Greater than 15 years after the loss of life of heavy metallic icon Ronnie James Dio, his widow and buddies are persevering with the combat in opposition to most cancers on his behalf.
On Thursday, Wendy Dio and her buddies and supporters will maintain the annual Bowl for Ronnie superstar event at Pinz Bowling Middle in Studio Metropolis.
Up to now, the occasion has been attended by such notables as rockers Dave Grohl and Tom Morello in addition to actor Jack Black and dozens of different musicians from the metallic and laborious rock scene. It’s one of many two occasions held yearly that increase consciousness and cash for the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up and Shout Most cancers Fund.
In keeping with Wendy Dio, the group has raised about $2.5 million over time, with funds going to the most cancers analysis work of the T.J. Martell Basis for Most cancers, AIDS and Leukemia Analysis; the MD Anderson Most cancers Middle in Houston, and the UCLA College of Dentistry’s early most cancers detection program, the place Dr. David Wong is engaged on a method to detect abdomen most cancers from saliva samples.
Company lane sponsorships for the bowling occasion vary from $2,500 to $3,000 for a crew of bowlers (relying on when it’s booked), with a restricted variety of spectator tickets out there for followers for about $90, together with charges.
After spending greater than 40 years within the music business as an artist supervisor, Wendy Dio — who had a bit half within the 1975 cult movie “Death Race 2000” — began the fund not lengthy after her husband of greater than three many years died of abdomen most cancers on Could 16, 2010, on the age of 67.
Wendy Dio, the spouse of late heavy metallic singer Ronnie James Dio
(Marcus Ubungen / Los Angeles Instances)
“When Ronnie passed away, a lot of people wanted to give money for cancer [research and awareness],” she says, seated on the bar within the castle-like Encino dwelling she as soon as shared along with her late husband. “I’m very against big corporations taking a bunch of money, because where does it go? Iron Maiden gave us $10,000, so I thought why don’t we form our own cancer fund? We know if everybody gives a penny, it’s going to go straight to where we want it to go to, which is research and education.”
After the fund was fashioned, Wendy Dio discovered supporters from varied aspects of Ronnie James Dio’s storied profession. Other than fronting his namesake band Dio from 1982 by 2010, the diminutive singer was identified for his piercing vocals and being among the many first rockers to flash the famed satan horns hand gesture. He additionally had stints fronting Elf, Rainbow with Ritchie Blackmore, Black Sabbath throughout Ozzy Osbourne’s solo years, and Heaven & Hell, which reunited Dio with Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler.
It was shortly after what would grow to be Dio’s last tour with Heaven & Hell in 2009 that the singer was recognized with abdomen most cancers. Within the 2022 documentary “Dreamers Never Die,” Dio’s bandmate Butler famous that Ronnie was struggling on the tour.
“We didn’t know it was the last tour at the time,” he stated. “Before he was going onstage, he’d be like doubled up some nights with terrible pain in his stomach.”
Butler stated within the movie that he and his bandmates would encourage Dio to go to a physician; though he was nonetheless capable of carry out as if nothing had been incorrect, he was additionally in ache following the reveals.
Even earlier than that tour, Wendy Dio says Ronnie was having hassle with indigestion and visited a specialist in Beverly Hills. “They tested him for his heart, made him run around and did all these tests,” she recollects. Nevertheless, that physician didn’t detect most cancers, so Dio carried on together with his profession as standard.
After the final Heaven & Hell tour was accomplished, Wendy says Dio had different plans. “Ronnie didn’t want to take a break,” she says, including that he had deliberate to take his band Dio again out on the highway in Europe and even despatched the group’s tools abroad upfront of the tour.
Nevertheless, the ache grew to become an excessive amount of to bear. Dio visited one other physician, who urged a blood take a look at that finally revealed his most cancers prognosis. Wendy went into overdrive, researching the most effective hospitals for abdomen most cancers remedy. Initially, they couldn’t get him into the MD Anderson Most cancers Analysis Middle, so that they turned to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
“This doctor there said, ‘There’s nothing we can do for you. You should just go home and get your stuff in order,’” Wendy recollects. “It was horrible. We went back to the hotel and cried our eyes out and then I got a text saying we had an appointment at MD Anderson.” Tony Martell of the T.J. Martell Basis put in a name to assist get Dio an appointment on the hospital, Wendy says.
There they discovered a physician with a extra optimistic outlook, who vowed he would do every part doable to assist Dio beat most cancers.
After remedy, Ronnie’s situation improved. He got here dwelling to L.A., the place he was honored with an award for Greatest Steel Singer on the Revolver Golden Gods Awards, however weeks later his situation worsened. He was taken to Windfall Saint Joseph Medical Middle in Burbank, the place he was given morphine for the ache; he lapsed right into a coma and died just a few weeks later.
Within the weeks and months instantly following Dio’s loss of life, Wendy carried on. However 5 months later, Davy Kirkwood, an audio engineer and one of many pallbearers at Dio’s funeral, additionally died.
“I completely broke down,” Wendy recollects. “I think everything just built up and it all came over me. It was really then when I thought, ‘We have to do something’ and that’s when we decided to form the cancer fund.”
Among the many celebrities who’ve turned out to help earlier Stand Up and Shout fundraisers is Lita Ford. For the singer/guitarist, it’s private. She was a fan and buddy of Ronnie’s
“I miss Ronnie,” she says in a cellphone interview from her dwelling close to Phoenix. “There was nobody like him in the music industry. I listen to his songs almost every day, before the show, before we go onstage. Sometimes we’ll put on one of my favorite songs, [Rainbow’s] ‘Stargazer.’ If you can’t sing Ronnie, you’re not warmed up.”
Ford additionally misplaced her dad and mom to most cancers. Her mom died of breast most cancers and her father succumbed to mind most cancers. “One minute he was fishing and the next moment he was gone,” she says of her father’s decline, recalling how shortly the illness unfold. “With my mother, I remember her asking me, ‘Why do I have cancer?’ And I couldn’t answer her. I didn’t know.”
Though Ford has attended the bowling occasion previously, she’ll must miss this 12 months’s event on account of a tour date in Cincinnati. She recollects fondly attending earlier Stand Up and Shout occasions, together with the annual Rock for Ronnie live performance at Warner Park in Woodland Hills final Could, at which she carried out and auctioned off a custom-made guitar for the charity. In 2025, the annual Rock for Ronnie live performance will likely be held at a brand new dwelling on the grounds of the Autry Museum in Griffith Park.
That occasion, together with this 12 months’s bowling occasion and all the opposite Stand Up and Shout fundraisers, options TV/radio character Eddie Trunk because the host. The voice of Sirius/XM’s “Trunk Nation” developed a friendship with Dio over time and dozens of interviews. “When he passed, it was devastating to me like so many others,” he says. When Wendy Dio advised him she was placing collectively a fund to assist these battling most cancers, Trunk vowed he’d do something he might to assist.
Like Ford, Trunk’s household has additionally battled most cancers, however his story has a contented ending. On account of screening and early detection, Trunk’s father was handled for early-stage colon most cancers and survived. “As a result of that and that I have a direct family history, I get screened every three years with colonoscopies and that is something I talk about on the radio — the importance of screenings,” he says.
He’s additionally grateful to Wendy Dio for holding these occasions in Ronnie’s honor. “It’s great what she’s doing with the charity and it’s great that it celebrates Ronnie,” Trunk says. “The other thing that’s really nice about these events is that there’s a family of Dio friends and fans and it brings everyone together. We all have Ronnie stories, and it sounds really hokey, but it really truly does bring him back during those times, because we all really celebrate him and reconnect with him at these events.”
Lest anybody assume the bowling occasion is only a occasion, Trunk — who additionally bowls within the event — says a number of the contributors take the competitors very critically.
One in every of his teammates is guitarist Tom Morello of Rage Towards the Machine, who occurred to be a visitor on Trunk’s radio present the day we spoke to him.
“Tom’s a good friend and he anchors my team every year,” Trunk says. “He’s like, ‘This year, we got to bring in some pros. We got to get some ringers. We got to win this year.’ So, he gets all worked up about it,” Trunk provides. “Me, I’m just happy if I break 100.”