Art Bell

Diagnoses

Personal

Vocation

Lifestyle

Traits

Family

American radio broadcaster who commanded the late night hours with his five hour "Coast to Coast" radio show. Every night, he reached millions of people on some 300 radio affiliates with his curiosity, bluntness, sense of humor, interesting guests and call-in assortments. His topics covered almost everything unconventional, from psychic predictions to cults to every variety of conspiracy theory, UFOs and government cover-ups. Bell reported on one of his shows that he had an out-of-body experience (OBE) while visiting Paris with his wife, date unspecified. He described his sensations as a state of bliss and joy that was beyond words. A proclivity to the occult may run in the family: Bell is the first cousin of Frederick Lenz, a.k.a. "Zen Master Rama." The son of parents who were both in the Marine Corps, Bell loved radio all his life and wooed audiences as a disk jockey or talk host for more than 35 years. On 13 October 1998, he suddenly left the airwaves to the shock of his 15 million listeners. He announced in his on-air farewell, "You may recall about a year ago I told you there was a threatening, terrible event that occurred to my family, which I could not tell you about. Because of that event and a succession of other events, this is it folks, I'm going off the air." In an interview with Globe paper, he said that it was not a hoax. From his one-man broadcast studio at his home, Bell asked that his fans let some time pass and hopefully, he would return to the air. "This program over the last 14 years has been one of the great joys of my life and I miss it terribly, but I need more time." He was indeed soon back on the air, some three weeks later after being snowballed with mail from his many listeners in the U.S. as well as other countries. He took another abrupt hiatus in April 1999, showing old-fashioned reserve in keeping his anguish private. A later report announced that the reason that Bell had withdrawn from his station was a family trauma several years before, that his teen-age son had been sexually molested by an HIV-infected substitute teacher. There was an arrest and a trial of the rapist, Brian Lepley, who was sentenced in May 1998 to life in prison. When Bell's son turned 18, his name was released and the story became public. The boy tested HIV-negative but psychologically, Bell said, "it slammed him into the ground." Bell also took a severe slam when two broadcasters turned it around and reported that Art Bell (not his son) was involved in sexual molestation and had paid officials to cover it up. At that point, Bell filed a lawsuit. He could not publicly defend himself without revealing his son's dilemma. He said it was living hell, "I could not sleep or sometimes even breathe. I had fits of alternating anger and depression. My private life was falling apart while I was going on the air every night." By mid-1999, Bell was handling his Coast to Coast show three nights a week and a Sunday show, along with legal consultations and holding his family together in his tiny desert town of Pahrump, Nevada. At the beginning of April 2000, he announced that he was leaving the show permanently on 26 April 2000 and it would be taken over by another host. He was still trying to clear his name of accusations that he committed any crime, as well as trying to be supportive of his son, who has been devastated. Bell's dad died the evening of 30 April 2000. On 31 December 2002, Bell retired once again with back problems caused by an old injury. Semi-retired from Coast to Coast AM since 2003, he hosted the show many weekends on Premiere Networks for the following four years. He announced his retirement from weekend hosting on 1 July 2007, but occasionally served as a guest host through 2010. He attributed the reason for his retirement to a desire to spend time with his new wife and their daughter, born 30 May 2007. He added that unlike his previous "retirements", this one was permanent, while leaving open the option to return. He started a new nightly show, Art Bell's Dark Matter, on Sirius XM Radio, that began on 16 September 2013. It ended six weeks later, on 4 November 2013. Bell cited technological problems and a disagreement with Sirius XM over the show's distribution, for his ending the program. He returned to radio on 20 July 2015, with a new show, Midnight in the Desert, available online, via TuneIn, and on some terrestrial radio stations. He announced what would be his final retirement on 11 December 2015, citing security concerns at his home. Bell died at his Pahrump home of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on 13 April 2018, aged 72. Link to Wikipedia biography