Later Years
In 1981, McKuen retired from live performances. The following year, he was diagnosed with clinical depression, which he battled for much of the next decade. He continued to write poetry, however, and made appearances as a voice-over actor in The Little Mermaid and the TV series The Critic.
McKuen's latest book is A Safe Place to Land, which contains 160 pages of new poetry. For ten years he gave an annual birthday concert at Carnegie Hall or the Lincoln Center. His latest album is a double CD, The Platinum Collection. He is currently remastering all of his RCA and Warner Bros. recordings for release as CD boxed sets. In addition to his artistic pursuits, for the past 19 years he has been the president of the American Guild of Variety Artists, a post he has held longer than any other man or woman elected to the position.
McKuen lives in Southern California with his brother and four cats in a large rambling Spanish house built in 1928, which houses one of the world's largest private record collections.
Read more about this topic: Rod McKuen
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“After years of vain familiarity, some distant gesture or unconscious behavior, which we remember, speaks to us with more emphasis than the wisest or kindest words. We are sometimes made aware of a kindness long passed, and realize that there have been times when our Friends’ thoughts of us were of so pure and lofty a character that they passed over us like the winds of heaven unnoticed; when they treated us not as what we were, but as what we aspired to be.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For four hundred years the blacks of Haiti had yearned for peace. for three hundred years the island was spoken of as a paradise of riches and pleasures, but that was in reference to the whites to whom the spirit of the land gave welcome. Haiti has meant split blood and tears for blacks.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)