On Sunday (3/22), CBS’s 60 Minutes aired a segment focusing on the real-life friendship of Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez and Nathaniel Ayers, a former Juilliard student battling paranoid schizophrenia whom Lopez met while the musician was living on the streets of Los Angeles. Their friendship inspired several columns in the Times as well as a book by Lopez, and now the movie The Soloist—starring Jamie Foxx as Ayers and Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez—due out April 24. The segment profiles Ayers and Lopez, and features interviews of members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic who befriended Ayers. He is shown rehearsing with Philharmonic musicians and attending the orchestra’s rehearsals at Walt Disney Concert Hall, which 60 Minutes calls his “spiritual home.” To watch the full video, click here .
Posted March 23, 2009
Photo: Nathaniel Ayers (left) and Steve Lopez at the Hollywood Bowl
Credit: Mathew Imaging
