Lea Nikki Bacharach was the daughter of famous songwriter Burt Bacharach and actress Angie Dickinson. Nikki grappled with symptoms related to Asperger’s Syndrome throughout her life. Tragically, she died by suicide at the age of 40 in 2007.
Who was Lea Nikki Bacharach?
Lea Nikki Bacharach was born on July 12, 1966, to two of the most famous people in the United States. Her father, Burt Bacharach, was a renowned songwriter whose compositions were recorded by legendary artists such as Dionne Warwick and Perry Como.
Her mother, Angie Dickinson, had made a significant impact in the 1950s Western film genre, starring in notable movies like “Gun the Man Down” (1956) and “Rio Bravo” (1959). The couple married in 1965 and welcomed their first and only child, Nikki, a year later.
However, there were challenges with the newborn right from the beginning. As Dickinson later shared in an interview with Los Angeles Magazine, her water broke three months ahead of schedule and she endured a 26-hour labor.
Upon Nikki’s arrival, she weighed a mere one pound and ten ounces. No one had much hope for her survival, and Dickinson was initially unable to bring herself to see the infant.
Despite the odds, Lea Nikki Bacharach began to recover and gain strength, even though neither Dickinson nor Burt could hold their new baby girl. According to scientific beliefs at the time, it was considered too dangerous to touch premature babies, so Nikki spent the first three months of her life completely isolated in an incubator.
Nikki joined Cal Lutheran to major in geology and excelled during her time there. However, her vision impairment restricted her to only one course per semester, preventing her from pursuing a career in geology.
In 1994, the American Psychiatric Association officially included Asperger’s syndrome in its diagnostic manual, which was first recognized as a developmental disorder by Hans Asperger in the 1940s.
The New York magazine reported Hans Asperger’s definition of the syndrome as
“lack of empathy, little ability to form friendships, one-sided conversation, intense absorption in a special interest, and clumsy movements.”
Lea Nikki Bacharach’s Cause of Death
Over the last decade of her life, Lea Nikki Bacharach and her mother embarked on various journeys across the globe. One destination that particularly captured Nikki’s heart was Tahiti, which she visited 31 times. The tranquility and splendor of the island provided her with a much-needed escape.
However, Nikki’s worries about her mother’s possible passing were growing. Angie Dickinson had dedicated her entire life to looking after her daughter, who she lovingly called her “soul mate”. This caused Nikki to become fixated on the thought of her mother’s mortality, as well as her own.
Nikki openly discussed suicide towards the end of her life, as noted by Dickinson and Burt Bacharach. Her mother wrote,
“She was very open about it even to people she didn’t know well.”
Her father agreed, but he never thought that his daughter would go through with it.
Lea Nikki Bacharach passed away by suicide on January 4, 2007, at the age of 40. The coroner’s office reported that she passed away from suffocation due to the use of a plastic bag and helium.
Following her death, her family issued a statement expressing their sorrow over her passing.
“She quietly and peacefully committed suicide to escape the ravages to her brain brought on by Asperger’s. She loved kitties, and earthquakes, glacial calving, meteor showers, science, blue skies and sunsets, and Tahiti. She was one of the most beautiful creatures created on this earth, and she is now in the white light, at peace.”
