Sydney - When newspaper columnist Steve Lopez spotted a homeless man playing Beethoven on a battered violin on a street corner in Los Angeles, he had no idea this was going to be one of his life's defining moments.

The journalist, who writes for the Los Angeles Times, was startled by the skill of Nathaniel Ayers (top picture) who was playing with two strings missing and thought it could be a good way into a column looking at the lives of the estimated 65,000 homeless in Los Angeles.

But after a meeting in March 2005 in downtown Los Angeles - an area with the United States' largest homeless population - Lopez found himself drawn into Ayers' life, his battle with schizophrenia and his fall from promising classically trained musician to skid row.

'At first he was scared of me, jumpy and suspicious, and it took several visits before I began to get his story,' said Lopez, who has written a book about him, The Soloist, that is being made into a movie starring Robert Downey Jr and Jamie Foxx.

'One day he was scribbling names on the sidewalk with chalk and he told me these were his classmates at (the world-class New York arts conservatory) Juilliard. I checked it out and everything was true. I just couldn't walk away.'

Lopez's first column about Ayers led to readers sending in donations such as six violins and two cellos, which Ayers kept in the shopping cart he used to store his belongings.

The columnist then followed this up with other columns about homelessness and life on skid row, which is a stone's throw from the city's prestigious Disney Concert Hall.

'The mentally ill often don't trust people, they may have had bad experiences with prescribed drugs, so it took a year to convince Nathaniel to move off the streets,' he said.

His columns struck a chord with readers.

'Nathaniel opened people's lives to homelessness because here was a human story about a man with a talent that I wish I had who deserves compassion and help. I've never had a response like this in 35 years in journalism.'

Ayers was raised in Cleveland and attended Ohio State University, winning a scholarship to study at The Juilliard School. But at the age of 20, he developed schizophrenia and ended up living on the streets of Cleveland and Los Angeles for 35 years.

'Although he does not have regrets or self pity, he likes the idea that somebody is paying notice to a black kid from Cleveland who made it into an almost all-white institution in New York City,' said Lopez.

He said he was courted by a few film studios to make a movie of the book but was insistent that Ayers not be disturbed by this, and also he did not want a happy Hollywood ending.

'When he is feeling well and in the right mood he is one of the most charming people you've ever met,' said Lopez.

'But there are times when he is incoherent and aggressive and can be very ugly as the illness rises up in him. He is a sick man and I don't want to sugar-coat that, but his story does have hope.'

He said he would like to think that one day Ayers will agree to try a new generation of anti- psychotic medication.

However, he said it was not just the violinist who comes out of their meeting better off - this also changed his life.

'He has taken me into his world of classical music that I knew very little about and has become one of the dearest friends I have ever had,' said Lopez.

'I also got a reminder from Nathaniel that I have my own passion that I got very jaded about - which is to write. I ended up thinking in some ways this guy is happier and saner than most people I know, with a passion most people never know in life.' - Reuters

This article was first published in The Sunday Times on May 11, 2008.