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PROVIDENCE - William J. Cowsill, manager for his wife, daughter and five sons, the singing Cowsills, has filed for bankruptcy, it was learned Friday.
The father of the rock group took the family name to the top of the pop music charts in the late 1960s filed papers in federal court recently stating that he is $445,339.01 in debt. He said he had assets of $4,873 including $78 cash.
Most of the debts were incurred in the course of managing the singing group, and are owed to dozens of hotels, recording studios, credit card companies, insurance companies, lawyers, agents, airlines and banks around the country.
The financial status of the other family members was not known, and Cowsill's lawyer, Paul Borges, said he had no idea where any of the young Cowsills were.
There were reports that two of his sons occasionally sing in a local bar in Narragansett and that a third is a medical student in California.
According to Cowsill's bankruptcy application, foreclosures took the 23-room mansion in Newport where the family used to live, as well as 184 acres in West Greenwich.
The application indicated that all but one of the several Cowsill cars had been repossessed, and that he retained only a panel truck valued at $125.
The Cowsills started in Newport, playing to local clubs, and by 1967 their records were selling in the millions and they appeared on national television dozens of times. Their fan club numbered more than 100,000.
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