Carmen Romano, Vandross' longtime business manager, has a theory as to why his client avoided his physician. Vandross, who is diabetic and had been plagued with high blood pressure, had also long fought a very public battle with obesity. According to Romano, the 6'3'' Vandross could veer anywhere between 190 and 340 pounds. ''I think he was afraid to go to the doctor because he had gained a lot of weight,'' Romano says, ''and he just didn't want to get a lecture about it.''
Romano remembers well how he heard about Vandross' stroke. ''I was in my car, coming back from Tiffany's, where I had just bought Luther a birthday present,'' he says. ''I was literally in the car with the gift when I got the phone call from Max.'' Max Szadek had arrived at Vandross' apartment that morning to take him to the recording studio, but got no response at the door, which was chain-locked from the inside. ''What should I do?'' Szadek asked Romano. ''Should I break the door down?'' They made a decision. ''He broke it down and found Luther on the floor.''
Vandross' associates describe a frightening scene. Although he would lapse into a semi-coma shortly after being admitted to the hospital, Luther was immobile but still conscious and able to speak when Szadek came through the door. ''He was thirsty and asked for something to drink,'' says Romano. ''Then he said to Max, when the ambulance got there, 'Make sure you call my mother.'''
Mrs. V. is crying again. It is two days prior to the warehouse visit, and she is seated at the dining room table of her memorabilia-packed apartment in a luxury building in central Philadelphia. Across from her sits Szadek, who keeps an attentive watch on the proceedings.
''I cry all the time, so don't pay me no attention,'' she says, dabbing her eye with a Kleenex. She is thinking about the old days, when the Vandross family -- Luther's brother, Charles, and sisters Patricia and Ann -- lived in a housing project on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Music was always central to the household: Luther Sr., an upholsterer, sang semiprofessionally, and Patricia was a member of the doo-wop group the Crests (''16 Candles''). Born in 1951, Luther dropped out of college in the early '70s to pursue a music career. He soon made a name for himself as a backup singer. One of his first breaks was arranging and belting out the background vocals on David Bowie's ''Young Americans.'' He went solo in 1981, and has seen all but one of his 15 romance-drenched albums go platinum, making the Pied Piper of Love one of the biggest R&B stars of the past two decades.
But success couldn't stave off tragedy. Remarkably, diabetes took the life not only of Luther's father but of his brother in 1992 and his sister Patricia in 1993. Ann suffered a fatal asthma attack in 1999. ''I lost my three other children,'' Mrs. V. says. ''Luther is the last of the four, and to have him in the hospital with a stroke...''
In the first weeks after his collapse, Vandross lingered in a minimally responsive state, breathing with the help of a respirator. When he finally regained consciousness on May 29, his condition remained grave; he was unable to walk and was frequently incoherent, at times imagining that he was backstage at a concert. Painfully to all, he was also unable to recognize family and friends. ''The first several days, I didn't think he was going to pull through,'' remembers Carmen Romano, echoing the sentiments of many in the Vandross camp.
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