Rare video: Chet Baker’s last television interview
Chet Baker played in the bar ‘De Kroeg’, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, on new year’s eve 1987. The Dutch television channel VPRO interviewed him, and it turned out to be his last filmed interview.
“..1987 continued to bring me a very wonderful gift, and that is that I got through it. Managed to survive and of course I’ve had Diane with me all this year, and that was another gift that a man can really appreciate, and I’ve had a lot of success all over Europe this year. Every club, every auditorium, or ‘maison du culture’, ‘maison des jeunes’ has been full, and I just hope that ‘88 will…it doesn’t have to get any better, if it just stays as good as ‘87 that’ll be fine…”
At about 3:00 A.M. on May 13th, 1988, Baker was found dead on the street below his second-story room (Room 210) of Hotel Prins Hendrik in Amsterdam, with serious wounds to his head. Heroin and cocaine were found in his hotel room, and an autopsy also found these drugs in his body. There was no evidence of a struggle, and the death was ruled an accident.
Baker’s body was brought home for interment in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California. A plaque outside the hotel now memorializes him.
