Jake Busey: ‘I wish I could get my old dad back’

Actor Jake Busey wishes he could have his old dad back, revealing personality-altering injuries from a motorcycle crash have turned his old man into a Hollywood joke.
Point Break star Gary Busey was a leading man before the 1988 accident robbed him of his ability to think straight.
Now he’s the butt of jokes and often appears erratic and eccentric on reality TV shows like Celebrity Apprentice and Celebrity Big Brother and Dancing With the Stars, and his son insists he’s nothing like the dad he knew growing up.
“The fact that there’s an entire generation of people who don’t know the man he was before the accident – this incredibly talented actor, this force of nature – it’s just hard,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter.
And Jake admits his father’s mad reputation has dogged his career: “The same Busey name that helped me 30 years ago has become a scorpion’s tail, because it’s associated with insanity.”
Oscar winner Jeff Bridges, who worked alongside Busey in a string of early-1970s movies, is also sticking up for the actor in the magazine expose, stating, “We’re very connected.”
Bridges still can’t believe his “brother” survived the bike accident: “It’s remarkable how he’s thrived considering what happened.”
Busey was critically injured when he lost control of his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, fell off and hit the back of his head on the curb. He was not wearing a helmet.
The actor was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where physicians performed neurosurgery.