Gunnar Nelson and Matthew Nelson still wonder if their father, former teen idol Ricky Nelson, had a premonition before his tragic demise.
On New Year’s Eve 1985, the entertainer died in a plane crash in DeKalb, Texas. He was 45. Six others on board also perished.
Forty years later, his children are looking back at the circumstances surrounding his death and their own rise to fame in a new memoir, “What Happened to Your Hair?”
“Matthew learned about our father’s death on the radio, and I saw it on TV,” Gunnar told Fox News Digital. “Normally, they would notify the family first. That was jarring.”
The twins were 18 years old when they lost the “Ozzie and Harriet” star. They were living with him at the former home of Errol Flynn, sometimes referred to as Mulholland Farm in Los Angeles. They had just celebrated Christmas together with the Nelson family while taking a much-needed break from showbiz. It was a treasured tradition. But that year was different.
“I guess it kind of sprung on him at the last minute that he was going to have to be away for New Year’s Eve to pay lawyer bills or whatever,” Gunnar recalled.
WATCH: HOW RICKY NELSON’S LAST PHONE CALL SAVED HIS SONS’ LIVES
“He wasn’t really looking forward to that. He said he wanted to hang out with us. He was having a good time. And, historically, the Nelson family never worked from Christmas through New Year’s. That was basically the way it was with our dad. So, he wasn’t all that happy he had to go and do a couple of shows to pay the bills.”
According to the book, Ricky’s marriage to actress Kristin Nelson, the boys’ mother and sister to actor Mark Harmon, had deteriorated badly. Their divorce was described as tumultuous and expensive, resulting in ongoing attorney fees.
But determined to spend time with his sons, Ricky suggested the twins meet him in Alabama and then fly with him on his DC-3, a plane previously owned by Jerry Lee Lewis. The twins were excited about flying in their father’s plane for the first time. Together, they would head to Dallas, where Ricky was scheduled to perform for a New Year’s Eve show.
“It was a classic World War II-era plane,” said Gunnar. “He bought it because he was afraid to fly, and it flew so slowly that, basically, both engines could go out, and you could glide in for a landing pretty much anywhere. So he spent a lot of time flying in that.”
The brothers quickly packed their bags, eager to ring in the new year with their dad on stage. But the night before they were to take a commercial flight to Alabama, they got a call from the patriarch.
“He didn’t sound like himself,” said Gunnar. “He sounded different for some reason. And he was resolute. He said, ‘I’ve decided I don’t want you to fly on the plane. I’d love to spend time with you guys on New Year’s, but if that’s the case, I want you to fly commercial to Dallas. We’ll just meet there.’”
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER
“He didn’t go into detail, but we were a little salty,” said Gunnar. “We said, ‘The whole point, Pop, was to come down and fly with you on the plane. We hadn’t been on the plane, and we thought that would be fun.’ He said, ‘Listen, I’ve made up my mind. That’s final. Guys, either fly commercial to Dallas or don’t come.’”
The brothers never saw their father again.
“That call did save our lives,” Gunnar reflected. “All these years later, I don’t know. Maybe the plane was giving them problems. It was known to be a maintenance issue from time to time.
“Maybe something had happened mechanically to the plane that he didn’t want to share with anybody ahead of time. Or maybe he just had a premonition. He had a [feeling] in his gut, his discernment was firing that it wasn’t a good idea to come. Maybe Pop just had a feeling. He was very intuitive.
“I know it sounds hard to believe,” he continued. “And he didn’t go into great detail as to why he didn’t want us to go down there and be on that flight. But he was absolute. There was no budging. Maybe one day we’ll get a chance to ask him.”
The book noted that the official report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) came out several months after Ricky’s death.
LIKE WHAT YOU’RE READING? CLICK HERE FOR MORE ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
“It cited the official cause of the fire onboard that caused the crash as a leak in the fuel line in the belly of the plane,” the book states. “It created a short-circuit spark upon final approach for a landing.”
To this day, the Nelson twins are approached by fans asking if their father freebased cocaine on the plane, causing a fire that brought it down. They repeatedly stressed in the book that the rumor was cruel and completely contradicted the NTSB findings.
“With the lawsuit going on, we were told by our attorney not to talk about it because there’s an active lawsuit going on,” Matthew explained to Fox News Digital.
“The plane had a mechanical failure, a catastrophic failure, mid-flight fire. And then the media was slandering our dad’s name and reputation after a lifetime of being a fairly wholesome guy. That was the hardest thing that I ever had to deal with, having to turn on the television and seeing the lead story on the main networks having to do with freebasing and drug abuse on the plane, knowing that wasn’t the case.”
Clearing their father’s name after his sudden death wasn’t the only obstacle the brothers faced while grieving. They also faced a painful financial reality that their father had left behind.
“Our father had never declared bankruptcy himself before he died, though he probably should have,” Gunnar wrote in the book. “Call it pride or call it honor, the end result was still the same. He never threw in the towel in a bankruptcy, but he died $4 million in debt (in 1985 dollars!), leaving me and Matt to pay it off for him over the 10 years following his death.”
Matthew said it became their duty to settle their late father’s debts. They relied on friends and temporary arrangements to get by.
They would do it again, he said.
“It was our honor to be able to fight for him and his legacy, which we still do to this day,” he explained. “There were some hard debts there that we really had to work hard to make sure they went away. It took a long time. We became no strangers to that, though, even with our own career, because we later had debts of our own that took us decades to get out from under, that we write about in the book.
“Our father’s truest happiness was to make other people happy,” he reflected. “All these years later, his songs, his films, they still make people happy. That’s bigger than money. That’s bigger than debts. We continue to fight for his legacy. In the end, it’s about what you’re here for and what you leave behind.”
