Country Music Legend Glen Campbell Dies At 81

Outside of music, he began hosting a weekly CBS variety show, “The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour,” in 1969, and made a promising foray into acting that same year in Paramount’s “True Grit,” playing La Boeuf alongside John Wayne’s Rooster Cogburn. (Campbell was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance, and his titular song contribution to the film was nominated for an original song Oscar.) A starring role in 1970’s “Norwood” followed. After his show was canceled in 1972, Campbell remained visible with a plethora of one-off TV specials, though his film career never really took off.

His hitmaking pace cooled off in the early ’70s — even “Reunion,” a collaboration with Webb, failed to catch fire — but his career reignited in 1975 with the release of “Rhinestone Cowboy.” A Larry Weiss-penned ode to showbiz durability, the song would become Campbell’s signature, and it reached No. 1 on both the country and pop charts that year, as did the LP of the same name. Singles “Country Boy (You Got Your Feet in L.A.)” and “Southern Nights” followed to comparable success.

However, Campbell’s rapidly escalating substance abuse and womanizing had begun to make him something of a pariah in the close-knit Nashville musical community. Divorcing his second wife Billie Jean Nunley in 1976, Campbell scandalized many by openly courting Sarah Barg while she was still married to respected singer-songwriter Mac Davis, later marrying her in a legendarily cocaine-fueled ceremony.

The couple divorced in 1980, and Campbell immediately began dating singer Tanya Tucker, 17 years his junior. The two notched a minor duet hit with “Dream Lover,” but their relationship, a frequent tabloid fixture, was a toxic one. At its nadir, Tucker claimed Campbell once beat her viciously enough to knock out her two front teeth. (Campbell denied the incident, though he admitted that their relationship occasionally turned violent.)

(Source: VARIETY)