DCS: cathy smith

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You’ve heard of Cathy Smith…. right? Sure you have. Maybe just not her name.

Cathy sang backup for The Hawks, an up-and-coming Canadian band. Though just 16 years-old, she fell for Hawks’ 23 year-old drummer Levon Helm, but still was pretty close with all of the band members. They eventually changed their name to The Band and Cathy stuck around. She became pregnant by one of the band members, but it was unclear which one. Richard Manuel, The Band’s piano player offered to marry Cathy, but she turned him down. Cathy claimed that The Band’s 1968 hit “The Weight” was inspired by her.

In 1971, Cathy began a four-year, tumultuous, sometimes violent, affair with married singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot. The dark lyrics of his 1974 hit “Sundown” were a chronicle of their relationship.

Through a friend, Cathy took a job as a personal assistant to activist lawyer Edward L. Masry. (Masry was portrayed by Albert Finney in the award-winning film Erin Brockovich.)

She fell back into the music business as a back-up singer for country singer-songwriter Hoyt Axton. She also sold drugs to Keith Richards and Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones. Within her drug circles, she met comedian John Belushi when she sold him drugs on a recommendation from Richards. She rubbed elbows with famous folks like Leonard Cohen, Seymour Cassel, Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro, She confessed to administering the lethal dose of heroin and cocaine that killed Belushi in 1982.

Cathy served fifteen months in prison, during which she taught computer skills to some of her fellow inmates, including Manson Family members Patricia Krenwinkel and Susan Atkins. Upon her release, Cathy was deported to Canada. She worked as a volunteer, speaking to teen groups about the dangers of drugs… until she was arrested for heroin possession and sent back to prison.

When her sentence was served, she moved into a senior citizens facility after her previous apartment was destroyed by a fire, one in which she lost all of her possessions. Her health declined during the last years of her life and she passed away on August 18, 2020 at the age of 73.

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