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I had only just met Paul Williams, the singer, Oscar-winning songwriter and actor who achieved a wild, campy fame in the 1970's, and already I was lying to him. We were backstage at Feinstein's at the Reg-ency Ho-tel, where Mr. Will-iams is performing until Nov.24. A waiter came by with champagne, and Mr. Will-iams, in recovery himself after lost years of drug and alcohol abuse, indicated that I should help myself.
No, thanks, I said. I was planning an early night, I said, lying, to get ready for my interview with him the following afternoon. But if I had told Mr. Williams the truth, that several hours later, at 5:45 a.m., I'd be in a bar drinking whiskey, smoking pot through a carved-out apple and having a serious conversation about Dire Straits, I'm not sure he would have agreed to see me.
But lying to a man in recovery doesn't get you very far, and recovery is a big part of Mr. Williams' life. Onstage that night, the 61-year-old, 5-foot-2 entertainer, whose songs have been recorded by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Diana Ross, Elvis Presley, John Denver, David Bowie, Ella Fitzgerald, Gladys Knight, Ray Charles and Art Garfunkel, got laughs with references to his under-the-influence past.
"I'm relatively relaxed," Mr. Williams told the middle-aged crowd at one point during the show, which included his hits like "The Rainbow Connection" from The Muppet Movie and "What Would They Say?" from The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.
"You know, I thought about it. I go, 'What's to worry about? The Times isn't going to ruin your career. You did that yourself years ago.'"
The next day, at 2 p.m., Mr. Williams was in his hotel room at the Regency. He wore a dark sweater, black pants and black tennis shoes. He had a goatee and thick spiky hair. "I'm always controversial, and I love to talk about recovery and all that," he said, before offering me a Diet Coke or coffee. He said he was worried about getting "porky" from room service.
"When I got sober, I weighed 187," he said. "I weigh 137 now. When I'd run out of cocaine, I'd eat everything. I was a serious cocaine addict,...