‘Livin For Love: The Natalie Cole Story’ Shadowed With Repressed Grief

Livin’ For Love: The Natalie Cole Story film poster. 

On this day, nine time Grammy winner and three time American Music Awards recipient Natalie Cole would have been turning seventy-two years old. Thus, why not celebrate by revisiting Livin’ For Love— her autobiographical film based on her memoirs? Often left off lists of actors/actresses playing themselves in biopics, this Robert Townsend directed work should definitely be included because Cole narrates and co-stars. She is a heartbreaking example of the Hollywood philosophy of lifting a celebrity up and bringing them down hard when they show flaws, human error. 

It begins with a house fire (occurring four days after her 31st birthday). A very high Cole wants to save her drugs above anything else. A privileged upbringing set her apart and should have been the means to growing up with a good head on her shoulders. Daughter of famed jazz singer and pianist Nat King Cole, her younger self lived in a predominantly white neighborhood and attended an affluent private school in New England. She mostly made friends due to her father’s status. Yet she was the apple of her father’s eye; so much a pride and joy that he puts her onto music too. Although he was in big demand—tours, record studios, television— he loved being the family man, especially for the daughter who idolized him. Once the tragedy struck of losing her father, she would later unleash her pent up sadness in a devastating delayed reaction. After all, Maria Cole continued sending her daughter to school, offering limited time to properly grieve, let alone lending an attentive shoulder to cry on. 

College introduced the impressionable, isolated Natalie Cole to darker, obscene pleasures; an ugly underground that took her years to escape. With her natural curiosity to try everything and letting peer pressure guide her into unfamiliar territory, she experiments more and more with hardcore drugs including heroin and crack cocaine. In the meantime, she finds the inclination to sing and sounds impressive, charming. Her mother forbids it, having still not completely recovered over her own grief. On campus, Cole becomes nervous— everyone has discovered she’s music royalty. Her nepotism is expected, exaggerated. Drugs lure her deeper. It becomes easier to use than to be clean. This sends her life in a serious uproar with detrimental consequences. 

Livin’ For Love lets Cole tell her perspective. The failure with a majority of biopics nowadays is an embellished story here or there going too far; made up facts as opposed to revealing the cold hard truth. Sure, the lives of celebrities are wilder than most, but audiences want to be satisfied with some measure of accuracy, especially those of us who research afterward. “Based on a true story” doesn’t cut it if the information is pure fabrication. Cole is very involved in this film as co-writer, star, and producer. 

Diahann Carroll (Maria), Natalie Cole, and Theresa Randle (teen/young adult Natalie). 

Robert Townsend—well-known for films showcasing Black excellence, music in particular— crafts Cole’s story in an engaging way, putting us into her need for love and comfort, seeking solace in addiction, and finding recovery through channeling her father’s music. Diahann Carroll was the perfect choice to portray Cole’s mother Maria, a retired singer who prioritized her husband’s career over her own. A great scene features Maria visiting a strung out Natalie at college; appalled and dismissive of her natural hair and braless attire. Beneath the insult, Carroll combines her trademark diva attitude with a soft sincerity that assures a mother’s heart— buried deep within— exists. Theresa Randle, from Townsend’s earlier classic The Five Heartbeats, stands out as the Natalie Cole in her teen and young adult years, cleverly switching between Black power radicalism to messy drug addict wife. However, Randle could have been pushed more— makeup wise— into portraying the sickness that is drug abuse. The eighties were such a bad time— crack cocaine and heroin killing great artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat. Natalie Cole herself would have been next. In her film, she was a marvelous, apologetic soul expressing regret, pain, sorrow, and joy. Endless tragedy almost killed her spirit, but she was able to turn around and triumph, especially that beautiful voice in a challenging, unforgiving industry. For playing herself, Cole won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Miniseries or Special. 

Livin’ For Love may be an understated television movie that seems made for Lifetime. It is a humble cinematic treasure that adds an unforgettable piece of Natalie Cole history alongside her impressive musical catalog. When she left us on a cold New Year’s Eve, a remarkable legacy stayed behind and not because of her famous father. 

Natalie Cole was a talent, a star in her own right too.