Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Bebe Buell
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftsnet's podcast. My
- 0:13Speaker 1: guest today is the one and only bb Bule. He'd
- 0:17Speaker 1: be good to have you on the podcast.
- 0:20Speaker 2: Hey, I'm honored to be here. Thanks for having me.
- 0:23Speaker 1: Okay, explain the derivation of your name, Bibi.
- 0:28Speaker 2: Well, I was born on Bastiel Day. My father was
- 0:32Speaker 2: in Korea and my mother didn't want to give me
- 0:36Speaker 2: a name until he got back. I didn't meet him
- 0:40Speaker 2: till I was three weeks old, and the nurses called
- 0:45Speaker 2: me Bebe because it meant baby in French, and because
- 0:48Speaker 2: I was born on Bastiele Day, they thought it was
- 0:50Speaker 2: all very French, so I sort of stuck. And then
- 0:54Speaker 2: my mother wanted to name me Courtney, and my father liked.
- 1:01Speaker 2: My mother didn't like the spelling, so she made it
- 1:03Speaker 2: just Beverly with an E. And my middle name is Lawrence,
- 1:09Speaker 2: which is after my grandmother, who is Florence. But my
- 1:12Speaker 2: mother didn't like the name Florence, so she dropped the F,
- 1:17Speaker 2: so I'm Lawrence is my middle name. And then Buell.
- 1:21Speaker 2: This is my father's name.
- 1:23Speaker 1: Okay, this is your stepfather, your birth father.
- 1:26Speaker 2: My birth father, But you say it.
- 1:30Speaker 1: You say in your book that you never really knew
- 1:32Speaker 1: your father.
- 1:34Speaker 2: No, I didn't. And it's funny because I never felt
- 1:42Speaker 2: that I didn't know him. I just felt like he
- 1:45Speaker 2: didn't want to be part of my life. Is basically
- 1:48Speaker 2: the way I saw it as a child, and so
- 1:51Speaker 2: I think I was always looking for ways to want
- 1:56Speaker 2: to be part of his life, but it just didn't
- 1:59Speaker 2: work out that way.
- 2:01Speaker 1: Okay, So subsequent to your birth, did he and your
- 2:04Speaker 1: mother ever live together?
- 2:07Speaker 2: Yes? They did. They divorced when I was two years old.
- 2:11Speaker 1: So how much contact did you actually have with him?
- 2:15Speaker 2: Not much at all. And the last time I saw
- 2:17Speaker 2: him was on my fifth birthday, and it was a
- 2:22Speaker 2: really interesting thing because they my parents had an argument
- 2:25Speaker 2: of some kind and as my father was leaving, this
- 2:30Speaker 2: dish hit the wall. My mother had thrown something at him,
- 2:34Speaker 2: and I just remember running to the elevator and he
- 2:38Speaker 2: got on the elevator and he was dressed, very dashing,
- 2:42Speaker 2: and I tried to pull the elevator doors open with
- 2:45Speaker 2: my little five year old hands. I didn't want him
- 2:48Speaker 2: to leave, and I never saw him again until I
- 2:51Speaker 2: was about seven or eight months pregnant with live.
- 2:56Speaker 1: And what were the circumstances there. Why did you suddenly
- 2:59Speaker 1: see him?
- 3:00Speaker 2: Because Todd felt that Todd was pretty certain we were
- 3:06Speaker 2: going to have a boy, and I was pretty certain
- 3:10Speaker 2: that I was pregnant with a female energy. I sort
- 3:12Speaker 2: of knew that and I felt it. But he sort
- 3:16Speaker 2: of felt that I had a lot of unfinished stuff
- 3:18Speaker 2: with my dad, and he felt that it would be
- 3:21Speaker 2: very healthy for me to see my father again before
- 3:25Speaker 2: I had a child, even though I was all of
- 3:27Speaker 2: twenty three years old, and so Todd had a show
- 3:31Speaker 2: in Tallahassee, where my father was living, and I went
- 3:36Speaker 2: to that show, uber pregnant, saw my father again for
- 3:39Speaker 2: the first time since I was five, and it was interesting,
- 3:46Speaker 2: to say the least. I didn't feel unattached to him,
- 3:50Speaker 2: and I felt very much like his daughter. We both
- 3:54Speaker 2: had the steel blue eyes, and he's tall, and I
- 3:59Speaker 2: saw myself, but I didn't really bond with him. And
- 4:02Speaker 2: then I didn't see him again until two thousand and eight.
- 4:08Speaker 2: I think it was there's a lot of years. My
- 4:12Speaker 2: daughters met him once.
- 4:14Speaker 1: Okay, why did you meet him again in two thousand
- 4:16Speaker 1: and eight.
- 4:18Speaker 2: Because I believe it or not, he called me after
- 4:22Speaker 2: his wife, Mollie the woman that he married. After he
- 4:25Speaker 2: and my mom divorced, he called me and he said
- 4:31Speaker 2: that he wanted to see me, and that he said
- 4:33Speaker 2: that Mollie's wish was that we would see each other again.
- 4:38Speaker 2: And did you I certainly did. Absolutely. I went right
- 4:42Speaker 2: to him, and I'm really glad that I did. I
- 4:46Speaker 2: got to know him for the last five years of
- 4:48Speaker 2: his life. He was almost ninety five when he died,
- 4:51Speaker 2: and he was an incredibly great man. I there's a
- 4:56Speaker 2: lot about him that I don't identify with, but there's
- 4:59Speaker 2: a a lot about him that I do identify with.
- 5:03Speaker 2: And he was a heroic pilot. You can read about
- 5:07Speaker 2: my father. He wrote a book called Dauntless Hell Divers
- 5:10Speaker 2: about being a hell diver pilot in World War Two.
- 5:15Speaker 2: He did unbelievable things. And the only pictures I ever
- 5:19Speaker 2: saw of him, he was all dressed up in his regalia.
- 5:23Speaker 2: And people wonder why I'm drawn to people that are
- 5:27Speaker 2: sort of regal in their stance or spiffy in their dress,
- 5:34Speaker 2: you know.
- 5:35Speaker 1: So when you connected with him, yeah, you know, like
- 5:39Speaker 1: people you read all about these people, they share genes,
- 5:42Speaker 1: but they never knew each other, but they get together
- 5:44Speaker 1: and they see similarities. Did you see similarities?
- 5:47Speaker 2: Oh my god, it was incredible, It was incredible. We
- 5:51Speaker 2: have the same laugh and he even has a little
- 5:55Speaker 2: lisp like I do. But mine I tried to control
- 5:59Speaker 2: most my life. But his height, his he had very
- 6:03Speaker 2: long legs and he was lanky, and yeah, and I
- 6:10Speaker 2: just I felt like I was meeting somebody that I
- 6:14Speaker 2: should know better. But what do you do about that?
- 6:17Speaker 2: You really can't change what your destiny is. It was
- 6:20Speaker 2: my destiny to have this kind of dynamic. I was,
- 6:24Speaker 2: you know, obviously there's a lesson for me in this life,
- 6:28Speaker 2: and it has a lot to do with men and
- 6:31Speaker 2: father and the importance of acceptance and and wanting to
- 6:39Speaker 2: be loved.
- 6:41Speaker 1: Okay, just before we get there, do you have any
- 6:44Speaker 1: step siblings?
- 6:46Speaker 2: Well, I sort of have a step sibling when my
- 6:49Speaker 2: father remarried Mollie, who I adored by the way she
- 6:54Speaker 2: was like him. They were free thinkers, very artistic. My
- 6:59Speaker 2: father wrote, he wrote two books, and she was an
- 7:04Speaker 2: artist and she could draw, and they were very bohemian.
- 7:07Speaker 2: They had their martinis at six and you know the
- 7:11Speaker 2: whole bit.
- 7:12Speaker 1: And until Molly came with a child, Yes.
- 7:18Speaker 2: She came with two. She came with Cheryl and a
- 7:23Speaker 2: son who had of all names Happy. His name was
- 7:28Speaker 2: Happy and they called him Hap And I just remember thinking,
- 7:35Speaker 2: you know, names come in all sizes, like mine was
- 7:38Speaker 2: an unusual name. Growing up, people thought Bibie was a
- 7:41Speaker 2: weird name. I never went by Beverly, so yes, she
- 7:45Speaker 2: came so I happy. I never really got to know Cheryl,
- 7:49Speaker 2: only a little bit.
- 7:51Speaker 1: But okay, let's talk about your relationship with men, because
- 7:55Speaker 1: on some level you're famous because of your relationships with
- 7:59Speaker 1: all this high sight. Tell me more about how you
- 8:03Speaker 1: feel relative to men, not particular individual, but one sex
- 8:06Speaker 1: via the other.
- 8:08Speaker 2: Well, I think as I've gotten older and I've experienced
- 8:13Speaker 2: healthy relationships, you know, I've been married to my husband.
- 8:17Speaker 2: We're getting ready to have our twenty first wedding anniversary
- 8:19Speaker 2: and we've been together for twenty four years. Once I
- 8:23Speaker 2: actually experienced commitment and healthy exchanges and where things didn't
- 8:32Speaker 2: all just revolve around the other person. I was very
- 8:36Speaker 2: much a product of the sixties and the seventies because
- 8:40Speaker 2: as much as women were burning their bras and people
- 8:44Speaker 2: were burning their draft cards, there was still a suppression.
- 8:48Speaker 2: There was still a stigma that went with burning that
- 8:52Speaker 2: bra or having more than one boyfriend, or having a
- 8:55Speaker 2: child out of wedlock that was still not one hundred
- 8:59Speaker 2: percent accepted as it is today. And the choices I
- 9:07Speaker 2: made when I was young, I think were based on
- 9:11Speaker 2: parental some kind of parental baggage I was carrying from
- 9:18Speaker 2: my childhood. I'm really not sure, because I didn't really
- 9:23Speaker 2: ponder it. I wasn't a self destructive person, and I
- 9:27Speaker 2: wasn't an angry person. I was just a person that
- 9:30Speaker 2: was sort of like swirling around like Alice in Wonderland,
- 9:34Speaker 2: jumping from mushroom to mushroom. It like sort of like
- 9:40Speaker 2: Forrest Gump, but with a higher IQ. I just sort
- 9:45Speaker 2: of fell into situations that I think I was obviously
- 9:49Speaker 2: meant to experience. And whatever notoriety or recognition I got
- 9:55Speaker 2: from relationships, I also got a lot on my own
- 10:01Speaker 2: and my input in those relationships, if that means much.
- 10:07Speaker 2: I wasn't Sharon Osborne, and I wasn't, you know, a
- 10:11Speaker 2: Mamager type person. But I was a very artistic young girl,
- 10:17Speaker 2: and I think I craved that around me. It was
- 10:20Speaker 2: sort of my fuel, as well as the men that
- 10:24Speaker 2: I enjoyed being around.
- 10:26Speaker 1: What kind of kid were you like growing up. Were
- 10:28Speaker 1: you the life of the party, Were you the lone artist?
- 10:31Speaker 1: Were you a good student? Bad student? Friends not friends?
- 10:35Speaker 2: Well, I was dyslexic and ad HD and all the
- 10:39Speaker 2: other things that come with a lot of creative energy.
- 10:43Speaker 2: But I had a really, really loving mother that sort
- 10:46Speaker 2: of understood that I was. Same with me. With my
- 10:50Speaker 2: daughter live, I knew she was. She was, you know,
- 10:54Speaker 2: a little special as well. And my mother allowed all
- 10:59Speaker 2: the art. She never told me to turn my music down.
- 11:03Speaker 2: When she saw that I was interested in drawing, she
- 11:06Speaker 2: bought me an easel, and she never tried to stifle
- 11:12Speaker 2: my love of any kind of craft. I was always
- 11:16Speaker 2: very infatuated with art period. I just would sit for
- 11:21Speaker 2: hours and look at art books. And that's how I
- 11:24Speaker 2: fell in love with Oscar Wilde and just through books,
- 11:30Speaker 2: you know, just through looking at lots of pictures and
- 11:34Speaker 2: deciding what I identified with.
- 11:38Speaker 1: And okay, so were you into music before the Beatles?
- 11:44Speaker 1: Were the Beatles really a transcendent moment for you?
- 11:48Speaker 2: Well, the physicality of the Beatles absolutely. Seeing him on
- 11:52Speaker 2: the Ed Sullivan Show was a mind blowing experience. I
- 11:57Speaker 2: feel bad for anybody that didn't get to experience is that.
- 12:00Speaker 2: It was really incredible. It was probably one of the
- 12:05Speaker 2: greatest moments of my life. That and the Rolling Stones.
- 12:07Speaker 2: But before that, yes, my mother had She liked Patsy Kleine,
- 12:12Speaker 2: and she liked Frank Sinatra, and and she liked Hank Williams,
- 12:18Speaker 2: and she really loved Eddie Arnold, and so we had
- 12:24Speaker 2: There was music in the house a lot. And my
- 12:26Speaker 2: mother liked the radio. So when we were in the car,
- 12:30Speaker 2: when we had cars with radios, she would let me
- 12:34Speaker 2: listen to whatever station I wanted. And I enjoyed listening
- 12:39Speaker 2: to a little bit of everything. I sort of had
- 12:42Speaker 2: a Shmorgas board. I loved the Everly Brothers and that
- 12:46Speaker 2: you know that and that song by Roy Orbison crying
- 12:50Speaker 2: that just crat you know. I would just go around
- 12:56Speaker 2: the house like a maniac singing that song. And I
- 13:01Speaker 2: was very affected by Gypsy rose Lee. Let me entertain,
- 13:06Speaker 2: you know. I would get in the shower and sing
- 13:08Speaker 2: at the top of my lungs. And so what kind
- 13:12Speaker 2: of child was I? I was sort of an entertainer
- 13:16Speaker 2: from a very young age, but I didn't there was
- 13:20Speaker 2: something missing. I think that's because of the situation with
- 13:23Speaker 2: my dad. I never felt like I was enough. I
- 13:26Speaker 2: never felt as pretty as the other girls or but
- 13:32Speaker 2: of course it was not like that. It's just it's
- 13:35Speaker 2: how I felt. So And did I get good grades, No,
- 13:40Speaker 2: because I had attention deficit. But there was one subject
- 13:44Speaker 2: I was good in, and that was English literature. So
- 13:47Speaker 2: any story telling, anything I could read about the Renaissance period,
- 13:53Speaker 2: or anything that attracted me in that arena, Greek mythology, romany, astrology, metaphysics,
- 14:06Speaker 2: Madame Blovowski, you know, things like that. It really resonated
- 14:11Speaker 2: with me. So my mother kind of knew that I
- 14:14Speaker 2: didn't have that headspace for wanting to go and go
- 14:18Speaker 2: to college, that I was going to sort of learn.
- 14:20Speaker 2: I was going to get my education the old fashioned way,
- 14:24Speaker 2: kick them in the deep end and see if they swim.
- 14:27Speaker 2: And she sent my high school graduation picture to the
- 14:31Speaker 2: biggest agent in the world. My mother always fought big
- 14:34Speaker 2: and she still does, and I never thought I would
- 14:38Speaker 2: get a response, But within three days we were on
- 14:41Speaker 2: an airplane to New York City because Eileen Ford had
- 14:44Speaker 2: summoned me and that was it.
- 14:48Speaker 1: Okay, let's go do a little backfill here. So you
- 14:53Speaker 1: were ten when the Beatles came out that was a
- 14:56Speaker 1: big thing. Music was everything, and then you were entering
- 14:59Speaker 1: ju You're high. Were you a popular girl, did you
- 15:03Speaker 1: go on dates? Did you suddenly go wild or were
- 15:06Speaker 1: you more separate? What were you like?
- 15:09Speaker 2: Well? I was in Catholic boarding school for sixth, seventh,
- 15:13Speaker 2: and eighth grade. I went to Villa Maria Academy, which
- 15:17Speaker 2: was a I came home for holidays in summer. And
- 15:21Speaker 2: then in ninth grade, my stepfather got stationed in Newport,
- 15:25Speaker 2: Rhode Island, so I went to Saint Catherine's Academy and
- 15:32Speaker 2: on Bellevue Avenue. And it was when I was in
- 15:37Speaker 2: ninth grade at a school dance that I met Paul
- 15:41Speaker 2: Calcil from the group the Colcils. But at the time
- 15:45Speaker 2: he was not in the band. He was the one
- 15:48Speaker 2: brother besides his other brother Richard, that weren't in the
- 15:52Speaker 2: band because the dad just decided they weren't in the band. So,
- 15:55Speaker 2: I mean, Paul was kind of a jock, you know.
- 15:58Speaker 2: He hung out with my friend Charlie and they liked basketball.
- 16:02Speaker 2: So that was my first big fourteen going on fifteen,
- 16:06Speaker 2: when I met Paul, and I remember my first slow
- 16:09Speaker 2: dance with him. It was the last dance of the
- 16:13Speaker 2: Night and Paul Castle comes to me and he asked
- 16:15Speaker 2: me if I wanted to dance, and of course I
- 16:17Speaker 2: said yes. He was so handsome. They were the most
- 16:20Speaker 2: beautiful children. They were just all gorgeous. And so he
- 16:25Speaker 2: was about seventeen at the time, and his family was
- 16:29Speaker 2: becoming huge. The band was getting big, big, big big.
- 16:33Speaker 2: But see I didn't know any of this at the
- 16:35Speaker 2: time because I was a rock I listened to rock music.
- 16:39Speaker 2: I wasn't really familiar with the Cowciles until hair and
- 16:46Speaker 2: then I really knew who they were. And of course
- 16:48Speaker 2: the rained to park and other things, so that sort
- 16:51Speaker 2: of started the dynamic of my first kiss. My first
- 16:55Speaker 2: crush was somebody that went off to the circus. Suddenly
- 17:00Speaker 2: Paul's dad decided he was going to be in the band,
- 17:03Speaker 2: so Paul was in the Castiles. He was the keyboard players.
- 17:07Speaker 2: So no more school dances. Oh. The slow song was
- 17:10Speaker 2: blue Velvet, my first Blue Velve. You know, it's incredible.
- 17:16Speaker 2: So yeah, so of course we had to sneak off
- 17:21Speaker 2: to kiss each other in the backseat of a car.
- 17:24Speaker 2: It was all very innocent. There was nothing advanced. There
- 17:28Speaker 2: was no third base or fourth base, back then, it
- 17:31Speaker 2: was first base and second base, at least in my world.
- 17:35Speaker 2: I'm sure other worlds were different, but in my world,
- 17:39Speaker 2: and Paul always had the fear of his father looming
- 17:42Speaker 2: over him. He had this incredibly strict father. He wasn't
- 17:47Speaker 2: allowed to date, he wasn't allowed to go in cars,
- 17:49Speaker 2: he wasn't allowed to do any of that stuff. He
- 17:51Speaker 2: might as well have been Mormon. I mean, it was crazy,
- 17:55Speaker 2: but anyway, they moved to California, and I finished my
- 17:59Speaker 2: soft more year in new Portwood Island, and then my
- 18:02Speaker 2: family got transferred to Campla June, North Carolina, and that's
- 18:06Speaker 2: where I did my junior and my senior year. So
- 18:09Speaker 2: finally I was going to normal, a normal public school.
- 18:13Speaker 2: I went to campblu June High School. I graduated from there,
- 18:17Speaker 2: and was I popular. I was always described I'm going
- 18:22Speaker 2: to go buy my yearbook as an individualist and artistic,
- 18:28Speaker 2: artistic girl was the so I guess, I guess it.
- 18:34Speaker 2: Just it followed me. Was I effervescent, the entertainer, and
- 18:38Speaker 2: me had not come out yet as far as being
- 18:41Speaker 2: able to stand in front of people and actually own it,
- 18:45Speaker 2: you know, that had not happened yet. I was still,
- 18:48Speaker 2: I'm not going to use the word shy. I just
- 18:51Speaker 2: didn't know yet how to present myself as a confident
- 18:58Speaker 2: human that hadn't really hadn't really eluded me yet. So
- 19:05Speaker 2: I always had a sense of wonderment. But was I popular?
- 19:09Speaker 2: I guess was some kids, the cool kids, kids that
- 19:13Speaker 2: liked rock and roll, kids that knew who Blue Cheer were,
- 19:17Speaker 2: you know, I I.
- 19:20Speaker 1: Oh, okay, So you talk about those bands, yeah, you
- 19:23Speaker 1: know in your book, and that, you know, was the
- 19:25Speaker 1: reason we're doing this podcast, Rebel Soul. You talk about
- 19:29Speaker 1: seeing the Rolling Stones on one of their first tours.
- 19:33Speaker 1: So to what degree were you owning records? To what
- 19:36Speaker 1: degree were you going to concerts when you were in
- 19:38Speaker 1: high school?
- 19:40Speaker 2: In high school, Oh, well, I didn't go to a
- 19:42Speaker 2: whole lot of concerts, that's for sure, And it wasn't
- 19:48Speaker 2: until I was a senior. But I did see the
- 19:50Speaker 2: Rolling Stones. But I was only twelve when that happened.
- 19:53Speaker 2: That was July fourth, nineteen sixty six, at the Virginia
- 19:58Speaker 2: Beach Dome B Shepherd Convention Center. My best friend since
- 20:03Speaker 2: fifth grade, Joni Gross, and I went and it changed
- 20:08Speaker 2: my life. You know. I was the kid that got
- 20:11Speaker 2: into the newspaper for walking up to the stage with
- 20:15Speaker 2: my instematic camera to take some pictures, and I got
- 20:19Speaker 2: pushed by the stage was lined with cops. And that
- 20:26Speaker 2: was my first taste at twelve going on thirteen. In
- 20:29Speaker 2: ten days I would turn thirteen. What a baptism of
- 20:33Speaker 2: Keith Richards actually coming to the edge of the stage
- 20:37Speaker 2: and telling the cop to leave me alone. He sort
- 20:39Speaker 2: of took his foot and nudged him. He didn't do
- 20:43Speaker 2: a full on Keith, but he did a little nudge,
- 20:45Speaker 2: not a kick, but a nudge, you know, to let
- 20:49Speaker 2: the police officer know that I could take my picture.
- 20:52Speaker 2: And boy did I never forget that, you know. So
- 20:56Speaker 2: I was the kid that after I started clicking, I
- 20:58Speaker 2: got a picture of Brian Jones playing Harmonica in his
- 21:02Speaker 2: print pinstripe suit. Once I did that, the rest of
- 21:06Speaker 2: the kids were able to push up a little bit
- 21:08Speaker 2: more and it became a lot more fun. But so
- 21:15Speaker 2: at that moment, I felt very connected to the spirit
- 21:20Speaker 2: of what I was indulging. I felt very confident when
- 21:23Speaker 2: I went up there to take my picture, and I
- 21:26Speaker 2: wasn't going to let anybody stop me. And so after that,
- 21:31Speaker 2: I think I went to a couple of those kind
- 21:33Speaker 2: of gigs where they would have multiple people on the gig,
- 21:37Speaker 2: you know, like Hermit's Hermit's and Sonny and Cher and
- 21:40Speaker 2: Gary and the Pacemakers or something like that, and everybody
- 21:43Speaker 2: would play like ten or fifteen minutes. And I know
- 21:49Speaker 2: that Jamie Hendricks opened for the Monkeys when I lived
- 21:52Speaker 2: in Newport and which was a strange tour for Hendrix
- 21:57Speaker 2: to be on, But I didn't go to that. But
- 21:59Speaker 2: in high school, I mean I would always go to
- 22:01Speaker 2: the school dances and you know, we would always go
- 22:04Speaker 2: to the canteen and we would always dance and all
- 22:07Speaker 2: the you know, local bands and stuff. So when I
- 22:10Speaker 2: was a senior in high school, that's when I met
- 22:12Speaker 2: my first became friends with a local band that was
- 22:16Speaker 2: big enough to open for Johnny Winter. So so my big,
- 22:20Speaker 2: my first big concert where I got to be backstage
- 22:24Speaker 2: and and s see a band like Johnny Winter, and
- 22:29Speaker 2: which was so amazing when Rick Darringer was in the band,
- 22:34Speaker 2: and I'm talking about the lineup after Zanga, after Rick's
- 22:39Speaker 2: brother Randy had left, when it was just the trio,
- 22:43Speaker 2: Oh my god, and you know, you know, I got
- 22:48Speaker 2: it just it was a chain reaction. It just sort
- 22:51Speaker 2: of started after that, but most of the concerts I
- 22:54Speaker 2: went to that all started. I think I saw the
- 22:57Speaker 2: James Gang when I was in and they were great.
- 23:02Speaker 2: It's funny that Ted Nugent the and boy Duke's played
- 23:06Speaker 2: with the James Gang, and I never liked Isn't it funny?
- 23:11Speaker 2: Never liked Ted NuGen There was just something about that
- 23:14Speaker 2: guy that creeped me out from the very beginning. I
- 23:17Speaker 2: don't know if it was my Catholic schoolgirl radar or
- 23:21Speaker 2: what it was, but he just creeped me out. I
- 23:25Speaker 2: remember telling Dale Peters from the James Gang, he was
- 23:28Speaker 2: the bass player, that that guy, that guy is so weird.
- 23:33Speaker 2: You know. I was young, so I didn't know what
- 23:35Speaker 2: other names to call him. I didn't know it was
- 23:37Speaker 2: going to be like, you know, all the things I
- 23:40Speaker 2: could say. But it's interesting I had even a little
- 23:44Speaker 2: bit of a radar even then. I was blessed with
- 23:48Speaker 2: some kind of protective thing. God only knows how I
- 23:53Speaker 2: made it out alive some of the situations I got
- 23:56Speaker 2: myself into in life, and I just feel, whatever it is,
- 24:04Speaker 2: you roll with it.
- 24:14Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back. Your mother writes a letter to
- 24:16Speaker 1: Eileen Ford, Did you want to be a model or
- 24:20Speaker 1: did your mother want you to be a model?
- 24:23Speaker 2: I wanted to get to New York City. I wanted
- 24:25Speaker 2: to meet Andy Warhol. I wanted to look at I
- 24:28Speaker 2: wanted to meet the people I saw in Vogue magazine.
- 24:31Speaker 2: And I wanted to be around that was my tribe.
- 24:36Speaker 2: To me, that was my sole tribe. And I wanted
- 24:41Speaker 2: to be where they where that was. And I always
- 24:45Speaker 2: told my friends this too. I'm still my best friend
- 24:48Speaker 2: from high school, Tim Sullivan, he lives in the Chelsea Hotel.
- 24:53Speaker 2: He's one of the people that's been there for thirty years,
- 24:56Speaker 2: so they couldn't get him to leave even when they
- 24:57Speaker 2: rent oed. But he I wasn't surprised at all with
- 25:01Speaker 2: the way my life went because I told him that,
- 25:04Speaker 2: you know, I was going to get to New York.
- 25:06Speaker 2: I thought I was going to be a singer. I
- 25:08Speaker 2: thought I was going to be like Nico or something.
- 25:11Speaker 2: I thought I was going to or Marianne Faithful. I
- 25:15Speaker 2: sort of wanted to be a chantoose. But I was
- 25:18Speaker 2: a little too rocking. There was like that my body language,
- 25:23Speaker 2: my aura, everything about me was not as delicate, you know.
- 25:29Speaker 2: I just I guess the term rock chick. I guess
- 25:34Speaker 2: it's just in my pedigree and my DNA or whatever
- 25:39Speaker 2: it is. But I just wanted to get to New York.
- 25:45Speaker 2: And I'll be honest, I didn't even know what would
- 25:48Speaker 2: happen when my mom sent those pictures and when Eileen's responded,
- 25:53Speaker 2: my mother tried to explain to me, look, if you're
- 25:55Speaker 2: not going to go to college, you really have to
- 25:58Speaker 2: have a good job to work. And I thought, Okay,
- 26:03Speaker 2: I get it. Maybe this will be fun. And you know,
- 26:08Speaker 2: I loved fashion magazines and I loved all the great supermodels,
- 26:12Speaker 2: and I loved Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton and Patty Boyd
- 26:16Speaker 2: and Jane Asher and it was all on my radar.
- 26:20Speaker 2: So I wanted to be more like that, like Jane Barkin.
- 26:24Speaker 2: I wanted to be more so. Of course, Eileen she
- 26:29Speaker 2: signed me immediately. I was signed him for it in
- 26:33Speaker 2: ten minutes. It happened very fast, and they put me
- 26:39Speaker 2: in Saint Mary's Woman's Residence. I was very used to
- 26:43Speaker 2: being around nuns, but I wasn't able to keep my curfew.
- 26:48Speaker 2: You had to be in by midnight when you were
- 26:50Speaker 2: in Saint Mary's and I was starting to meet friends,
- 26:56Speaker 2: and we used to go dancing at this place called
- 26:59Speaker 2: hip hopon him. And then when I met Todd, I
- 27:04Speaker 2: met Todd, and then the whole.
- 27:07Speaker 1: A little bit slower when you went to New York.
- 27:11Speaker 1: When you went to New York, you were going to
- 27:14Speaker 1: the mecca. Were you convinced you were going to meet
- 27:17Speaker 1: all these people? Were you driven? Did you say I'm
- 27:21Speaker 1: gonna make it? Or were you just blindly bumping into things?
- 27:25Speaker 2: It was blind? I you know, I try to take
- 27:29Speaker 2: more credit for this fabulous life that I've been given,
- 27:34Speaker 2: but actually I can't because all I did was manifest
- 27:41Speaker 2: whatever my dreams were, and I would just do what
- 27:47Speaker 2: I was taught. Be kind to people, be respectful, have
- 27:52Speaker 2: good manners, and be honest and be direct. And so
- 27:58Speaker 2: I just sort of I allowed whatever that inner voice
- 28:04Speaker 2: is to sort of take me left or right.
- 28:07Speaker 1: Okay, But there were other models staying at Saint Mary's.
- 28:11Speaker 1: How did you meet people? And you go out dancing.
- 28:14Speaker 1: You're a single attractive model in New York. You know
- 28:17Speaker 1: a lot of people are going to be interested in
- 28:19Speaker 1: talking to you.
- 28:20Speaker 2: Right, I met, I mean I met I remember I
- 28:23Speaker 2: met the DJ Frankie Crucker, because he would go and dance,
- 28:27Speaker 2: and he loved to dance with all the pretty girls
- 28:29Speaker 2: and he would. But you know, that was back when
- 28:32Speaker 2: it was not so much about picking up. You would
- 28:35Speaker 2: go to these dance clubs to actually dance. It was
- 28:38Speaker 2: kind of interesting. It wasn't like I mean, I'm sure
- 28:40Speaker 2: some people picked each other up, but I never gave
- 28:43Speaker 2: off that. I was never hunting, you know, I was
- 28:46Speaker 2: never looking for boyfriends. As a matter of fact, I
- 28:48Speaker 2: didn't have any boyfriends until I met Todd. He was
- 28:51Speaker 2: my first boyfriend.
- 28:52Speaker 1: Okay, but were you sexually experienced when you met Todd?
- 28:56Speaker 2: Not as much as some seventeen eight ten year old girls. Yeah,
- 29:01Speaker 2: I mean I kind of was.
- 29:03Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, how'd you meet Todd?
- 29:06Speaker 2: Well? That was that was what changed my life. I
- 29:10Speaker 2: was hanging out with this guy that Aileen Ford approved
- 29:14Speaker 2: of because she thought he was gay, but he wasn't.
- 29:18Speaker 2: And he started actually dating one of the biggest models
- 29:20Speaker 2: in New York and right under Eileen's nose, but she
- 29:24Speaker 2: let all the girls go out dancing with him. His
- 29:27Speaker 2: name was Richard, and he was really nice and he
- 29:33Speaker 2: he asked me what I wanted to do, and I said,
- 29:35Speaker 2: you know, Let's go see man. I had gone to
- 29:37Speaker 2: see Man of La Mancha with my mother when I
- 29:40Speaker 2: was a little girl in New York, and I wanted
- 29:43Speaker 2: to go relive that moment, so I said, let's go
- 29:45Speaker 2: see Man of La Mancha. So he took me to
- 29:49Speaker 2: see Man of La Mancha. But on the way, Richard
- 29:52Speaker 2: says to me, we have to make a stop on
- 29:55Speaker 2: East thirteenth Street. I have to drop these tapes off
- 29:59Speaker 2: to Todd Runggren. And he said, do you know who
- 30:02Speaker 2: that is? And I was like, no, who's that? And
- 30:06Speaker 2: he said, have you ever heard the song Hello? It's me?
- 30:10Speaker 2: And I was like, uh, yeah, yeah, And he goes
- 30:14Speaker 2: that guy he's going, he's gone solo. And he started
- 30:17Speaker 2: to tell me about this famous manager named Albert Grossman
- 30:22Speaker 2: was managing him and he's going to be a big star,
- 30:25Speaker 2: and that he had these tapes that he had done
- 30:28Speaker 2: over at this place called Secret Sound with Moogie Klingman
- 30:32Speaker 2: or something, and that he needed to drop them off
- 30:34Speaker 2: to Todd. So we pull up in front of two
- 30:37Speaker 2: oh six East thirteenth Street, the same block that that
- 30:41Speaker 2: scene in Taxi Driver where Jody leans up against the
- 30:45Speaker 2: building when she's out to get a hooker or two
- 30:50Speaker 2: or whatever. So he pulls the car up, but it
- 30:55Speaker 2: was really a scary neighborhood in those days. He told
- 30:59Speaker 2: me to stay in the car, and I was like,
- 31:01Speaker 2: I'm not staying in the car, you know. So he
- 31:05Speaker 2: had to throw a penny up to Todd's window because
- 31:09Speaker 2: Todd didn't have a doorbell, and so he threw a
- 31:12Speaker 2: coin up to Todd's window. And this guy looked out
- 31:17Speaker 2: the window, this guy, this multi colored hair. He looked like,
- 31:22Speaker 2: you know that toy, my little pony. He sort of
- 31:28Speaker 2: looked like my little pony. He was like a horse
- 31:31Speaker 2: with rainbow hair, but a beautiful, a good looking horse,
- 31:37Speaker 2: you know, a stallion. So but he so he came
- 31:40Speaker 2: running down the stairs to get the tapes, and the
- 31:44Speaker 2: exchange was made, and that's when I met him. Todd said, oh,
- 31:49Speaker 2: who's your friend, Richard? And you know, Richie said, oh,
- 31:51Speaker 2: that's my friend baby. She's moved here from Virginia. You know,
- 31:55Speaker 2: she's she's a model, she's with the four modeling agency,
- 32:01Speaker 2: blah blah blah. And it's just you know, like he goes,
- 32:03Speaker 2: oh great. You know, he was just wanting the tapes
- 32:05Speaker 2: and he was going to go up and do his thing.
- 32:08Speaker 2: So I met him, and I, you know, I of
- 32:10Speaker 2: course was immediately drawn to him. I think we were
- 32:13Speaker 2: drawn to each other. I think it was just some
- 32:16Speaker 2: kind of written in the heavens. I don't know how
- 32:21Speaker 2: healthy the whole thing was, but I think we had
- 32:25Speaker 2: to go through it, whatever it was.
- 32:26Speaker 1: But yeah, okay, so what are you living on? Are
- 32:31Speaker 1: you going? You know, there's a lot of looks see
- 32:34Speaker 1: are you getting booked? Are you working a little bit?
- 32:37Speaker 2: Yes? I was doing a lot of testing. You know,
- 32:42Speaker 2: you have to get a portfolio really really together, locked in.
- 32:46Speaker 2: So Eileen was sending me off to meet photographers, but
- 32:50Speaker 2: they would like me. So I was doing bookings for
- 32:53Speaker 2: my Bride's magazine. That was my first big booking, and
- 32:58Speaker 2: I would do Butterick and McCalls patterns, you know, I
- 33:02Speaker 2: was doing some catalog. Eileen felt that I needed a
- 33:05Speaker 2: little a little experience in front of the camera. But
- 33:10Speaker 2: it was it was photographers that that saw that I
- 33:16Speaker 2: had an edge that really enjoyed working with me. So
- 33:21Speaker 2: I started to really make I started to get momentum.
- 33:25Speaker 2: But then when I met Todd, that moved very quickly
- 33:29Speaker 2: and I moved in with Todd and before I Oh.
- 33:32Speaker 1: Okay, okay, let's park that for a second. You had
- 33:36Speaker 1: the time before Todd. If we looked solely at your
- 33:40Speaker 1: modeling career, how much modeling did you actually do in
- 33:43Speaker 1: your life?
- 33:45Speaker 2: In my life, yeah, or in those months before I
- 33:48Speaker 2: went in my life, I think if you were going
- 33:52Speaker 2: to put it into I think my best years where
- 33:55Speaker 2: I really worked the most, were between seventy four and
- 34:00Speaker 2: seventy eight, So as far as professional modeling, those were
- 34:06Speaker 2: the best years.
- 34:07Speaker 1: Okay. And were you doing well full time? I know
- 34:12Speaker 1: we were with Todd at that point, but that was
- 34:15Speaker 1: the beginning of the era of the supermodel.
- 34:17Speaker 2: Well, that started in the eighties, and I had already
- 34:20Speaker 2: stopped modeling, but I still was photographed heavily. Even when
- 34:24Speaker 2: I wasn't modeling for income people were I was photographed
- 34:28Speaker 2: quite a lot. I was the subject of mini photographers.
- 34:34Speaker 1: Okay, there are end pictures, but modeling takes a lot
- 34:40Speaker 1: of effort and it's a lot of work. Did you
- 34:42Speaker 1: actually enjoy doing it?
- 34:44Speaker 2: No, of course I didn't. Only time I did was
- 34:47Speaker 2: when I was in London. That was when I really
- 34:50Speaker 2: buckled under and I lived the life of a very
- 34:55Speaker 2: very busy, hard working model where I would go to
- 34:58Speaker 2: bed every night, not party. I mean there were times
- 35:02Speaker 2: when Mick Jagger would call and say let's go to
- 35:04Speaker 2: tramp and I would be like, not tonight, Mick, I've
- 35:08Speaker 2: got a big booking tomorrow and I have to get
- 35:11Speaker 2: some sleep. Oh darling, I'll have you back. And I
- 35:14Speaker 2: was like, no, no, you don't understand. This is really important.
- 35:17Speaker 2: I really want this client, you know. So I was
- 35:20Speaker 2: being very disciplined. And then the photographer, ironically, when you
- 35:26Speaker 2: hear his last name, it's kind of funny. The photographer
- 35:29Speaker 2: that really legitimized me and got me on the pages
- 35:32Speaker 2: of Vogue was named Clive Arrowsmith and this was in
- 35:36Speaker 2: seventy six. And it was in the fall of seventy
- 35:40Speaker 2: six that Stephen Tyler from Aerosmith became the father of
- 35:47Speaker 2: my child. Well, he didn't become. He impregnated me, as
- 35:51Speaker 2: I we impregnated each other. So it's funny. I look
- 35:57Speaker 2: at some of the synchronicities and some of the abstract occurrences,
- 36:04Speaker 2: and no, I from seventy two to like seventy I
- 36:09Speaker 2: did Playboy in seventy four, and you know, I made
- 36:14Speaker 2: some money for that, but I would do a gig
- 36:18Speaker 2: now and then, just to make some money so that
- 36:21Speaker 2: I could just be whatever. I didn't even know who
- 36:25Speaker 2: I was. I didn't know what I wanted to be.
- 36:28Speaker 2: All I knew was that music was my passion, and
- 36:31Speaker 2: I kept my little notebooks with all my lyrics, and
- 36:35Speaker 2: I just didn't know how to I didn't know how
- 36:38Speaker 2: to get there. I didn't know how to do it.
- 36:41Speaker 1: Okay, when you were in Playboy. There have been some
- 36:46Speaker 1: famous people in the fifties. Once you hit the sixties
- 36:49Speaker 1: and seventies, they tended to be unknown. You were not
- 36:53Speaker 1: completely unknown. Of course, as time went on, a lot
- 36:56Speaker 1: of known people ended up doing it, But when you
- 36:59Speaker 1: were doing doing it, most people were relatively faceless in
- 37:03Speaker 1: terms of impact in the culture. How did you decide
- 37:06Speaker 1: to do it and what was the result of doing it?
- 37:10Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness, it's it's just such a it's a
- 37:13Speaker 2: crazy story. Uh. Todd was friends with a photographer named
- 37:18Speaker 2: Lynn Goldsmith, and she wanted to photograph me, and I
- 37:24Speaker 2: said sure. So she came over to our townhouse and
- 37:29Speaker 2: Todd was in the studio, and we had a lot
- 37:32Speaker 2: of props because Todd had all these fantastic jackets and
- 37:35Speaker 2: hats and you know, all kinds of fun things top
- 37:38Speaker 2: hats that I love. And she is a little by little,
- 37:42Speaker 2: the picture started getting less and less clothed, and before
- 37:47Speaker 2: I knew it, Lynn Goldsmith was photographing me nude with
- 37:50Speaker 2: feathers around my neck. So I was eighteen years old,
- 37:56Speaker 2: nineteen years old, and no wait when this happened, I
- 38:00Speaker 2: was nineteen and going on twenty. And so she took
- 38:06Speaker 2: the first nude photos of me, and they were really
- 38:12Speaker 2: good and in classic Lynn style, she wanted you know,
- 38:17Speaker 2: them to be published somewhere. I mean, they were good enough.
- 38:21Speaker 2: She was really good photographer. So she showed them to Playboy.
- 38:29Speaker 2: She showed them to Penthouse, which I objected to. I
- 38:32Speaker 2: did not like that magazine at all. But Playboy was
- 38:37Speaker 2: something that, as my friend Patty Smith called it at
- 38:41Speaker 2: the time, very American pie, very American, very uh pepsi cola,
- 38:48Speaker 2: very you know, Mickey Mouse, part of the culture. And
- 38:55Speaker 2: there were some iconic people like Bridget Bardoux and even
- 38:59Speaker 2: Linda Evans, and you know a lot of very beautiful
- 39:03Speaker 2: women of the times, Betty Paye, you know, a lot
- 39:06Speaker 2: of girls had done it. The Barde bread I remember
- 39:13Speaker 2: seeing there were these pictures of she and Jane Barkin.
- 39:16Speaker 2: But anyway, Todd had a girlfriend before me. Let's see,
- 39:21Speaker 2: I think Patty Smith. He was dating Patty Smith and
- 39:24Speaker 2: he had this another girlfriend, and but she broke his heart.
- 39:30Speaker 2: She was like the girl that broke his heart. But
- 39:32Speaker 2: he sort of always carried a torch for her, or
- 39:34Speaker 2: at least I thought he did. And there was talk
- 39:39Speaker 2: that she she was going to be a Playboy centerfold.
- 39:43Speaker 2: And when I heard that, I said to Lynn, what
- 39:48Speaker 2: did played? You know, Let's show those pictures the Playboy.
- 39:53Speaker 2: So Lynn showed the pictures the Playboy, and yeah, they
- 39:57Speaker 2: bit right away, and they me to Chicago. That's when
- 40:01Speaker 2: everything happened in Chicago. That's when Hefner lived in the
- 40:04Speaker 2: Chicago mansion. And I went and I did a test
- 40:10Speaker 2: test shoots for two days, and my test shots ended
- 40:13Speaker 2: up being the pictorial ended up being the whole thing,
- 40:18Speaker 2: except for the centerfold that was shot in New York
- 40:22Speaker 2: City on one of those cameras as I forget what
- 40:25Speaker 2: they're called, but they're prehistoric now. But it's the one
- 40:29Speaker 2: you have to slide the thing in and out of,
- 40:31Speaker 2: and the plate and the whole bit and you can't move,
- 40:34Speaker 2: You like, have to stay in the position you're in
- 40:38Speaker 2: until they say and you can't breathe. You can't do anything. People.
- 40:42Speaker 2: If anybody thinks it's sexy, it's it's not. It's it's
- 40:44Speaker 2: it's hard work. It's it's not glamorous shooting these pictorials.
- 40:50Speaker 2: I know people think it is, but it's not. And
- 40:54Speaker 2: it's just like doing a modeling job, except you're just
- 40:56Speaker 2: not promoting clothes. You're promoting something else. I'm not even
- 41:02Speaker 2: sure what, because I didn't really have much on my mind,
- 41:05Speaker 2: if you want to know the truth, except that I
- 41:08Speaker 2: wanted the pictures to be good. I wanted them to
- 41:11Speaker 2: be okay. That was, you know, basically the way I
- 41:15Speaker 2: was thinking. But I also wanted when I found out okay.
- 41:21Speaker 2: So then I found out this girlfriend was going to
- 41:23Speaker 2: be Miss April, so I thought Miss April. So I
- 41:28Speaker 2: actually went out and bought myself a shamrock necklace because
- 41:32Speaker 2: I thought if I wore a shamrock that I might
- 41:35Speaker 2: be Miss March, so that I would maybe beat her
- 41:39Speaker 2: to the punch. I mean, you used to make su
- 41:41Speaker 2: your brain do crazy things. But it turns out I
- 41:45Speaker 2: became Miss November. So she came out before I did.
- 41:49Speaker 1: But you wanted to be a shame woman who had
- 41:51Speaker 1: dated Todd previously.
- 41:53Speaker 2: Yes, her name was Marlene, and he even wrote a
- 41:56Speaker 2: song about.
- 41:56Speaker 1: Oh yeah Marlene Marlene, Yes, yea.
- 42:00Speaker 2: And she she was that girl, beautiful and she and
- 42:04Speaker 2: I actually became really good friends. Where's she today, Well today,
- 42:09Speaker 2: I'm not really sure. I think she had some tragedies
- 42:13Speaker 2: in her life, and I think she even later in life,
- 42:18Speaker 2: became homeless and things, and I think she had some problems.
- 42:22Speaker 2: But at that time she was young and vivacious and
- 42:27Speaker 2: beautiful and a friend. You know, I actually liked her.
- 42:31Speaker 2: I took my first trip to London and actually stayed
- 42:36Speaker 2: with her. And this was can you believe it? But
- 42:41Speaker 2: I liked her. But she was madly in love with
- 42:44Speaker 2: Don Arden's son, one of the Arden boys. I think
- 42:49Speaker 2: I can't remember which one. But she wasn't interested in Todd.
- 42:53Speaker 2: And this was what was so sad about it, because
- 42:57Speaker 2: here I was thinking that his heart belonged to her,
- 43:01Speaker 2: but she didn't love him, you know, it was just
- 43:05Speaker 2: it was just she wanted a businessman. She wanted a
- 43:10Speaker 2: successful man with lots of money. Little did she know
- 43:14Speaker 2: Todd became very, very wealthy after that. But I don't know,
- 43:19Speaker 2: it's just so I never became Miss Marched. So here
- 43:22Speaker 2: I am this Miss November with a shamrock around my neck.
- 43:25Speaker 2: So everybody thought, for sure, I must be irish, But
- 43:30Speaker 2: it just it was just a moment. It was a
- 43:33Speaker 2: whim but it changed my life drastically in the sense
- 43:37Speaker 2: that there was no more fashion career for me. In America,
- 43:42Speaker 2: it was very taboo for a fashion model of my
- 43:45Speaker 2: status to become a Playboy centerfold, let alone pose in
- 43:50Speaker 2: the magazine. And as you know, in the eighties, John
- 43:53Speaker 2: Costablanca turned that around and every supermodel and their dog
- 43:57Speaker 2: wanted to be in Playboy, and so the mystique was
- 44:01Speaker 2: still very heavy when I did it. So I carried
- 44:05Speaker 2: the weight of that around and it was very hard
- 44:08Speaker 2: for me. I got booked with Cosmopolitan or Viva, you know,
- 44:12Speaker 2: the women's magazines that were kind of sexy. But it
- 44:16Speaker 2: wasn't until I went to Europe in seventy five seventy
- 44:20Speaker 2: six that I did all my most beautiful, legitimate work.
- 44:24Speaker 2: They just didn't care about nudity. In Europe. It was like, okay,
- 44:27Speaker 2: so what you've been in Playboy who Cares?
- 44:37Speaker 1: Okay, so you're missed November. Yeah, the magazine at the
- 44:40Speaker 1: time was selling millions of copies. Young boys were infatuated
- 44:46Speaker 1: with the playmates. But you were living in a relatively
- 44:50Speaker 1: insular model rock and roll world. Were people recognizing you
- 44:54Speaker 1: on the street. Did you get fan mail any of that?
- 44:58Speaker 2: Yeah, you do get fan mail, but it all goes
- 45:01Speaker 2: to Playboy and then they give you, like a couple
- 45:04Speaker 2: times a year, a big envelope with your fan mail.
- 45:08Speaker 2: But I actually had boxes of it. They they called
- 45:14Speaker 2: me and they said, we can't send you an envelope.
- 45:18Speaker 2: We've got six boxes for you. So when you know,
- 45:24Speaker 2: I had when Todd was touring, I had them pick
- 45:28Speaker 2: up the boxes for me, the crew on one of
- 45:32Speaker 2: the tours, so that I could read the fan mail.
- 45:35Speaker 2: And I still have some of it. I kept some
- 45:38Speaker 2: of it because it was They would make drawings, maybe
- 45:41Speaker 2: beautiful letters, and it was very sweet, you know. Yeah,
- 45:46Speaker 2: so yeah, you do get recognized a little bit. But
- 45:48Speaker 2: in the world that I was living in, it was
- 45:51Speaker 2: all about the rock star, you know. I you know,
- 45:56Speaker 2: maybe maybe I was looked upon as an embellishment, who knows,
- 46:00Speaker 2: but I do know that it changed the way people
- 46:05Speaker 2: reacted to me. I think men especially thought that I
- 46:10Speaker 2: must be this wild beast in bed, or that I
- 46:13Speaker 2: must be a sexual, you know, an inphomaniac or something.
- 46:18Speaker 2: I don't know. Posing nude conjures up a lot of stuff,
- 46:24Speaker 2: and and and people treat you differently, they really do.
- 46:28Speaker 2: They sort of take for granted that you're you're a
- 46:30Speaker 2: sexual being and that you're there for the sexual aspect.
- 46:35Speaker 2: So it's it's, yeah, you know you are. We're all
- 46:38Speaker 2: sexual beings. But at the time, I was so confused
- 46:43Speaker 2: about everything in my life that sex was really not
- 46:49Speaker 2: the most important thing on my mind, and I was
- 46:55Speaker 2: just trying to find my way.
- 46:57Speaker 1: Okay, let's one other thing about models. There's a lot
- 47:02Speaker 1: of publicity about how models have to stay ultra thin,
- 47:06Speaker 1: they can't eat anything, there's pressure on looks. To what
- 47:10Speaker 1: degree did you feel that then, and to what degree
- 47:13Speaker 1: do you still feel it?
- 47:15Speaker 2: Well? I didn't even I didn't abide by it. I
- 47:18Speaker 2: was never a skinny, skinny girl. I've never my daughter's
- 47:21Speaker 2: never been a skinny, skinny girl. I never adhered to
- 47:27Speaker 2: that demand, and quite frankly, I'll be honest, it was
- 47:32Speaker 2: never demanded of me. Nobody ever said to me, oh,
- 47:34Speaker 2: you need to go lose one hundred pounds. I mean
- 47:38Speaker 2: one time I did one booking when I was three
- 47:43Speaker 2: months pregnant with my daughter, where they asked me, you know,
- 47:50Speaker 2: if I wanted to do some paternity dresses for their
- 47:56Speaker 2: you know, for the paternity catalog.
- 48:00Speaker 1: And I remember it being maternity. I think you mean maternity.
- 48:03Speaker 2: Did I say paternity? I like that.
- 48:05Speaker 1: That's interesting.
- 48:06Speaker 2: Well, you know what, that was the subject of my
- 48:10Speaker 2: entire life at that point. So yeah, that was the
- 48:12Speaker 2: paternity issue. But no, thank you for correcting that. It's
- 48:18Speaker 2: like prescription and subscription, you know, and it was just.
- 48:25Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to Todd now. So you have
- 48:32Speaker 1: this exchange of glances, then you go uptown with Richard.
- 48:35Speaker 1: When did you next see Todd?
- 48:38Speaker 2: What? What? What did you say?
- 48:40Speaker 1: You say that you met Todd when your friend Richard
- 48:43Speaker 1: was tapes, But really you and Richard were going up town.
- 48:48Speaker 2: Yeah wait, no, I think where we were going was
- 48:51Speaker 2: wherever Man of La Mancha was playing.
- 48:53Speaker 1: Okay, well on Broadway. So in any event, uptown from
- 48:56Speaker 1: where Todd was. When did you next make contact with Todd?
- 49:01Speaker 2: It was about two days later, he invited He's He
- 49:11Speaker 2: told Richard that he was having some friends over to
- 49:16Speaker 2: his to his place. They were, you know, just smoke
- 49:19Speaker 2: some weed and you know, just to hang out. And
- 49:22Speaker 2: he was living with his friend Paul Fishkin. And I
- 49:25Speaker 2: mean there was another incident before that, but Todd hates
- 49:28Speaker 2: it when I tell it. So I'm just gonna blet.
- 49:34Speaker 1: Just because I'm injured. You don't have to tell. Why
- 49:36Speaker 1: does Todd hate it?
- 49:38Speaker 2: Yeah, he hates it because he doesn't like to admit
- 49:42Speaker 2: that he ever did something so romantic. But he did.
- 49:45Speaker 1: Okay, we won't make it tell it, so, okay, there's
- 49:48Speaker 1: that other incident.
- 49:50Speaker 2: But anyway, there was there was the incident where I
- 49:53Speaker 2: ran into him and his dog because he was very
- 49:57Speaker 2: near my modeling agency. I'll word it like that. He
- 50:00Speaker 2: just happened to be sitting on the steps of where
- 50:06Speaker 2: Ford Models is on fifty ninth Street, and he lives
- 50:09Speaker 2: on thirteenth Street, so God only knows why he was there.
- 50:16Speaker 2: He had facetiously Okay, No, I mean he said he
- 50:20Speaker 2: was bringing his dog, Puppet, who was pregnant, to the vet.
- 50:25Speaker 2: Now that's very possible because Puppet was pregnant and she
- 50:30Speaker 2: did give birth to Furberger, who became my dog. But yes,
- 50:34Speaker 2: but anyway, I just thought that was all very sweet
- 50:36Speaker 2: and interesting. And then Richard calls me at the woman's
- 50:41Speaker 2: residence and says, oh, I got a call from Todd
- 50:44Speaker 2: and he's invited us over, invited me over, and he
- 50:48Speaker 2: told me I could bring that friend of mine again
- 50:51Speaker 2: if I wanted. So I remember that Richard at the
- 50:58Speaker 2: last minute didn't want to go. He goes, I'm not
- 51:01Speaker 2: gonna go. You go ahead and go, though they're you know,
- 51:03Speaker 2: they're expecting you. So I got there and I did
- 51:07Speaker 2: the thing where you throw the penny, and Todd didn't
- 51:11Speaker 2: look out the window. Paul Fishkin did and I had
- 51:14Speaker 2: not met Paul yet, so he looked out the window
- 51:17Speaker 2: and he goes, oh, babe, I'll come right down, and
- 51:20Speaker 2: you know, lets me in. And I walk in and
- 51:23Speaker 2: it's just Paul and two girls that seemed very very nice,
- 51:29Speaker 2: you know. They were one of them looked like she
- 51:31Speaker 2: might work at a record company. That was. They were
- 51:33Speaker 2: just hanging out rolling joints, doing the stuff we did
- 51:37Speaker 2: back then, and Todd had just gotten a new Sony
- 51:40Speaker 2: trena Tron colored TV, so everybody was having fun with
- 51:44Speaker 2: the rabbit ears and the whole bit, and then about
- 51:47Speaker 2: five minutes after that, Todd comes in and that was that.
- 51:54Speaker 2: I don't we didn't spend a day apart after that.
- 51:58Speaker 2: That was that? Was it? Hot?
- 52:00Speaker 1: Long after that? Did you move in with him?
- 52:03Speaker 2: Did I move in? I would say it happened about
- 52:11Speaker 2: three weeks. I think he was going on the road
- 52:16Speaker 2: as well, and Puppet was pregnant, and there was a
- 52:21Speaker 2: girl that he had staying there, but he didn't want
- 52:24Speaker 2: her to stay there anymore because he didn't want her
- 52:26Speaker 2: to think they had a relationship. And so he said, look,
- 52:31Speaker 2: you know, the nuns were giving me a hard time
- 52:33Speaker 2: about curfew, and my mother was calling all the time,
- 52:37Speaker 2: and Eileen Ford was losing her mind and very angry
- 52:41Speaker 2: at me because I was sleeping instead of going on
- 52:45Speaker 2: go sees, and I was being naughty. Let's face it,
- 52:49Speaker 2: I was being a rebel, and so he said, why
- 52:53Speaker 2: don't you just come stay here? And that's how it
- 52:57Speaker 2: sort of happened. I got to the apartment and it
- 53:02Speaker 2: obviously needed to be cleaned, it obviously needed to be organized,
- 53:07Speaker 2: and Paul was never there. His room and his cat
- 53:12Speaker 2: was in the back and Todd's whole world was in
- 53:15Speaker 2: the front, and then there was a kitchen and a bathroom.
- 53:17Speaker 2: It was a typical dog bone a New York City apartment,
- 53:22Speaker 2: but with beautiful high ceilings and gilded gold. It was
- 53:26Speaker 2: really beautiful, a pre war building, but it was, you know,
- 53:29Speaker 2: it was small, and it was old, and the rent
- 53:32Speaker 2: was something like three hundred dollars a month. And so
- 53:38Speaker 2: Todd went on the road. I stayed Ferberger was born.
- 53:41Speaker 1: Do you happen to remember what year?
- 53:43Speaker 2: This is nineteen seventy two.
- 53:46Speaker 1: Okay, so something anything has been released and he's on
- 53:50Speaker 1: tour supporting That.
- 53:51Speaker 2: First night, the first night I stayed with Todd. I
- 53:59Speaker 2: it's a funny story because this pot was so strong,
- 54:04Speaker 2: and he had bush Mill's Irish whiskey, and I drank
- 54:08Speaker 2: a little of that before I knew it. It was
- 54:11Speaker 2: the next morning. I literally put my head on his
- 54:15Speaker 2: lap and did not wake up until eight o'clock the
- 54:19Speaker 2: next morning. And it was really funny because we just
- 54:24Speaker 2: sort of fell as he fell asleep sitting up and
- 54:27Speaker 2: I fell asleep on his lap. But I woke up
- 54:31Speaker 2: and he went to play me. He said he wanted
- 54:33Speaker 2: to play me a song off his new album, and
- 54:36Speaker 2: it was Black Mariah. He wanted to play me Black Mariah,
- 54:39Speaker 2: and his stereo blew up some kind it was really weird.
- 54:44Speaker 2: Some kind of weird technical thing happened. But of course
- 54:47Speaker 2: he got back there and he tinkered and he fiddled
- 54:50Speaker 2: and he did all of his genius stuff that he
- 54:52Speaker 2: always did. I don't know if it was real, if
- 54:55Speaker 2: he was just trying to impress me, because I was
- 54:57Speaker 2: very impressed. I thought, boy, my friend is Albert Einstein.
- 55:01Speaker 2: You know, he he knew exactly what to do and
- 55:04Speaker 2: what tubes and what things to press. And before I
- 55:08Speaker 2: knew it, the music is coming out of the speakers,
- 55:13Speaker 2: and you know, he plays me the album. And I
- 55:16Speaker 2: remember when I heard the song Marlene. I wanted to
- 55:20Speaker 2: know all about it, I said, And I said, who's Marlene?
- 55:25Speaker 2: He said, Oh, she's a girl that I, you know,
- 55:28Speaker 2: really loved and and but we're not together and blah
- 55:33Speaker 2: blah blah. And and his best friend at the time
- 55:36Speaker 2: was Patti Smith, and it was important to him that
- 55:39Speaker 2: I met her. He wanted her opinion of me, and
- 55:43Speaker 2: then I became Then I became fast friends with Patty.
- 55:46Speaker 2: I just hit it off with her, like a house
- 55:49Speaker 2: on fire because she got it that I wrote in
- 55:51Speaker 2: my poetry books, and she got my stupid poems. She
- 55:56Speaker 2: liked them. I wrote this poem, this poem one time
- 56:00Speaker 2: that it goes you needle, you pen, you prick, And
- 56:04Speaker 2: she loved that. She said, that's three lines. That's real poetry, Beatie,
- 56:08Speaker 2: that's real. Keep going, keep going. And she was very encouraging,
- 56:12Speaker 2: you know, to that side of me, whereas Todd would
- 56:16Speaker 2: listen and he would say, oh, that's good, Yeah, that's
- 56:20Speaker 2: really good or something like that, but he would never
- 56:22Speaker 2: say like, oh, keep it up, or you know, he
- 56:25Speaker 2: was never like, I don't know. I don't know how
- 56:29Speaker 2: to explain what it's like to live with somebody of
- 56:32Speaker 2: that magnitude of genius, because basically all they think about
- 56:37Speaker 2: all day is the next genius move. They're like chess players,
- 56:43Speaker 2: which way are we going to move the rourk? You know,
- 56:46Speaker 2: which way are we going to move the king? It's
- 56:49Speaker 2: like their brains are always looking at the next challenge.
- 56:55Speaker 1: Well, did you end up feeling outside? I mean, you
- 56:59Speaker 1: had boyfriends before. Do you feel like I'm with him
- 57:02Speaker 1: but really he's in his own world.
- 57:05Speaker 2: Well, I think anybody that knew Todd felt that way
- 57:08Speaker 2: because Todd was constantly, constantly in front of a screen.
- 57:12Speaker 2: He had a computer before anybody on earth had a computer.
- 57:15Speaker 2: He had a computer before Bill Gates had a computer.
- 57:19Speaker 2: He had computers, he had animation, He had all of
- 57:24Speaker 2: these very complicated technical stuff, you know, way before anybody.
- 57:29Speaker 2: And he was very obsessed with it. You know, he
- 57:33Speaker 2: would spend literally hours doing his stuff. But yeah, he
- 57:38Speaker 2: would go to Maxis, he would go to concerts, he
- 57:41Speaker 2: would hang out, he would get dressed up. I was
- 57:44Speaker 2: this social director. I called it. It was funny because
- 57:47Speaker 2: I would say, Todd, You've got to get up for
- 57:49Speaker 2: a minute. You've got to go out. You've got to
- 57:51Speaker 2: say hi to people. Alice keeps asking about you and
- 57:54Speaker 2: wondering when we're gonna all hang out again. You know.
- 57:57Speaker 2: It was stuff like that. You know, we would go
- 57:59Speaker 2: see really great shows. We would go see Alice Cooper
- 58:03Speaker 2: at Madison Square Garden or Peter Gabriel Gabriel at the
- 58:07Speaker 2: Felt Forum, or my favorite show still to this day,
- 58:12Speaker 2: this is the best lineup ever. Was First, we start
- 58:17Speaker 2: with lou Reed and this is during the period where
- 58:20Speaker 2: he had the white bleached terre and he simulated simulated
- 58:23Speaker 2: shooting up on stage. Then Hall and Oates came on
- 58:27Speaker 2: after that. You can imagine that, Dinas right, and then
- 58:31Speaker 2: Al Green closed out the night. That was like one
- 58:36Speaker 2: of the best triples I ever. You know, got got
- 58:40Speaker 2: to and and Todd. Todd was at that and we
- 58:42Speaker 2: went backstage, and I remember Mick was there too, and
- 58:45Speaker 2: it was quite a night. But yeah, you meet everybody
- 58:50Speaker 2: through that whole social circle. So everybody I met was
- 58:55Speaker 2: somebody that I met socially at a party, at a gathering,
- 59:00Speaker 2: but most of us gathered and met at Max's. That
- 59:04Speaker 2: was sort of our living room, Max's, Kansas City. But Todd,
- 59:08Speaker 2: I'll be honest, he loved women, and women loved him,
- 59:12Speaker 2: and he was a bit of a womanizer when he
- 59:15Speaker 2: was on the road. But that was not his image.
- 59:18Speaker 2: That was not what people thought of him at all.
- 59:21Speaker 2: People thought of the Todd that was always buried with
- 59:25Speaker 2: his face in a computer or in some kind of
- 59:29Speaker 2: musical environment.
- 59:31Speaker 1: He was he faithful? Was he faithful when he was home?
- 59:35Speaker 2: I'm not positive, you know, I'll be honest. We were
- 59:40Speaker 2: all so young and everybody was running around like like
- 59:47Speaker 2: kind of KOOKI I remember Leonard Cohen would call, and
- 59:52Speaker 2: Todd would always know it was going to be Leonard,
- 59:54Speaker 2: and he would go, if you want to answer it,
- 59:57Speaker 2: it's crazy Leonard, because Leonard would want to come over
- 1:00:00Speaker 2: and he would get extremely drunk. But see, I hadn't
- 1:00:03Speaker 2: put together who Leonard Cohen was yet. I was too young,
- 1:00:07Speaker 2: but Todd got it, and I just remember Leonard came
- 1:00:11Speaker 2: over one night and he was super drunk, but he
- 1:00:14Speaker 2: was super charming. And Todd went off to go fiddle
- 1:00:18Speaker 2: with some electronic device because he and I was left
- 1:00:22Speaker 2: sitting there with Leonard Cohen, and I remember he picked
- 1:00:26Speaker 2: up one of Todd's guitars and he said, I'm not
- 1:00:29Speaker 2: a very good guitar player, he goes, but I'm a
- 1:00:32Speaker 2: great writer. And so I said okay, and he started
- 1:00:38Speaker 2: singing and I almost fainted. It was like it was
- 1:00:44Speaker 2: bordered on a religious experience. It was very profound. But
- 1:00:49Speaker 2: he was such a handful, oh, such a handful, and
- 1:00:54Speaker 2: I sort of felt sorry for him. I didn't realize,
- 1:00:57Speaker 2: you know, the degree of his Leonard cohenness, if that
- 1:01:01Speaker 2: makes any sense. He was just crazy Leonard to me,
- 1:01:04Speaker 2: because that's what Todd called him. But I, you know,
- 1:01:08Speaker 2: I liked him. I thought he was a little kookie.
- 1:01:10Speaker 2: So I would let He would call and he'd say,
- 1:01:12Speaker 2: where are you going tonight? And I was, I'm going
- 1:01:14Speaker 2: to go to the plaza, or I'm going to go
- 1:01:16Speaker 2: to I'm going to go to the tiki bar at
- 1:01:18Speaker 2: the plaza, or I'm going to go here or there.
- 1:01:20Speaker 2: Can I come, you know? And I would say sure,
- 1:01:22Speaker 2: and he would come along, and usually he would get
- 1:01:25Speaker 2: so drunk that, you know, somebody would have to end
- 1:01:28Speaker 2: up taking him home in a cab or something. You know,
- 1:01:32Speaker 2: we never we never dated, you know, we were just buds.
- 1:01:35Speaker 2: I know that sounds weird. And I remember one of
- 1:01:38Speaker 2: the it left such an impact on me. One of
- 1:01:41Speaker 2: the sweetest things anybody that's ever said to me was
- 1:01:46Speaker 2: was Leonard Cohen. And you know, I just said to him,
- 1:01:51Speaker 2: I said, I don't know what you're expecting from our friendship,
- 1:01:54Speaker 2: you know, I I don't know if you I know
- 1:01:56Speaker 2: you have plenty of girlfriends, because he did. He was
- 1:01:59Speaker 2: always talking about the women in his life and about Greece,
- 1:02:03Speaker 2: and you know, he was always talking about all kinds
- 1:02:05Speaker 2: of dilemmas and drama and and and he said, you know,
- 1:02:12Speaker 2: I just really really really enjoy being around you. He goes,
- 1:02:17Speaker 2: I just enjoy your company. I enjoy our discussions. And
- 1:02:22Speaker 2: he said, my favorite are the alien discussions. And so
- 1:02:25Speaker 2: we would talk about aliens. And so that was my
- 1:02:28Speaker 2: Leonard Cohen. But you know, one day I never never
- 1:02:31Speaker 2: heard from Leonard again, none of us did. He obviously
- 1:02:33Speaker 2: left New York, but he didn't tell anybody where he
- 1:02:36Speaker 2: was going or say goodbye to anybody. Just one day,
- 1:02:40Speaker 2: Leonard wasn't there anymore.
- 1:02:42Speaker 1: To what degree did you know Albert and Sally Grossman?
- 1:02:45Speaker 2: Oh? I knew them very well, Albert, especially Albert, and
- 1:02:49Speaker 2: I I got along with Albert. You know, I've watched
- 1:02:53Speaker 2: some of the greatest managers in the world up close
- 1:02:58Speaker 2: and personally, and you know, watching people like Albert Grossman,
- 1:03:01Speaker 2: Peter Grant, watching these people in action, it's it's unbelievable.
- 1:03:09Speaker 2: It's like Albert was apples and oranges to a Peter Grant.
- 1:03:13Speaker 2: But Albert, when Todd got the house up in a
- 1:03:18Speaker 2: Lake Hill or Bearsville, Woodstock area, we were always over
- 1:03:24Speaker 2: at Albert's house. I remember little intimate dinners. I remember
- 1:03:28Speaker 2: one night it was me, Todd, Albert, and Paul Butterfield
- 1:03:34Speaker 2: and you know, the boys were talking and I sort
- 1:03:38Speaker 2: of felt like, well, why am I here? Because but
- 1:03:41Speaker 2: it was always my go to whenever I wanted to
- 1:03:44Speaker 2: get anybody's attention and get the topic off whatever deal
- 1:03:48Speaker 2: they were talking about. We'd start talking about aliens and
- 1:03:52Speaker 2: that brought Butterfield right in. Oh my god, yeah, Butterfield
- 1:03:57Speaker 2: wanted Oh he was all on it. He was like,
- 1:03:59Speaker 2: oh yeah, let's talk about it. You know, it was
- 1:04:01Speaker 2: it was my go to, so whenever I wanted to
- 1:04:04Speaker 2: really jab a conversation, I even used that trick when
- 1:04:09Speaker 2: I was at tea with Savador Dolli. You know, they
- 1:04:14Speaker 2: were all talking about a lot of stuff. I remember
- 1:04:19Speaker 2: being in the room with an Ocelot, his wife Gala,
- 1:04:25Speaker 2: Truman Capoti, and a Mendelier And this was just from
- 1:04:31Speaker 2: him inviting me to tea because I met him at
- 1:04:35Speaker 2: the Saint Regis newsstand. We would go to the foreign
- 1:04:39Speaker 2: news stand there at the Saint Regis to see our
- 1:04:41Speaker 2: modeling pictures from Europe because it was one of the
- 1:04:44Speaker 2: foreign news stands and he was living there. So that's
- 1:04:49Speaker 2: how I met Savador Dolli. So when I say it
- 1:04:51Speaker 2: about the Forrest Gump stuff, I mean it in the
- 1:04:54Speaker 2: sense that, for some weird reason written in the Evans,
- 1:05:00Speaker 2: for some I was meant to cross the paths of
- 1:05:03Speaker 2: certain people whose paths that I crossed.
- 1:05:12Speaker 1: Okay, you mentioned Peter Grant along with Albert Roseman. He said,
- 1:05:15Speaker 1: you learned about management? What did you learn seeing them
- 1:05:18Speaker 1: up close?
- 1:05:19Speaker 2: Well, Peter Grant was ruthless. He was a very, very
- 1:05:23Speaker 2: very large man, as you know. But you know that
- 1:05:26Speaker 2: that organization used a lot of violence in their dealings
- 1:05:30Speaker 2: with people that annoyed them, which was the opposite with Albert.
- 1:05:36Speaker 2: Albert liked to get together and celebrate through food and gathering.
- 1:05:41Speaker 2: He even had tps on his property, you know, tpiece
- 1:05:46Speaker 2: that you could go sit in and meditate and smoke cash.
- 1:05:49Speaker 2: And it's different worlds. When you were around Peter Grant
- 1:05:53Speaker 2: or around that zeppelin, it was like hanging out with
- 1:05:56Speaker 2: a bunch of gangsters. You know the van were you
- 1:06:03Speaker 2: know De Niro and Pacino and you know they were
- 1:06:05Speaker 2: the it it's hard to put into words. When you
- 1:06:09Speaker 2: hung around with Albert, it was like being at the
- 1:06:12Speaker 2: king's castle. You would go hang out at his world
- 1:06:15Speaker 2: and his compound, at his beautiful house, and beautiful food
- 1:06:20Speaker 2: would be served.
- 1:06:21Speaker 1: And how about did you see any of his negotiation
- 1:06:25Speaker 1: business techniques?
- 1:06:26Speaker 2: Well, I mean I would see the way he treated
- 1:06:29Speaker 2: his artists, and I remember, did I ever see him
- 1:06:34Speaker 2: actually negotiate deals or anything? Oh?
- 1:06:36Speaker 1: You know, you see these people in action, they talk business.
- 1:06:39Speaker 1: Did you learn any lessons from Albert?
- 1:06:42Speaker 2: What I learned from Albert is is he had a
- 1:06:45Speaker 2: baritone kind of voice, and he spoke very softly. But
- 1:06:51Speaker 2: when Albert wanted to make a point, and when Albert
- 1:06:55Speaker 2: wanted to really get his Albert and this out there,
- 1:07:00Speaker 2: suddenly the voice would become like that and it would
- 1:07:04Speaker 2: get very strong and powerful. I mean, just to show
- 1:07:08Speaker 2: you the kind of manager he was. I was pregnant
- 1:07:11Speaker 2: with live and I was in one of our vehicles,
- 1:07:15Speaker 2: I think the jeep. It had snowed, and I Todd
- 1:07:21Speaker 2: was on the road as usual, and I was driving
- 1:07:24Speaker 2: down mean Collo Road with my friend Jean, and suddenly
- 1:07:30Speaker 2: another car came from the other direction, driving way too
- 1:07:34Speaker 2: fast and to be in the snow. Thank god, I
- 1:07:38Speaker 2: was more in my lane, even though it was a
- 1:07:40Speaker 2: narrow road. But of course we hit and they had
- 1:07:46Speaker 2: their kid in the back of the car with no
- 1:07:48Speaker 2: seat belt. Nothing but that was before anybody wore seat
- 1:07:51Speaker 2: belts anyway, And I just remember getting out of the
- 1:07:57Speaker 2: car and I was pretty shook up. Everybody was, you know,
- 1:08:00Speaker 2: Jean was especially worried about me because I was pregnant,
- 1:08:02Speaker 2: but I was okay. Everybody was okay, but the cars
- 1:08:05Speaker 2: were really fucked up, and I just remember having my
- 1:08:09Speaker 2: wits about me, and I just went to the first house,
- 1:08:13Speaker 2: which was right there, and I called Albert. Because we
- 1:08:16Speaker 2: didn't have cell phones and stuff, then I had to
- 1:08:18Speaker 2: like get on somebody's landline and call him. And I
- 1:08:23Speaker 2: told him, Albert, I've just had an accident on mean Collo.
- 1:08:28Speaker 2: He was there so quickly like that, and he had
- 1:08:34Speaker 2: me hustled off and I said, Albert, he goes, just
- 1:08:38Speaker 2: go home. I'll handle everything. And he had a big
- 1:08:42Speaker 2: pile of money and he had somebody take me and
- 1:08:47Speaker 2: my girlfriend off in another car. And that's the last
- 1:08:52Speaker 2: I ever saw of that accident. Wow.
- 1:08:56Speaker 1: So in any event, let's you know, you're Todd at
- 1:08:59Speaker 1: the time is working a lot. He's putting out a
- 1:09:02Speaker 1: lot of albums, and he's also producing a lot of
- 1:09:04Speaker 1: albums successfully. To what degree was he telling you about them,
- 1:09:11Speaker 1: and did you have input or did he keep that
- 1:09:13Speaker 1: totally separate from you?
- 1:09:15Speaker 2: Oh? No, No, We always talked about his music because see,
- 1:09:19Speaker 2: I loved it. When he played me the stuff he
- 1:09:22Speaker 2: was coming up with for Wizard or True Star, everybody
- 1:09:26Speaker 2: hated it, and they were giving him a lot of shit,
- 1:09:29Speaker 2: and they were telling him that it was too much
- 1:09:32Speaker 2: and that it was going over everybody's head and that
- 1:09:36Speaker 2: it was not the right kind of follow up to
- 1:09:38Speaker 2: something anything. But when he would play me the stuff,
- 1:09:43Speaker 2: I thought it was incredible. I loved it. So he
- 1:09:48Speaker 2: wasn't getting any shit from me. I loved utopia. And
- 1:09:53Speaker 2: when he took me to see that Sphinx and that
- 1:09:56Speaker 2: hangar in Kingston, New York, it was so big it
- 1:09:59Speaker 2: had to be an an airplane hangar. And he used
- 1:10:02Speaker 2: to fly off that thing every night, upside down with
- 1:10:06Speaker 2: a with no harness, just raw. And so I supported it.
- 1:10:15Speaker 2: Even though it people thought I enabled it. Instead of
- 1:10:21Speaker 2: that I supported it, they thought I enabled it. See
- 1:10:24Speaker 2: that you people that are making money off of you
- 1:10:28Speaker 2: always want to have somebody to blame if the money
- 1:10:33Speaker 2: isn't going to go the way they they they hope
- 1:10:35Speaker 2: it goes because of a change in direction. And with Todd.
- 1:10:39Speaker 2: This was an extreme change in direction from what he
- 1:10:44Speaker 2: had been doing previously, you know, as as the Todd
- 1:10:48Speaker 2: Rungren solo records, and and then suddenly to come back
- 1:10:52Speaker 2: with a Wizard or True Star and then to form Utopia.
- 1:10:57Speaker 2: It was it was a lot of pressure, a lot
- 1:11:02Speaker 2: of pressure for him. He went through a lot, but
- 1:11:05Speaker 2: he was producing big records, so he was making money.
- 1:11:09Speaker 2: You know, he was producing Grand Funk Railroad, he was
- 1:11:12Speaker 2: producing Hall and Oates, he was producing records. He produced Fanny.
- 1:11:18Speaker 2: I remember that was fun. I remember when he produced Fanny.
- 1:11:21Speaker 2: But you know, he was really in demand as a producer,
- 1:11:24Speaker 2: so he had the money and the freedom, you know,
- 1:11:29Speaker 2: to have a nice townhouse on Horatio Street, which we had,
- 1:11:34Speaker 2: and a home up in the Woodstock area.
- 1:11:38Speaker 1: Did you ever go to the studio Did he discuss
- 1:11:42Speaker 1: any of the projects when he was recording other people?
- 1:11:45Speaker 2: Yes, I always did, always, and I would sometimes even
- 1:11:49Speaker 2: fall asleep under the council and you know, I'd had
- 1:11:56Speaker 2: pillows and blankets. Yeah. Todd had a studio house where
- 1:12:02Speaker 2: the drums were downstairs, but the control room was upstairs.
- 1:12:06Speaker 2: So when he recorded by himself, he would have to
- 1:12:09Speaker 2: go down and play the drums and run back upstairs
- 1:12:12Speaker 2: because he didn't have an engineer there. So at one
- 1:12:16Speaker 2: point he taught me how to stop and start the
- 1:12:21Speaker 2: tape machine so that he didn't have to keep running
- 1:12:24Speaker 2: up there. So there were times when he would, you know,
- 1:12:27Speaker 2: have me do that, that would be my duty. Like
- 1:12:30Speaker 2: he would do a track and I would have the
- 1:12:33Speaker 2: headphones on and he would tell me hit the button,
- 1:12:36Speaker 2: hit the button. So yeah, I mean I was definitely
- 1:12:41Speaker 2: around for I saw a lot. Absolutely, I saw a lot.
- 1:12:46Speaker 2: I was around for a lot of conceptual stuff. I
- 1:12:50Speaker 2: was definitely around for a lot of the makeup and
- 1:12:53Speaker 2: the costumes and some of the crazy stuff Nicky Nichols
- 1:12:57Speaker 2: came up with. Yeah, I was. I was a part
- 1:13:01Speaker 2: of a part of it all.
- 1:13:03Speaker 1: So how did it end?
- 1:13:05Speaker 2: Not? Well, well, I don't even I don't want to
- 1:13:08Speaker 2: be so general, just from a lack of complete clarity.
- 1:13:17Speaker 2: I mean, we just didn't really communicate with each other properly.
- 1:13:20Speaker 2: We were so young, and we were both very unfaithful,
- 1:13:25Speaker 2: and I think my reasons for being unfaithful were very
- 1:13:31Speaker 2: different from his. But he met somebody that he fell
- 1:13:35Speaker 2: in love with, and then I and I met somebody
- 1:13:37Speaker 2: that I fell in love with and it we drifted apart.
- 1:13:42Speaker 2: And but yet the person that I fell in love
- 1:13:46Speaker 2: with was just crazy off the rails. It was to
- 1:13:51Speaker 2: the point where I couldn't handle it. It was too
- 1:13:54Speaker 2: much of the white pro moving and marching powder. It
- 1:13:58Speaker 2: was just too many drugs, too much, too much, too
- 1:14:03Speaker 2: much that lifestyle, that Aerosmith lifestyle at that point in history.
- 1:14:09Speaker 2: I've never seen anything like it. And people say, well,
- 1:14:13Speaker 2: what about the Rolling Stones, And I'll say, you know,
- 1:14:16Speaker 2: it was very different because I always knew. Notice that
- 1:14:20Speaker 2: the boys and the Stones they sort of had their
- 1:14:25Speaker 2: They knew when to stop. Maybe not Keith, but Mick
- 1:14:27Speaker 2: certainly did. Mick was always very smart about when to
- 1:14:31Speaker 2: make an exit, about when not to do that next line,
- 1:14:35Speaker 2: about when not to do that shot. You know, Mick
- 1:14:37Speaker 2: was very always practical. There was no practicality within the
- 1:14:41Speaker 2: Aerosmith camp at that point. So I was very scared.
- 1:14:45Speaker 2: And at this point, Todd had really become the father,
- 1:14:48Speaker 2: the father figure. That's why I called him the Todd Father.
- 1:14:52Speaker 2: And he took me back. I know he wants to
- 1:14:57Speaker 2: blame me for that, but.
- 1:15:00Speaker 1: But wait, wait, literally, how did he take you back?
- 1:15:04Speaker 1: You were living in a different place.
- 1:15:07Speaker 2: Well not really. I hadn't moved out. My stuff was
- 1:15:10Speaker 2: all still in our houses. I wasn't we weren't separated
- 1:15:15Speaker 2: yet or anything like that. He basically, you know I
- 1:15:21Speaker 2: I had lived, went back to Woodstock with him. He
- 1:15:28Speaker 2: we got rid of the house on Horatio Street, and
- 1:15:32Speaker 2: he pretty much told me. He told me about about Karen,
- 1:15:38Speaker 2: about Karen Darvin, the girl that was the girl he
- 1:15:41Speaker 2: had fallen in love with. It was Bruce Springsteen's former girlfriend,
- 1:15:46Speaker 2: and he had met her in Dallas, and he told
- 1:15:49Speaker 2: me about her, and it just it just became extremely
- 1:15:59Speaker 2: difficult because it felt to me like, well, if you
- 1:16:05Speaker 2: had fallen in love with this woman while I was pregnant,
- 1:16:09Speaker 2: why didn't we pursue any doubts about paternity? There's that
- 1:16:14Speaker 2: word again, before all these grand decisions were made. I
- 1:16:22Speaker 2: gave him the opportunity when I was seven months pregnant.
- 1:16:26Speaker 2: I said, I'm very concerned that this is going to
- 1:16:30Speaker 2: be a decision that you're gonna that's going to become
- 1:16:32Speaker 2: a problem. I was concerned, and he seemed to want
- 1:16:41Speaker 2: to take on this mammoth responsibility. He nobody ever tried
- 1:16:47Speaker 2: to fool him or tell him that Live was his baby.
- 1:16:49Speaker 2: Nobody ever did that that. I don't know how that
- 1:16:52Speaker 2: rumor got started or why people say that, but nobody
- 1:16:56Speaker 2: lied to him and said, Todd, you know it's your child.
- 1:17:01Speaker 2: That That's not how it happened. He knew where I
- 1:17:04Speaker 2: was for two months, he knew I was with Steven.
- 1:17:07Speaker 2: He knew that. So when I came home scared to
- 1:17:11Speaker 2: death and he took me back, he knew all of that.
- 1:17:15Speaker 2: So chronologically it's really impossible for him to have been
- 1:17:20Speaker 2: the father. Does that make any sense? And what happened
- 1:17:25Speaker 2: was I think whatever reasons he had for wanting to
- 1:17:30Speaker 2: take that step, I don't know if it was for control.
- 1:17:34Speaker 2: I don't know if he was really concerned about Live's
- 1:17:37Speaker 2: well being. I don't know if he still loved me.
- 1:17:40Speaker 2: There's probably a variety of reasons, and probably a little
- 1:17:42Speaker 2: bit of all of the above. But as soon as
- 1:17:46Speaker 2: Live was born, it it was obvious this wasn't going
- 1:17:51Speaker 2: to work, and it was obvious that he loved somebody else,
- 1:17:55Speaker 2: and it was very very obvious that and he had
- 1:17:59Speaker 2: He got me an apartment. Patty Smith, of all people,
- 1:18:03Speaker 2: helped him pick it out because he wanted her guidance,
- 1:18:07Speaker 2: what do you think Bobe would like and what would
- 1:18:10Speaker 2: be a good apartment to raise a baby in, you know,
- 1:18:13Speaker 2: and found me an apartment on fifty eighth Street. He
- 1:18:17Speaker 2: certainly wanted to get me out of that downtown, didn't he.
- 1:18:22Speaker 2: So there I was on fifty eighth Street suddenly, and
- 1:18:26Speaker 2: Karen was living with him. I mean, it really did
- 1:18:29Speaker 2: happen that fast, and Live was being raised as his child.
- 1:18:35Speaker 2: And believe me, Stephen and I made very many feeble
- 1:18:41Speaker 2: attempts at trying to, you know, fix it or just
- 1:18:47Speaker 2: get it all down, you know what I mean, to
- 1:18:50Speaker 2: at least confirm paternity, even a simple blood test anything.
- 1:18:58Speaker 2: You know. He had his blood drawn and I had
- 1:19:02Speaker 2: my blood drawn. But this is way before fancy DNA tests.
- 1:19:06Speaker 2: She has my blood type, so there was you know,
- 1:19:10Speaker 2: we couldn't say, oh, well, this solves the problem. In
- 1:19:13Speaker 2: my eyes, there was no problem. I knew, everybody knew,
- 1:19:17Speaker 2: and everybody was living in this kind of fantasy. And
- 1:19:21Speaker 2: I'm not judging, and I'm not saying obviously, everything happens
- 1:19:25Speaker 2: for a reason. And whatever happened, look how Live turned out.
- 1:19:29Speaker 2: She's an amazing, self sufficient, beautiful human being. And she
- 1:19:35Speaker 2: is Stephen Tyler's child, but she's also in some ways
- 1:19:40Speaker 2: Todd's child physically. I don't think you could dispute that
- 1:19:45Speaker 2: either one of them could possibly be her daddy. And
- 1:19:48Speaker 2: that's fine. That's her spiritual journey, that's her karmic voyage
- 1:19:54Speaker 2: with those two people that she loves dearly. They're both
- 1:19:59Speaker 2: her beloved father's that's the way she looks at it.
- 1:20:02Speaker 1: Okay, so they gave you this apartment, what are you
- 1:20:05Speaker 1: living on?
- 1:20:07Speaker 2: Well, of course he was. He was giving me money,
- 1:20:10Speaker 2: you know he was. He was giving me an allowance,
- 1:20:15Speaker 2: he was paying the rent, and I picked up a
- 1:20:19Speaker 2: little modeling again. I started to I did my first
- 1:20:22Speaker 2: modeling job when when I was six weeks old.
- 1:20:26Speaker 1: And uh, how long did he how long did he
- 1:20:29Speaker 1: continue to fit the bill?
- 1:20:32Speaker 2: Well, if you put the bill that apartment. My my
- 1:20:35Speaker 2: mother came and cleared me out of that apartment because
- 1:20:39Speaker 2: she just felt that I was not that I needed
- 1:20:43Speaker 2: some stability. I mean, my my family was very supportive
- 1:20:46Speaker 2: and loving. I have a very very loving family. I'm
- 1:20:49Speaker 2: very lucky in that respect. So we closed down that
- 1:20:54Speaker 2: apartment and I moved up to my family's cottage and Maine.
- 1:20:59Speaker 2: So odd. What he was paying for was at that
- 1:21:04Speaker 2: point it was really I didn't have nanny's you know,
- 1:21:08Speaker 2: I didn't have any big expenses at that point. But
- 1:21:14Speaker 2: he always helped, you know, he was never I have
- 1:21:18Speaker 2: to say, he was never stingy. He was never mean
- 1:21:22Speaker 2: about it. You know, he was helpful, he was sweet,
- 1:21:27Speaker 2: He wanted the best for live.
- 1:21:29Speaker 1: Okay, But she gets older by the minute, and it's years.
- 1:21:33Speaker 1: She's in high school, she's about to graduate from high school.
- 1:21:37Speaker 1: Is he still helping?
- 1:21:39Speaker 2: No, not at this point by the time, by the
- 1:21:43Speaker 2: time she was I'm trying to get the timeline straight here.
- 1:21:52Speaker 2: The paternity thing became finalized when she was fourteen, So is.
- 1:21:58Speaker 1: That the line of demarques He paid before then and
- 1:22:01Speaker 1: didn't pay after, That's correct, But he did did Steven
- 1:22:05Speaker 1: pay after?
- 1:22:06Speaker 2: Yes? Yes, And Stephen also paid for her private schooling
- 1:22:11Speaker 2: for that last year before anything was confirmed. Stephen picked
- 1:22:16Speaker 2: up that. But yes, no, Todd. For about a year
- 1:22:20Speaker 2: before everything was public and confirmed, Todd had stopped paying
- 1:22:26Speaker 2: for anything. And then Stephen, Yes, Stephen did pick up
- 1:22:30Speaker 2: the ball very willingly, as a matter of fact. And
- 1:22:34Speaker 2: then the court of course ordered him to pay a
- 1:22:37Speaker 2: certain amount of child support, but Live started making her
- 1:22:40Speaker 2: own money when she was fifteen, and by the time
- 1:22:44Speaker 2: she was sixteen seventeen, she was extremely wealthy, and I
- 1:22:51Speaker 2: was putting everything away for her and keeping her safe.
- 1:22:56Speaker 2: When she graduated, she was a millionaire. Just nobody could
- 1:23:02Speaker 2: take advantage of her. That's where I came in. I
- 1:23:05Speaker 2: was her personal pitbull, and I'm very proud of the
- 1:23:09Speaker 2: job I did, and I'm also I'm very very happy
- 1:23:14Speaker 2: with the way she maneuvered the emotional part of all
- 1:23:18Speaker 2: of this.
- 1:23:20Speaker 1: Okay, a rock chick moves to Maine, that's night in
- 1:23:24Speaker 1: the day, especially then from New York City. What's that
- 1:23:28Speaker 1: like for you?
- 1:23:30Speaker 2: I started a band, you know, my record came out
- 1:23:34Speaker 2: that Rick Okasik and Rick Darren's You're Produced. I started
- 1:23:37Speaker 2: a band called The B Sides, and nineteen eighty I
- 1:23:41Speaker 2: was doing my first show, and then before I knew it,
- 1:23:45Speaker 2: I was making a living off plane, you know, enough
- 1:23:48Speaker 2: to pay my rent and enough, you know, enough to
- 1:23:53Speaker 2: get by. I mean, I wasn't living some extreme life,
- 1:23:58Speaker 2: but I still had all my connections from the industry.
- 1:24:02Speaker 2: I still got invited to every wonderful party and still
- 1:24:06Speaker 2: felt very included in my industry. But I didn't mind
- 1:24:10Speaker 2: buckling under and really getting to work and do it,
- 1:24:14Speaker 2: and I obviously enjoyed it. You know, I enjoy writing.
- 1:24:18Speaker 2: I enjoy writing songs. I enjoy performing live. Grew up
- 1:24:22Speaker 2: with all of that. Some of her greatest memories they're
- 1:24:24Speaker 2: going to rehearsals with me and going to my gigs
- 1:24:28Speaker 2: when she was a little thing.
- 1:24:30Speaker 1: Okay, you've been at it for forty years. Everybody from
- 1:24:35Speaker 1: our demo is certainly aware of who you are and
- 1:24:38Speaker 1: that you make music. You have never broken through huge
- 1:24:42Speaker 1: commercially such that other people are aware of you. You're
- 1:24:47Speaker 1: going to be seventy. I'm seventy already. Does this disappoint you?
- 1:24:51Speaker 1: How do you metabolize the fact that you didn't break
- 1:24:55Speaker 1: through on a certain level of success.
- 1:24:58Speaker 2: Well, I think that I I have a lot to
- 1:25:01Speaker 2: bring to the table for that very reason. You know,
- 1:25:05Speaker 2: success comes in many forms. You can look at success
- 1:25:09Speaker 2: as being financial or status related, or you can look
- 1:25:14Speaker 2: at success as being finishing good work, getting good work done,
- 1:25:22Speaker 2: doing good work. Your work is your name, and I
- 1:25:27Speaker 2: feel that the work I've done has been good work
- 1:25:30Speaker 2: and I'm proud of it. I've written two books. I
- 1:25:34Speaker 2: was a New York Times bestseller with my first book,
- 1:25:37Speaker 2: and I've written probably close to three hundred songs at
- 1:25:43Speaker 2: this point. I've made tons of records, you know that.
- 1:25:48Speaker 2: And I've made singles. And I do it because I
- 1:25:52Speaker 2: love it. It's a passion and I have fans. As
- 1:25:57Speaker 2: long as I can pack a room, I'm okay. I
- 1:26:01Speaker 2: don't have to see my name at the top of
- 1:26:03Speaker 2: the charts to feel successful. And you know, when I
- 1:26:09Speaker 2: went to New York for my last book and did
- 1:26:13Speaker 2: the honor at the National Arts Club, just to be
- 1:26:18Speaker 2: touted by the New York Times and to have the
- 1:26:21Speaker 2: people that I've known since I was eighteen in that audience,
- 1:26:26Speaker 2: it made me know that I'm doing good work and
- 1:26:31Speaker 2: that has given me the greatest pleasure. And I don't
- 1:26:35Speaker 2: think this journey is over. I really don't. Who knows
- 1:26:39Speaker 2: what might happen, you know, anything can happen. I am
- 1:26:43Speaker 2: so open to the possibilities of breaking rules. I mean,
- 1:26:47Speaker 2: speaking of breaking rules, look at Tina Turner. Everybody told
- 1:26:51Speaker 2: her it was over, and look at the comeback she had.
- 1:26:55Speaker 2: And the thing that that's important about the message I'm
- 1:27:00Speaker 2: bringing to the table. It's not the same as like Paulina,
- 1:27:04Speaker 2: who's like, Okay, I'm hot and I'm almost sixty. You know,
- 1:27:10Speaker 2: deal with it. It's exciting to see somebody have that
- 1:27:14Speaker 2: kind of confidence. I'm trying to give something different. I mean,
- 1:27:20Speaker 2: if I could take my clothes off right now and
- 1:27:22Speaker 2: look as good as Paulina does in a bikini, I might.
- 1:27:25Speaker 2: I might do that for shits and giggles. But right now,
- 1:27:30Speaker 2: what I'm enjoying is continuing the chain of good work.
- 1:27:34Speaker 2: And all the projects are that are coming my way.
- 1:27:38Speaker 2: There's a treatment for a series, there's somebody that wants
- 1:27:41Speaker 2: to make a documentary of my life. There's somebody that
- 1:27:44Speaker 2: wants to make a movie of my life. There's so
- 1:27:46Speaker 2: many things that are in the works right now that
- 1:27:51Speaker 2: who knows, maybe my music will be reborn a La
- 1:27:56Speaker 2: Sugarman or something in a soundtrack. You know. I just
- 1:28:02Speaker 2: want to be proud of the work I do and
- 1:28:04Speaker 2: if someday it gets acknowledged, the heck.
- 1:28:08Speaker 1: Okay, so what do you live in on now? Financially?
- 1:28:11Speaker 2: Well, what do I live on? I have my Social
- 1:28:15Speaker 2: Security and I'm kidding no. I live on the work
- 1:28:18Speaker 2: I do, you know, the gigs I play, the performances,
- 1:28:22Speaker 2: I do the appearances, I make, the autograph sessions, I
- 1:28:26Speaker 2: do autograph conventions. I have a husband that co earns
- 1:28:32Speaker 2: with me. And the house that I'm in was just
- 1:28:38Speaker 2: an accumulation of everything I've ever done. It's just everything accumulated.
- 1:28:45Speaker 2: And I don't really I don't work a nine to
- 1:28:50Speaker 2: five job, but I consider the hours I put in
- 1:28:55Speaker 2: to writing and creating and doing things like this podcast.
- 1:29:00Speaker 2: That's my work. That's what I do. And when I
- 1:29:04Speaker 2: can make money, when I can make good money, I
- 1:29:07Speaker 2: accept the invitation to make good money. I enjoy it.
- 1:29:10Speaker 2: I do a little bit of consulting. I know that
- 1:29:16Speaker 2: my knowledge about the industry is one of the things
- 1:29:21Speaker 2: that's kept me afloat when young people that are entering
- 1:29:25Speaker 2: this business have parents that might be scared or worried
- 1:29:29Speaker 2: about their futures or how they're going to handle this.
- 1:29:33Speaker 2: I am hired as a creative consultant and I can help.
- 1:29:39Speaker 2: And I don't mind signing in das and having to
- 1:29:42Speaker 2: keep my mouth shut about because a couple of the
- 1:29:44Speaker 2: people I've worked with have gone on to become extremely famous.
- 1:29:48Speaker 2: So I'm very proud. I get to be secretly proud,
- 1:29:53Speaker 2: and just because everybody doesn't know about all the stuff
- 1:29:57Speaker 2: you do in your life. Doesn't mean you shouldn't be proud.
- 1:30:01Speaker 2: And you know the fact that I can go to
- 1:30:04Speaker 2: Trader Joe's and buy my own groceries, and you know
- 1:30:09Speaker 2: that it's a good feeling.
- 1:30:18Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back a step Rick, Okay, sick. You
- 1:30:22Speaker 1: become friends, and he's a very close friend. You're talking
- 1:30:26Speaker 1: the book about, You're inebriated, and he drives you from
- 1:30:29Speaker 1: Boston to Maine. Ultimately, in retrospect, I'm reading the book
- 1:30:35Speaker 1: at the time. He is married and has children. He
- 1:30:38Speaker 1: ultimately jumps ship for Paulina.
- 1:30:42Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:30:42Speaker 1: Do you think he was calling you from overseas producing
- 1:30:45Speaker 1: your records that secretly he wanted to be with you?
- 1:30:51Speaker 2: Well, you know, my mother certainly thought that, and so
- 1:30:56Speaker 2: did several of my friends. But I think that I
- 1:31:02Speaker 2: was in denial. If that was his intention, he would
- 1:31:08Speaker 2: write me beautiful poems too. I have beautiful I mean,
- 1:31:12Speaker 2: I have poems from him that became songs. And there
- 1:31:19Speaker 2: may have been some unrequated desire there, but he never
- 1:31:25Speaker 2: pushed himself on me. He never was Maybe he was
- 1:31:30Speaker 2: waiting to see if I would bite. I don't know,
- 1:31:34Speaker 2: but I never did. I didn't want to screw it up.
- 1:31:40Speaker 2: Relationships always seemed to screw up, and I mean when
- 1:31:45Speaker 2: I started to date Rod Stewart, it screwed up. When
- 1:31:48Speaker 2: we were friends, we had a blast, We would run
- 1:31:52Speaker 2: around together and have the greatest time, and then as
- 1:31:55Speaker 2: soon as we became lovers, it just ruined our relation
- 1:32:00Speaker 2: relationship And I still to this day, I think Rod
- 1:32:04Speaker 2: Stewart is one of the most talented, lovely men I've
- 1:32:06Speaker 2: ever known. But I wasn't the right girl for him,
- 1:32:10Speaker 2: and we weren't right for each other. We were good
- 1:32:12Speaker 2: as mates. That's what we worked as with Rick. I
- 1:32:19Speaker 2: just to have somebody believe in me like that and
- 1:32:23Speaker 2: not be trying to get in my pants. I wasn't
- 1:32:27Speaker 2: gonna let that change. For one minute. I was in heaven.
- 1:32:32Speaker 2: It was like being taken seriously. It was like working
- 1:32:35Speaker 2: with a director that you admire and he's not interested
- 1:32:39Speaker 2: in you for anything but the role you're gonna play.
- 1:32:43Speaker 1: Okay. In the book, you make a big point about
- 1:32:45Speaker 1: identifying and recording the Wild One Forever off the first
- 1:32:50Speaker 1: Tom Petty album, and you do a great version of that,
- 1:32:53Speaker 1: and it's now been reissued by the same company that
- 1:32:56Speaker 1: has your new book, Rebel Soul. So tell me the
- 1:33:01Speaker 1: story of how you got hooked and you ultimately recorded
- 1:33:03Speaker 1: that track.
- 1:33:05Speaker 2: Well, I was one of the lucky people that was
- 1:33:09Speaker 2: at the bottom line for those Tom Petty shows, the
- 1:33:14Speaker 2: multiple shows that he did. I'll just never forget it
- 1:33:19Speaker 2: in my life. You know, I've not been able to
- 1:33:21Speaker 2: meet Bob Dylan a whole lot of times in my life.
- 1:33:24Speaker 2: Every time I've met him, it's just been in passing, like,
- 1:33:28Speaker 2: you know, Hi Bob, and hi baby. Yeah, I read
- 1:33:32Speaker 2: about you and Cream, you know, you know whatever, just
- 1:33:35Speaker 2: small talk. But this was the night where I was
- 1:33:38Speaker 2: backstaying let's stop there for a second.
- 1:33:41Speaker 1: Is that a true story? You're just throwing them off.
- 1:33:43Speaker 1: Would Bob Dylan read Cream?
- 1:33:47Speaker 2: I don't know if he really did, or if he
- 1:33:50Speaker 2: just said that to be funny. I mean, you never
- 1:33:53Speaker 2: know with Bob Dylan.
- 1:33:54Speaker 1: So he actually said I saw you in Cream, that
- 1:33:56Speaker 1: means you had to be paying attention somewhere.
- 1:33:59Speaker 2: Well, you know, oh, you never know. You just never
- 1:34:03Speaker 2: know with people like that, they're very mysterious. You just
- 1:34:08Speaker 2: never know. One of the first letters I got from
- 1:34:12Speaker 2: Costello cited something that was from Cream that he had
- 1:34:19Speaker 2: written Rick that he had read. So you know, these guys,
- 1:34:24Speaker 2: they'll surprise you sometimes. You know Dylan, you know when
- 1:34:29Speaker 2: you find out that he makes iron works and is
- 1:34:31Speaker 2: one of the best painters on earth, it's shocking when
- 1:34:34Speaker 2: you see how brilliant he is all around. But the
- 1:34:39Speaker 2: whole thing with the Tom Petty thing, I'm kidding, I'm
- 1:34:44Speaker 2: losing my train of thought.
- 1:34:45Speaker 1: Oh you're perfect. You brought it back. I give you credit.
- 1:34:51Speaker 2: Well with the Tom Petty thing, it was just being there. Well,
- 1:34:55Speaker 2: that was the night I was standing and Bob was
- 1:34:58Speaker 2: sitting on one of the you know how small that
- 1:35:01Speaker 2: backstage and line was, and you had just that tiny
- 1:35:05Speaker 2: little area that had a bunch of the equipment boxes
- 1:35:09Speaker 2: and everything, and Bob was sort of sitting on one
- 1:35:12Speaker 2: and he was gonna watch I think he was going
- 1:35:15Speaker 2: to watch the band from there. And I remember Grace
- 1:35:18Speaker 2: Slick was there that night too. Everybody was very curious
- 1:35:22Speaker 2: about this Tom Petty kid. You know, this this Southern
- 1:35:26Speaker 2: boy with the best hair and with the draw And
- 1:35:31Speaker 2: I just remember Bob turning to me and he goes,
- 1:35:34Speaker 2: what am I doing? Do you want to sit here
- 1:35:36Speaker 2: on my box? And he goes it seems to be
- 1:35:40Speaker 2: the only seat, and I said, nope, I'm going to
- 1:35:44Speaker 2: go in the audience. I said I want to see
- 1:35:46Speaker 2: this from the front, and he said that's the way
- 1:35:51Speaker 2: to do it. But he didn't go to the front.
- 1:35:54Speaker 2: But I just remember the exchange him going, do you
- 1:35:58Speaker 2: want my box? He was gonna give me his seat,
- 1:36:01Speaker 2: which was very very sweet and very gallant. But that's it.
- 1:36:06Speaker 2: My exchange is with Bob Doll.
- 1:36:08Speaker 1: But we're talking about the wild One forever.
- 1:36:10Speaker 2: Yeah. So anyway, I saw Tom Petty perform that night,
- 1:36:15Speaker 2: and when I saw him do that song, it just
- 1:36:23Speaker 2: it resonated with me. It was it just grabbed me.
- 1:36:26Speaker 2: It grabbed me. And I don't even know if it
- 1:36:30Speaker 2: was on a record yet. I'm not sure because I
- 1:36:32Speaker 2: can't remember the order of the records. I just remember
- 1:36:35Speaker 2: what year this was.
- 1:36:37Speaker 1: That was nineteen seventy seven in the record, it was the.
- 1:36:40Speaker 2: Fall of seventy seven at the bottom line, right, Yeah,
- 1:36:44Speaker 2: because Live was just a little baby, she was just
- 1:36:46Speaker 2: a couple of months old and he met her. But
- 1:36:54Speaker 2: it was when I actually got the records and I
- 1:36:56Speaker 2: started listening to Tom Petty's music that it rest It
- 1:37:01Speaker 2: hit me the way the Everly Brothers. Did it hit
- 1:37:03Speaker 2: me in the way that that, you know, the first
- 1:37:06Speaker 2: time I heard that song, I will follow him, you.
- 1:37:12Speaker 1: Know, followel little Peggy March.
- 1:37:16Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go. And there just wasn't a bad
- 1:37:21Speaker 2: song in the Tom Petty repertoire. There wasn't a dud
- 1:37:26Speaker 2: in the bunch. And he just became my favorite songwriter.
- 1:37:33Speaker 2: And I chose the Wild One because I could sing
- 1:37:36Speaker 2: the shit out of it. You know. I did a
- 1:37:38Speaker 2: good job with it. And when I sang it for Rick,
- 1:37:41Speaker 2: he cried, I mean not okay, sick, but Darrenger. Darrenger goes, okay, well,
- 1:37:48Speaker 2: show me sing it for me. So I did an
- 1:37:50Speaker 2: acappella version of it for him, and I made him
- 1:37:53Speaker 2: actually get a little misty. He goes, okay, we'll record it.
- 1:37:57Speaker 2: So I mean that's how I sell everything because I'm
- 1:38:00Speaker 2: not a real musician. I can play harmonica. I'm a
- 1:38:03Speaker 2: good harmonica player. If you hand me a bass, I
- 1:38:06Speaker 2: can play a little bass. I can tink her on
- 1:38:09Speaker 2: a piano a little bit. But my mic stand is
- 1:38:13Speaker 2: my my my my piece. That is my instrument. And
- 1:38:20Speaker 2: you know, the way I get my songs across is
- 1:38:23Speaker 2: a cappella. I just Okay, the way I get a
- 1:38:26Speaker 2: riff across. If I want to get a riff across
- 1:38:30Speaker 2: to my husband when we're writing a song, I'll just
- 1:38:36Speaker 2: you know, I'll grunt it, or I'll snap it, or
- 1:38:39Speaker 2: I'll sing it. You know, just do the melody.
- 1:38:42Speaker 1: Okay, you're talking. You're talking about your husband. How did
- 1:38:46Speaker 1: you meet him? How did you decide to get married
- 1:38:49Speaker 1: for the first time? My understanding and why is it lasted?
- 1:38:54Speaker 2: Well, you know, I met Jim. It's funny because we
- 1:38:59Speaker 2: both had the same friends. We should have met years before.
- 1:39:04Speaker 2: But you know, the thing about what I keep saying
- 1:39:06Speaker 2: is that you meet the people you're supposed to. When
- 1:39:08Speaker 2: you're supposed to, you have the experiences, the life lessons,
- 1:39:12Speaker 2: the tragedies, all the stuff that goes along with all
- 1:39:14Speaker 2: the bullshit. We were both He was in a band
- 1:39:19Speaker 2: called Dost Dommen, but they had broken up, and he
- 1:39:23Speaker 2: was quite the cult figure and very respected within the
- 1:39:26Speaker 2: musical community. Dust Doman Thurston Moore Sst. Subpop, you know,
- 1:39:32Speaker 2: they they were quite the darlings of that sonic youth
- 1:39:36Speaker 2: smashing pumpkins, you know, that whole crowd, and he was
- 1:39:42Speaker 2: he was in a new band, and we were both
- 1:39:45Speaker 2: playing the Christmas party. Both of our bands were playing
- 1:39:49Speaker 2: the same Christmas party at the Continental, and we sort
- 1:39:53Speaker 2: of got a look at each other that night, and
- 1:39:56Speaker 2: it's and I thought to myself, how come I've never
- 1:39:59Speaker 2: seen him before? I mean, I noticed him, So I
- 1:40:02Speaker 2: told Hilly Crystal. Hilly Crystal was like my father at
- 1:40:05Speaker 2: the time, and I remember going down to Sebe's and
- 1:40:07Speaker 2: sitting with him at the desk and telling him all
- 1:40:10Speaker 2: about this guy that I had seen across the room
- 1:40:12Speaker 2: and I felt something for him, and it was so weird,
- 1:40:16Speaker 2: And how come I've never met him before. He's known
- 1:40:19Speaker 2: Jesse Mallin since he was fifteen. He went to NYU
- 1:40:23Speaker 2: with Rick Rubin. He grew up in Rutherford, New Jersey.
- 1:40:28Speaker 2: How Come I've not met this guy? And Hilly was like, oh,
- 1:40:32Speaker 2: I don't know. He's pretty fabulous. He's one of the
- 1:40:35Speaker 2: nicest guys I've ever met. Hilly knew exactly who he was,
- 1:40:39Speaker 2: So I'm home. I lived on Mercer Street at that point.
- 1:40:42Speaker 2: I lived on Mercer and Broadway, three hundred Mercer that
- 1:40:46Speaker 2: building and my phone rang and it was Hilly calling
- 1:40:51Speaker 2: me from CBGB's and Hilly goes, Boebe get down here.
- 1:40:56Speaker 2: I literally had five minutes from Sebe's. I go, why
- 1:40:59Speaker 2: what's going on? He goes, you know that guy, you like,
- 1:41:02Speaker 2: the one that you talked my head off about. He's
- 1:41:05Speaker 2: here right now and he's gonna be going on in
- 1:41:08Speaker 2: about forty five minutes. He's in the club as Hilly,
- 1:41:14Speaker 2: and so I think, So, of course, I just I
- 1:41:19Speaker 2: was already in my pajamas, and I threw on some
- 1:41:22Speaker 2: jeans and a T shirt and a pink puffer coat,
- 1:41:25Speaker 2: and I went down there and I just you know,
- 1:41:29Speaker 2: we met and we sort of we sort of clicked,
- 1:41:37Speaker 2: you know, and he went off that night after his gig,
- 1:41:41Speaker 2: and I thought, I'm niable I ever see him again,
- 1:41:44Speaker 2: you know, I didn't know, And and then it was
- 1:41:48Speaker 2: shortly after that that I went. It was really funny.
- 1:41:53Speaker 2: I wasn't gonna go there, you know, I was going
- 1:41:56Speaker 2: to stop into the Continental because I wanted to talk
- 1:41:59Speaker 2: to Trigger about gig. So I went into the Continental
- 1:42:03Speaker 2: and I look up and they're literally on stage. This
- 1:42:08Speaker 2: boy now my husband man. And so I invited him
- 1:42:15Speaker 2: over to my apartment because I literally lived across the
- 1:42:18Speaker 2: you know Continental, CBS my apartment. I invited him over,
- 1:42:23Speaker 2: and it's like he says, we were never a part
- 1:42:27Speaker 2: a day after that. We didn't consummate our relationship right away.
- 1:42:31Speaker 2: It wasn't like we jumped into each other's arms. We courted,
- 1:42:35Speaker 2: we did all the old fashioned stuff. We dated, We courted,
- 1:42:39Speaker 2: and we fell in love, and he asked me to
- 1:42:42Speaker 2: marry him on one knee in Atlantic City. We went
- 1:42:47Speaker 2: to Atlantic City to get away for the weekend. He
- 1:42:49Speaker 2: asked me to marry him, and then, you know, it
- 1:42:53Speaker 2: was nine to eleven sort of changed people's headspace about
- 1:42:56Speaker 2: New York. And so we moved to Maine because my
- 1:43:01Speaker 2: family is up there now, including my mother, my mother
- 1:43:05Speaker 2: who raised me in Virginia in North Carolina. So we
- 1:43:12Speaker 2: spent a few years there, and my book came out
- 1:43:17Speaker 2: in two thousand and one, right before nine to eleven,
- 1:43:22Speaker 2: which was terrible because the whole book tour I was
- 1:43:26Speaker 2: doing and everything got canceled, of course, because understandably it
- 1:43:32Speaker 2: was a horrible situation nine to eleven, as we can
- 1:43:35Speaker 2: all remember. And so we got married in two thousand
- 1:43:40Speaker 2: and two after being engaged for about a year, and
- 1:43:46Speaker 2: we've been together ever since. I've never been happier. I
- 1:43:49Speaker 2: have never felt more safe. Is that a bad word
- 1:43:56Speaker 2: to use? We said, but I feel feels safe. And
- 1:44:01Speaker 2: my husband has an amazing work ethic. He has a
- 1:44:04Speaker 2: great job. You know, he works hard, and we both
- 1:44:08Speaker 2: we both were both just hard workers. You know, I
- 1:44:11Speaker 2: I everything. I take everything seriously, even cleaning my house.
- 1:44:18Speaker 2: You know, I take that very seriously, my floors. I
- 1:44:21Speaker 2: like cleaning my own house. I like cleaning my floors.
- 1:44:25Speaker 2: I like cleaning my bathroom. I like cooking beautiful meals.
- 1:44:29Speaker 2: I like being there for my friends. You know. I
- 1:44:32Speaker 2: love doing the creative consultant work because I can do
- 1:44:36Speaker 2: it sort of undercover. Nobody has to even know that
- 1:44:41Speaker 2: I'm doing it.
- 1:44:42Speaker 1: Okay, I'm talking to you now. You were a model.
- 1:44:48Speaker 1: You don't appear to have any plastic surgery. How do
- 1:44:53Speaker 1: you feel about being an older woman in society.
- 1:44:57Speaker 2: Well, I've had a little bit of plastic surgery. I'm
- 1:45:00Speaker 2: not going to say that I've never gotten any botox
- 1:45:03Speaker 2: or I didn't get a tweak here and there. But
- 1:45:06Speaker 2: I did all that stuff a long time ago. I
- 1:45:09Speaker 2: did that when I was in my forties because that
- 1:45:13Speaker 2: was when I still felt insecure. You know, about who
- 1:45:16Speaker 2: I was. I don't think I really came into me
- 1:45:20Speaker 2: until I was in my fifties and I just started
- 1:45:24Speaker 2: to not care anymore. So if I start to droop
- 1:45:27Speaker 2: a little or I'm okay with that, it doesn't scare me.
- 1:45:34Speaker 2: It might have scared me when I was younger, but
- 1:45:36Speaker 2: I'm not sure for what kind of reasons. Because I
- 1:45:40Speaker 2: feel like whatever changes we go through physically, we're all
- 1:45:44Speaker 2: in the same boat. We're all just walking each other home.
- 1:45:48Speaker 2: Everybody's going to die, and everybody's going to get a
- 1:45:51Speaker 2: droopy face, you know. I mean, it's just going to
- 1:45:53Speaker 2: happen to all of us. So it's what we do
- 1:45:57Speaker 2: with the time that we've got. And right now, with
- 1:46:00Speaker 2: the time that I've got, I want to let not
- 1:46:03Speaker 2: just women but men. I want all humans, people that
- 1:46:08Speaker 2: identify as both men and women, people that identify as nothing.
- 1:46:13Speaker 2: I want everybody to know that none of that should
- 1:46:16Speaker 2: stop you from doing what you do, none of it
- 1:46:19Speaker 2: whatever brings you happiness. I sound like a meme, I
- 1:46:23Speaker 2: sound like one of those Facebook affirmations or something, but
- 1:46:29Speaker 2: it's true. I feel like I'm much more beneficial to
- 1:46:33Speaker 2: women now at my age because I can actually say,
- 1:46:38Speaker 2: you know, I'm not going to say that was a
- 1:46:41Speaker 2: bad choice or a good choice. You know, people go, oh,
- 1:46:46Speaker 2: don't you wish you had married this guy? And don't
- 1:46:48Speaker 2: you wish you had done this? And don't you wish
- 1:46:50Speaker 2: you had had more children? And well, of course sometimes
- 1:46:53Speaker 2: I think about stuff like that, but I don't dwell
- 1:46:57Speaker 2: on it. I've learned how to discipline myself. And as
- 1:47:01Speaker 2: Tina would say, not your renguaekio, no, your ranguae kill.
- 1:47:05Speaker 2: That helps. Chanting really helps you to focus. You know,
- 1:47:11Speaker 2: you don't even understand why, but I have to focus
- 1:47:17Speaker 2: on bringing as much positivity, not just to myself but
- 1:47:22Speaker 2: to others. That's important to me.
- 1:47:24Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to your more renegade years when
- 1:47:28Speaker 1: you weren't married. A lot of rock stars you see
- 1:47:33Speaker 1: them with women, and the women are perceived as eye candy.
- 1:47:37Speaker 1: I've certainly been around somewhere that has been the case.
- 1:47:41Speaker 1: Needless to say, you are a very verbal woman, so
- 1:47:46Speaker 1: and a lot of these you know, unfortunately a lot
- 1:47:48Speaker 1: of these rock stars speak through their music. They don't
- 1:47:50Speaker 1: have much to say, but that certainly is not all
- 1:47:52Speaker 1: of them. So you mention all of these iconic people,
- 1:47:57Speaker 1: did they pursue you or were you constantly putting yourself
- 1:48:02Speaker 1: out there?
- 1:48:04Speaker 2: You know, I don't know how to put I was
- 1:48:08Speaker 2: living the life that I was living. I was living
- 1:48:11Speaker 2: the life of the girlfriend of a rock star. So
- 1:48:14Speaker 2: of course you get invited to all the parties. I mean,
- 1:48:17Speaker 2: everything that happens, you get invitations. I mean Todd and
- 1:48:20Speaker 2: I used to get invitations delivered to our doors by courier.
- 1:48:24Speaker 2: And Liz Dringer was my best friend, and she was
- 1:48:28Speaker 2: married to Rick Derringer, and she was a journalist and
- 1:48:31Speaker 2: she was really plugged into the scene. Ron Delsner was
- 1:48:35Speaker 2: our best friend, and whenever there was a great show,
- 1:48:40Speaker 2: Ron would call and say, you're on the list, meet
- 1:48:43Speaker 2: me backstage at eight fifteen or whatever. You know, we
- 1:48:46Speaker 2: were living the lifestyle, and through living the lifestyle, a
- 1:48:52Speaker 2: lot of relationships were formed and made. It's really it's
- 1:48:59Speaker 2: not something you can plan, because.
- 1:49:02Speaker 1: It's certainly not something to planned. You were in the area,
- 1:49:06Speaker 1: But you have recited a litany and I don't mean
- 1:49:08Speaker 1: that in any negative sense of household names. Right, So
- 1:49:14Speaker 1: did they hear you were available or did you run
- 1:49:17Speaker 1: into them and say, hey, I would be pursued.
- 1:49:21Speaker 2: I mean of course Mick Jagger. He pursues when when
- 1:49:24Speaker 2: Mick wants to date you, he he brings out all
- 1:49:28Speaker 2: the bells and whistles. It's it's it's very charming, and
- 1:49:32Speaker 2: he's notoriously Mick. And you know, I dated Jack Nicholson,
- 1:49:37Speaker 2: So I've been with some of the great flirts, the
- 1:49:41Speaker 2: great Don Juan's of history. I've done that, and I
- 1:49:47Speaker 2: don't regret it for one minute. You know, dating Jack
- 1:49:52Speaker 2: was never I knew it was never going to be serious.
- 1:49:55Speaker 2: I knew that, but I enjoyed his company so much.
- 1:49:59Speaker 2: We had so much much fun together. We would just
- 1:50:02Speaker 2: drive around, you know, he loved to He would show
- 1:50:06Speaker 2: up when I would be in la He had this
- 1:50:09Speaker 2: white Volkswagen that he had for his entire life. It
- 1:50:13Speaker 2: was and I wouldn't say it was beat up, but
- 1:50:15Speaker 2: it was an old Volkswagen that he would drive around
- 1:50:18Speaker 2: Hollywood when he wanted to be undercover. And one time
- 1:50:21Speaker 2: I was staying in Laurel Canyon with my girlfriend Pam,
- 1:50:24Speaker 2: and his house was over on Mallholland, and he showed
- 1:50:28Speaker 2: up at Pam's in the white Volkswagen. And I'll just
- 1:50:32Speaker 2: never forget him getting out of the car. With a
- 1:50:34Speaker 2: white Volkswagen with some flowers that he had picked and
- 1:50:39Speaker 2: wild of course, and just being I introduced him to
- 1:50:45Speaker 2: Pam and he was just so polite. He used to
- 1:50:48Speaker 2: call my mother. He used to talk to my mother
- 1:50:51Speaker 2: on the phone. And Warren Beattie, who I never even met.
- 1:50:55Speaker 2: I mean when I say never met, I never met
- 1:50:57Speaker 2: him under the sheets, is what I'm trying. I never
- 1:51:01Speaker 2: dated Warren Beatty, even though he always gets listed as
- 1:51:04Speaker 2: one of my boyfriends. But I think the reason why
- 1:51:07Speaker 2: is because he and Jack were such good friends, and
- 1:51:09Speaker 2: I hung out with both of them quite a bit
- 1:51:12Speaker 2: and a lot of times over at Warren's house, and
- 1:51:16Speaker 2: Warren was an amazing piano player. I remember the very
- 1:51:19Speaker 2: first time I met Warren Beatty. Jack brought me over
- 1:51:23Speaker 2: there and when we walked into the room, Warren was
- 1:51:26Speaker 2: sitting behind the piano playing unbelievably. I was shocked. Who
- 1:51:33Speaker 2: would have ever known? But he was an exquisite piano player.
- 1:51:37Speaker 2: But no, I didn't date him, and I just I
- 1:51:41Speaker 2: enjoy the company of like minded people.
- 1:51:46Speaker 1: I I'm not just ask you then, because a lot
- 1:51:48Speaker 1: of these people I don't mean specifically, but rock stars,
- 1:51:51Speaker 1: movie stars are very narcissistic. Oh god, did they listen
- 1:51:56Speaker 1: to you? Did they want to engage in you? Did
- 1:51:58Speaker 1: they want to hear what you had to say?
- 1:52:00Speaker 2: Of course, yes, very much so. As a matter of fact, Jack,
- 1:52:05Speaker 2: when I was, you know, going through the big transition
- 1:52:08Speaker 2: in eighty eighty one where I was forming a band
- 1:52:11Speaker 2: and living in my family's cottage on the family compound,
- 1:52:17Speaker 2: and when I was trying to get the band together,
- 1:52:21Speaker 2: he would listen to all my demos and it was
- 1:52:24Speaker 2: constantly supportive and really really, really nice. And he even
- 1:52:28Speaker 2: offered one time to buy me a house. He said,
- 1:52:31Speaker 2: let me help you buy a house. He was like,
- 1:52:35Speaker 2: let me give you some stability, and he goes, I'd
- 1:52:38Speaker 2: like to help you, and I was like, no, I'm
- 1:52:40Speaker 2: not going to let you do that. I mean, I
- 1:52:42Speaker 2: look back on it now and thinking was I crazy?
- 1:52:45Speaker 1: But you know it just okay at this point in time,
- 1:52:52Speaker 1: to what degree do you interact with all these people
- 1:52:55Speaker 1: famous and not known from your earlier days?
- 1:52:59Speaker 2: Oh my god, Well, you know, the only time I
- 1:53:01Speaker 2: see people like Mick and stuff is when they play
- 1:53:05Speaker 2: I've gone to both of the times the Stones have
- 1:53:07Speaker 2: played Nashville, and but no, we're all living very different
- 1:53:12Speaker 2: lives now. Bowie, of course, you know, passed away. So
- 1:53:16Speaker 2: but he came to my daughter's first wedding, and and
- 1:53:20Speaker 2: you know, we socialized. We would see each other at
- 1:53:24Speaker 2: various events. But half the people that I used to
- 1:53:29Speaker 2: hang out with are no longer alive. Most of them
- 1:53:32Speaker 2: are gone. And and and you know a lot of people.
- 1:53:38Speaker 2: But you know, I see my daughter's father a lot.
- 1:53:40Speaker 2: He brought me up on stage when he played FONTANELLEH gosh,
- 1:53:47Speaker 2: I'll have to send you a little iPhone video of this.
- 1:53:50Speaker 2: I think you'll get a kick.
- 1:53:51Speaker 1: Out of it.
- 1:53:52Speaker 2: We did train kept a rolling together in front of
- 1:53:54Speaker 2: thirty thousand people. So, you know, I run into people.
- 1:54:00Speaker 2: I live in Nashville, so of course I you know,
- 1:54:03Speaker 2: I run into people and recording studios now and then
- 1:54:06Speaker 2: I see people here and there, Robert Plant over at
- 1:54:09Speaker 2: Sound Emporium or but you know, everybody is always So
- 1:54:13Speaker 2: I see Jules holland you know, we're still very good friends.
- 1:54:17Speaker 2: And I talked to Clive Arrowsmith quite a bit. And
- 1:54:21Speaker 2: I you know, I've kept most of my friendships. The
- 1:54:25Speaker 2: only estrangements that I have, which is very strange, are
- 1:54:30Speaker 2: with two of the most important relationships of my life,
- 1:54:34Speaker 2: and I guess those were the guys I hurt the hardest.
- 1:54:40Speaker 2: I are. That's Todd and Elvis and.
- 1:54:46Speaker 1: Okay, let's switch gears very briefly give me the rap
- 1:54:51Speaker 1: on the aliens.
- 1:54:55Speaker 2: Well as I just believe that. Oh it's if I'm
- 1:55:00Speaker 2: going to put it into synopsis format, I would have
- 1:55:03Speaker 2: to say that I believe that we live in a
- 1:55:05Speaker 2: multi dimensional universe, that we are present in a three
- 1:55:09Speaker 2: dimensional world, but I feel like we're getting ready to
- 1:55:12Speaker 2: move into a five D existence on our planet. I
- 1:55:16Speaker 2: don't think we have a choice because if we don't
- 1:55:20Speaker 2: stop what's happening now, the planet is not going to
- 1:55:23Speaker 2: exist anymore and we're all going to be dead. So
- 1:55:27Speaker 2: we have to move into a five D consciousness. And
- 1:55:30Speaker 2: what is D five D's two above three. It's a
- 1:55:36Speaker 2: deeper it's a deeper understanding that these are our bodies,
- 1:55:42Speaker 2: but our souls and our consciousness are much bigger, and
- 1:55:50Speaker 2: that I believe we do this many times. I believe
- 1:55:54Speaker 2: that I believe that the soul travels many lifetimes and
- 1:56:00Speaker 2: inhabits many bodies, and goes through many experiences. As far
- 1:56:05Speaker 2: as aliens go, I believe in the multi dimensional aspect
- 1:56:09Speaker 2: of our existence. I believe that people can come in
- 1:56:15Speaker 2: and out. I believe that there's more sophisticated life forms
- 1:56:22Speaker 2: and consciousness. So I'm just trying to keep myself elevated
- 1:56:27Speaker 2: and open to the metaphysical aspect of the creation of
- 1:56:34Speaker 2: our planet, the creation of the universe. You know, you
- 1:56:37Speaker 2: can drive yourself nuts going where did it start? Where
- 1:56:40Speaker 2: did it the Big bang? Okay, who did the Big bang?
- 1:56:45Speaker 2: Who invented that? And how do you know that the
- 1:56:48Speaker 2: universe is expanding? Okay? We know that? Why? I mean,
- 1:56:52Speaker 2: you can go crazy asking yourself all these questions. So
- 1:56:56Speaker 2: the way I've decided that I can internalize it and
- 1:57:01Speaker 2: understand it the best is to just think there is
- 1:57:04Speaker 2: no beginning, there is no end, there is no time.
- 1:57:08Speaker 2: There's dimensions, and there's textures, and there's layers, and I
- 1:57:14Speaker 2: believe that we can go in and out.
- 1:57:16Speaker 1: Okay, but have you you haven't seen little green men or.
- 1:57:24Speaker 2: They? Well, the ones I met were gray?
- 1:57:27Speaker 1: Okay, how you met them?
- 1:57:29Speaker 2: Where?
- 1:57:29Speaker 1: And when?
- 1:57:30Speaker 2: Well, it's it's really this is this would take up
- 1:57:34Speaker 2: an entire one of them. Okay, just a couple, all right.
- 1:57:38Speaker 2: When I I've been having experiences with orbs or light
- 1:57:44Speaker 2: since I was very young. One of my earliest memories
- 1:57:47Speaker 2: in my crib is of these bouncing lights around my
- 1:57:54Speaker 2: crib and I could sort of they would come when
- 1:57:59Speaker 2: I wanted them to come, and they would. I thought
- 1:58:02Speaker 2: they were playing with me. I thought they were toys.
- 1:58:04Speaker 2: And I would tell my mother that I loved the
- 1:58:06Speaker 2: lights that would come to see me, that the lights
- 1:58:09Speaker 2: were fun. Thanks, you know, Mommy, I love those lights,
- 1:58:12Speaker 2: you know. And there were and of course you didn't
- 1:58:16Speaker 2: give me any lights maybe a night light. But I've
- 1:58:20Speaker 2: always felt connected to something. I've had some experiences that
- 1:58:28Speaker 2: cannot be explained at all. Like one time I was
- 1:58:32Speaker 2: in a car with my girlfriend, a Volkswagen. We were
- 1:58:36Speaker 2: high out of our brains. I'm not proud of this moment.
- 1:58:38Speaker 2: I'm not bragging or anything. We were driving, I was seventeen,
- 1:58:45Speaker 2: sixteen or seventeen, and we're driving along. This is in Jacksonville,
- 1:58:51Speaker 2: North Carolina, when my father was stepfather was stationed at
- 1:58:53Speaker 2: Camp La June, and I was getting ready to go
- 1:58:57Speaker 2: into the next lane. I was being frivolous and free,
- 1:59:01Speaker 2: and literally a voice and I am not exaggerating, said
- 1:59:07Speaker 2: don't go left. Very clearly and very loudly. And when
- 1:59:14Speaker 2: I turned my head like this, there was a giant
- 1:59:17Speaker 2: semitruck coming And if I had gone like that, I
- 1:59:22Speaker 2: would have been pulverized.
- 1:59:24Speaker 1: Well, you are here, and you're a fountain of amazing stories.
- 1:59:30Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know anybody who has as many
- 1:59:34Speaker 1: stories as you, with so many famous people. And you
- 1:59:40Speaker 1: have a new book, Rebel Soul, which is photographs of
- 1:59:44Speaker 1: you throughout your life, but also essays of your belief
- 1:59:47Speaker 1: We'll have one more topic and then we'll go. You
- 1:59:50Speaker 1: make a big point in the book that you're not
- 1:59:52Speaker 1: a groupie. Why focus on that so much?
- 1:59:57Speaker 2: The word groupie? It's just gotten soiled, you know, like
- 2:00:02Speaker 2: there's certain words. I know they're just words, But you
- 2:00:06Speaker 2: don't want to be defined as somebody that when you're
- 2:00:12Speaker 2: when you're an entertainer yourself, when you when you go
- 2:00:15Speaker 2: on stage and you make people happy and you sing
- 2:00:18Speaker 2: for people, you don't want to be known as just
- 2:00:20Speaker 2: the person that that Google goggles over the other people.
- 2:00:25Speaker 2: I just think that the word is misunderstood. I think
- 2:00:28Speaker 2: that it's been tainted to the point where it's become
- 2:00:32Speaker 2: sexist in a lot of ways. Because I don't see
- 2:00:35Speaker 2: it used to define men ever, and I I just
- 2:00:42Speaker 2: at this point in my life. I've been married forever,
- 2:00:46Speaker 2: and I consider myself a nurturer and a healer and
- 2:00:49Speaker 2: a person that loves to give. I'm just not in
- 2:00:54Speaker 2: a comfortable place where i can deal with being tagged labeled.
- 2:01:01Speaker 2: I don't want to be like a cow with a
- 2:01:03Speaker 2: tag on my ear. Oh that girl is a groupie,
- 2:01:07Speaker 2: you know. I want to be known for many things.
- 2:01:11Speaker 2: I'd rather be known as a historian and a storyteller
- 2:01:15Speaker 2: and the original Alice in Wonderland who fell through the
- 2:01:18Speaker 2: looking glass. I'd rather be known as a person that
- 2:01:23Speaker 2: lived an extraordinary life, and I hope that I would
- 2:01:28Speaker 2: love my life. I would love to see a series,
- 2:01:31Speaker 2: because there are too many stories just for one documentary
- 2:01:36Speaker 2: or for one movie. I know that there's ideas that
- 2:01:39Speaker 2: people are having right now to do a documentary or
- 2:01:42Speaker 2: a movie. But I see a series, I see many episodes.
- 2:01:47Speaker 2: I don't see how you The Aliens, for instance, would
- 2:01:50Speaker 2: take up one episode. Savador Dolly would take up an episode.
- 2:01:55Speaker 2: Tom Petty would take up an episode. Just the experiences
- 2:01:59Speaker 2: with these brilliant human beings that I've brushed with, obviously,
- 2:02:07Speaker 2: you know, I touched their lives too. We've all touched
- 2:02:10Speaker 2: each other's lives, and I want people to realize that
- 2:02:16Speaker 2: I'm not a service dog. If I was a service dog,
- 2:02:19Speaker 2: I would proudly say I'm a service dog. I am
- 2:02:22Speaker 2: here to service these beautiful rock stars. I'm not a
- 2:02:26Speaker 2: service dog. I am a human being that has had
- 2:02:29Speaker 2: an extraordinary experience and extraordinary experiences and I don't even
- 2:02:35Speaker 2: have the complete formula, nor do I have the complete
- 2:02:40Speaker 2: explanation as to why. And hopefully I'll live long enough
- 2:02:46Speaker 2: that some of these wonderful experiences can be shared, and
- 2:02:50Speaker 2: not just in a little, condensed, tiny thing. I think
- 2:02:58Speaker 2: there's so much to life, you know. I think people
- 2:03:02Speaker 2: we all know each other for a reason, we all
- 2:03:04Speaker 2: connect for a reason. There must have been a reason.
- 2:03:08Speaker 2: There has to be the other way around. It's not
- 2:03:11Speaker 2: just them being in my life. I was in their
- 2:03:15Speaker 2: life too, and you're in.
- 2:03:17Speaker 1: The life of many people right now as a result
- 2:03:20Speaker 1: of doing this. Maybe I want to thank you so
- 2:03:23Speaker 1: much for taking the time to share your life and
- 2:03:26Speaker 1: thoughts with my audience.
- 2:03:28Speaker 2: Oh my god, I could do another hour with you.
- 2:03:31Speaker 2: You're just You're just interesting. I have to be honest,
- 2:03:36Speaker 2: I am a fan. My husband religiously reads your newsletter.
- 2:03:41Speaker 1: I just want to let you know that, and I'm
- 2:03:44Speaker 1: glad you did.
- 2:03:45Speaker 2: I like that well, Tick wn Gate, you know, he's
- 2:03:48Speaker 2: always been a champion of mine. He wanted to sign
- 2:03:52Speaker 2: me way before anybody and eighty one. I should have
- 2:03:57Speaker 2: gone with the Wynn Gate. He's still my friend to
- 2:03:59Speaker 2: this stay. But you know he he said that he
- 2:04:06Speaker 2: was going to ask you, if you know, if I
- 2:04:08Speaker 2: could be on your show, and I'm so glad that
- 2:04:11Speaker 2: he did. I'm grateful. See what I mean, how we
- 2:04:13Speaker 2: all know each other and how it all cross pollinates.
- 2:04:16Speaker 2: See to me, Dick Wingate and my old editor at
- 2:04:20Speaker 2: Saint Martin's like Elizabeth Byer, those are my rock stars.
- 2:04:25Speaker 2: Those are the people that I'm indebted to and that
- 2:04:29Speaker 2: I love. Danny Fields, these are my rock stars. These
- 2:04:33Speaker 2: are the people that I will love and cherish till
- 2:04:36Speaker 2: the day I die, because they're the people that believed
- 2:04:39Speaker 2: in me and gave me chances in life, chances to
- 2:04:42Speaker 2: do things myself. And there's nothing better than taking over
- 2:04:50Speaker 2: a room. I love to be in front of an
- 2:04:53Speaker 2: audience with a microphone. I don't even need instruments. I
- 2:04:57Speaker 2: don't need anything. I'll sing the whole thing without one
- 2:05:02Speaker 2: drop of an instrument. It brings me so much joy.
- 2:05:07Speaker 2: But anyway, I'm thrilled and honored. It's an honor to
- 2:05:10Speaker 2: be with you, mister Bob.
- 2:05:12Speaker 1: I think you and I'm glad I had the chance
- 2:05:16Speaker 1: to talk to you. In any event, till next time.
- 2:05:20Speaker 1: This is Bob left Sis