Much of the first half of this book relates to events that occurred many years ago; naturally, when attempting to recount
such events in detail, there is always the possibility of lapses of memory. But in the case of the story I have to tell, I
believe I can say with confidence that it is a fully accurate and objective one. Not only am I fortunate in being blessed
with an extremely clear memory, but my recollections have become more focused over recent months as
Shine’s
worldwide success has caused me to think harder about my childhood years. In preparing this book I have also been able to
reread the extensive diaries, notes, and letters that I have kept over the years, as well as to speak to many relatives and
family friends.

As far as events in the period before I was born are concerned, most of the information comes from my parents. I have also
taken the precaution of confirming things told to me by my father, who passed away in 1975, by speaking to family members
and others who knew him well, such as his dear and loyal friends Dr. Jack Morris and Ivan Rostkier, his cousin Zelig Lewcowitz—and
of course to my mother.

The information about Czestochowa in Poland comes from the Museum of the Diaspora in Tel Aviv, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Archives
in Jerusalem, the
Encyclopaedia Judaica,
and from personal recollections of friends and relatives.

In regard to the chapter on mental illness, I would like to thank the World Schizophrenia Fellowship and the Australian Schizophrenia
Foundation (to whom part of the proceeds of sales from this book are being donated).

Where I have cited lines from the film
Shine,
these have been checked for accuracy against the officially published screenplay of the film, by Jan Sardi and Scott Hicks.

Tom Gross and I are extremely grateful to the following for their invaluable help and assistance: Michael Fox, Ron Tira, Tania
Hershman, Daniel Chalfen, Simona Fuma, Natasha Lehrer, Rachel Temkin, Cara Stern, Dror Izhar (Israel Film Institute), our
agents Beth Elon and Deborah Harris, and Larry Kirshbaum and Colleen Kapklein at Warner Books. I would also like to thank
all the Helfgott family, in particular my mother, and all the people who kindly agreed to be interviewed for this book. I
would like to add a special word of thanks to my brother Leslie and his wife Marie, who undertook much of the Australian-based
research, and to Dr. Albert Jacob for his wise counsel on both medical and musical matters.

Most of all, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Tom Gross for his patient and skillful assistance and hard work in helping
me to write this book, and to my husband Dr. Allan Fisher who has been a tower of strength and support.

1
OSCAR NIGHT

T
he night of March 24, 1997, should have been one of the most exciting nights of my life. That was the night my brother David
performed live at the Oscar ceremony; a moment of great pride for him and for the whole Helfgott family. Not only did he receive
a standing ovation from the glittering array of celebrities gathered together for the 69th Annual Academy Awards, but a worldwide
television audience of over a billion people saw him hailed as a living example of the triumph of the human spirit over adversity.

Here was David being embraced by Glenn Close. Here he was sharing the limelight with another special guest star, the former
world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali. Here was my darling brother being applauded and feted by the world. This should
have been an utterly joyous occasion, marking the crowning moment in David’s remarkably topsy-turvy career as a concert pianist.

Instead, I was overcome by a great sadness that night. As I sat at home in Beersheva in southern Israel, I felt dismay and
foreboding. I knew that my brother Leslie in Australia felt pain and anger and that my mother had been crying.

The reasons for our despair and for David’s sudden fame were one and the same:
Shine
, the film that supposedly recounts the true story of my family, and, in particular, of David’s relationship with his father,
Peter Helfgott. We knew that David’s playing that night, combined with the fact that
Shine
was among the Oscar winners, would mean that millions more would see this already-popular film—a film that is an unforgivable
distortion of the truth.

This is not to say that we were not happy for David and the success he has achieved since the release of the film; but any
pleasure we felt was all but drowned out by our concern for the memory of Peter Helfgott. For if David was the hero of the
evening, my father was the villain. As film star Billy Crystal, the guest host for the Oscars that night, put it to the audience,
Shine,
is about “a mean father who made his son practice at the piano until his fingers bled, and then declared ‘my son is dead.’”

The film suggests that my brother’s promising career was brought to an abrupt halt at the age of 22 by a mental breakdown
largely induced by a brutal father—a father whose brutality may well have had something to do with the fact that he was a
survivor of the Holocaust. But all this is very far from the truth, and the film is a terrible misrepresentation of a generous
and decent man, who was both loving and much loved.

The real Peter Helfgott was proud and strong, tolerant and tender, full of insight and wisdom. His story is a remarkable one.
He was a self-made man whose intellectual powers bordered on brilliance. He wished his children nothing but happiness, and
hoped they would share the love of music that had done so much to enrich his own life. David and he had a wonderful rapport—both
at the piano and in countless other ways.

But the impression received by millions of filmgoers was one of a tyrant—an impression reinforced by reviews in many of the
world’s leading publications that characterized my father as “cruel,” “threatening,” “violent,” “slightly less lovable than
Himmler,” “Flihrerlike.” And it did not stop there. The implications of
Shine,
as a “true story” became the subject of constant discussion in the press and on television and radio throughout the world.

Reviewers made no distinction between the film version of Peter Helfgott and Peter Helfgott the real man. How could they?
Shine’s
director, Scott Hicks, knew this when he chose my father as a subject for his film, relying on information supplied by Gillian,
David’s new wife, who only met David eight years after my father’s death. The situation was very different from other recent
unflattering bio-pics such as
Surviving Picasso
and
JFK,
films also criticized for their historical inaccuracy. There are thousands of alternative sources of information about the
lives of Pablo Picasso and John F. Kennedy; not so with my father, plucked from obscurity to be transformed into a beast.
“I have suffered great personal distress and public humiliation as a result of the completely false and misleading depiction
in
Shine
of my dear late husband,’ says my mother.

There were no beatings in our family. There was no dark and oppressive atmosphere in our house, no fearful glances every time
my father entered the room. The house was not “like a concentration camp,” as the character called Margaret who represents
me says in the screenplay.
^*There was no emphasis in my home on winning at all costs. Far from ruining David’s career, my father deserves credit for
nurturing his talent and paving the way for his success.

In making what is called a bio-pic, a film director should be allowed a little artistic license if dramatic effect calls for
it, and of course it may be necessary to fictionalize parts of a story in order to compress it into a two-hour movie. But
the makers of
Shine
have deliberately distorted the truth beyond all reasonable limits, while allowing the film to be marketed as a true story.
‘
Shine
is an utterly extraordinary true story,” proclaimed full-page ads in the
New York Times
and other publications.

The film contains many travesties of the truth. My Polish-born father was not a Holocaust survivor, despite the film’s use
of barbed wire, burning books, and marks on his forearm to imply that he was. He lived in Australia from 1933 onward, arriving
there six years before the outbreak of World War II. Nor was his accent German: he had never been to Germany in his life.
Nor did he sever contact with David—the two remained close while David was in London. David was in fact living with my father
again in Perth at the time of Peter’s death in December 1975.

While suggesting that my father’s harsh behavior drove his son to insanity, the film conveniently neglects to mention that
there is a history of mental illness in the Helfgott family. My father’s own sister was institutionalized, and this was almost
certainly linked to the illness that my brother later developed. David did not collapse after playing Rachmaninoff’s Third
Piano Concerto in London in 1969, which he had in any case performed many times before—in Perth and Melbourne in 1964, for
example.

The film also omits David’s first marriage in 1971, to Claire
^*, a Hungarian Jew who survived Dachau concentration camp. Claire was shocked by the film’s portrayal of her former father-in-law.
She told me: “I have only one word for what they have done to Peter Helfgott. It’s disgusting.” Referring to the portrayal
of Peter she said, “The film brings back to me my childhood memories when innocent Jews were accused of all sorts of things
they never did.”

Other “key players” in the film and in David’s life, such as our former piano teacher, Frank Arndt, on whom the fictional
character of Mr. Rosen is based, and Professor Sir Frank Callaway, who organized David’s studies at the Royal College of Music
in London, are equally upset at the film’s depiction of my father.

During the ten years in which Scott Hicks was planning and shooting the film, I made repeated requests to see the script,
since I had heard that my family was intimately involved, and that I myself would be portrayed. But I was never allowed to
see a copy. Nor was my mother. Hicks mainly collaborated with David’s new wife, Gillian, who never met my father.

My concern is not only for my father’s memory but also for my brother, who has been catapulted into stardom despite his still-fragile
mental state. After only a few concerts into his grueling 1997 world concert tour, critics were already dubbing him “a freak
show” and his performances frequently elicited savage reviews. Only time will tell what the long-term consequences for his
health will be.

Other books

Five Moons of Pluto by Jeter, Andre

Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 02 by Mischief In Maggody

Aunt Dimity and the Next of Kin by Nancy Atherton

And the Bride Wore Prada by Katie Oliver

Spin by Catherine McKenzie

Alms for Oblivion by Philip Gooden

Fantasy of Flight by Kelly St. Clare

The Promise by Jessica Sorensen

Fireball by Tyler Keevil

Stories for When the Sun Goes Down (Sexy Anthology) by Harlem, Lily