended in 1977, reportedly due to his growing alcoholism. Alcohol would come to define his personal troubles
Soul had battled lung cancer and pulmonary disease. He was a three-pack-a-day cigarette smoker for fifty years and had a history with alcohol
During his career, David Soul made guest appearances on series that included Star Trek
‘I loved being around my dad,’ Andrew says. ‘As a kid, we’d do the coolest things together, like slow-motion fighting. He’d teach us how to get hit in the belly in slow-motion with all the facial expressions. He was fun to be around.’
When Andrew was five, Patti took her three young boys to Idaho to give them the stable upbringing she believed was impossible in Hollywood, particularly as the children of a notorious celebrity.
By this stage, tales of Soul’s womanising were in all the tabloids.
Andrew says: ‘It wasn’t a very stable place for my brothers and me, so when I was five my mother uprooted us to Idaho.
‘In those early years, Dad was busy and not with us a lot, but when he was, he helped us excel with our imaginations. He built tree forts with us and took us off-roading in the desert, skiing and snowboarding in the mountains.’
As Soul worked abroad, he only occasionally went to see those three sons, and Andrew says those times became increasingly rare.
‘I saw him less and less,’ he says. ‘It was very difficult.’
Andrew says he had ‘no idea’ his dad was a Seventies pin-up and star, since he was raised with the name Solberg and not Soul.
Once, though, at a supermarket, he spotted a picture of his father on the cover of a magazine, described as a ‘deadbeat dad’. ‘The article was about me and my brothers,’ he says.
In 1987, Soul married for the fourth time, to Julia Nickson, who had been a starlet in Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo: First Blood Part II.
Last week, she told The Mail on Sunday that she has happy memories of Soul, but agreed he was a poor father.
She recalls good times together travelling the world – visiting the Galapagos Islands, camping in Jordan and horse-riding in Morocco.
‘David had a magnificent quality that made a girl’s heart beat more than a little stronger,’ she says.
‘But as time passes, family responsibilities become larger, life needs to become more regulated – and I feel that David wasn’t willing to be part of that equation.
‘He always needed to wander. And going a-wandering becomes tiresome for any spouse.’
The couple divorced in 1993.
Soul met his fifth wife, British PR woman Helen Snell, in the mid-1990s and moved to London. They wed in 2010 and he became a British citizen, and an Arsenal fan.
He appeared in West End shows and on British TV series Holby City and Little Britain but never achieved the career – or fortune –he expected.
In 2004, he was given a cameo role in a film version of Starsky & Hutch but apparently hated the remake, which starred Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson.
He signed away his share of Starsky & Hutch’s licensing rights, which could have potentially been worth millions, for what he described as a ‘paltry’ $100,000 in order to pay for one of his divorces.
His son Andrew followed his father down the path into drug addiction and alcoholism, and was in and out of jail and treatment programmes until he met his wife, Erika, six years ago.
His greatest heartache is that he was unable to fly to the UK to sit by his dying father – Soul had battled lung cancer and pulmonary disease – alongside his siblings.
After their last conversation, a phone call where Soul finally admitted he was ‘proud’ of his son, the actor’s condition deteriorated and he was taken to hospital.
Andrew says: ‘He was in and out of consciousness, more or less in a coma. My brother Tim, who was with Dad, held the phone up to his ear while I told him everything that I was feeling.
‘The emotions just poured out, even though I wasn’t sure he could hear me. He squeezed my brother’s hand while I was speaking, so I hope he heard.
‘I know he loved me – even though he didn’t know how to show it. I hope he is finally at peace.’