Latest / DISGRACELAND / Mama Cass Elliot (Pt. 1): Dangerous Drug Dealer Boyfriends, International Arrests, and the Solo Career That Should’ve Been

Transcript

Mama Cass Elliot (Pt. 1): Dangerous Drug Dealer Boyfriends, International Arrests, and the Solo Career That Should’ve Been · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:13
Speaker 1: the Mamas and the papas Mama Cass Eliot are insane.
0:18
Speaker 1: Cass broke the mold, shattering expectations of what a female
0:22
Speaker 1: pop star should be. She battled weight issues with extreme
0:26
Speaker 1: dieting routines that often landed her in the hospital. She
0:30
Speaker 1: was arrested in London for theft. Like most pop stars
0:35
Speaker 1: in the sixties, Mama Cass did lots of drugs, but
0:39
Speaker 1: unlike most pop stars, she dated not one, but two
0:43
Speaker 1: dangerous drug dealers. Mama Cass was also at the center
0:48
Speaker 1: of the Manson family murders. In her actions may be
0:51
Speaker 1: why the true motive for those murders has been hidden
0:54
Speaker 1: for over fifty years. But throughout her career, Mama Cass
0:58
Speaker 1: performed with a charisma and sang with a voice that
1:02
Speaker 1: was not seen or heard in pop music prior and
1:05
Speaker 1: Mama Cass Elliott made great music. Unlike that music I
1:10
Speaker 1: played for you at the top of the show. That
1:12
Speaker 1: wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my
1:16
Speaker 1: melotron called me Cha Cha Suit Chacha MK one. I
1:21
Speaker 1: played you that loop because I can't afford the rights
1:24
Speaker 1: to Monday Monday by The Mamas and the Papas. And
1:27
Speaker 1: why would I play you that specific slice of Ba
1:30
Speaker 1: Da Ba Da Da Da Cheese? Could I afford it?
1:35
Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
1:39
Speaker 1: May seventh, nineteen sixty six, And that was the day
1:43
Speaker 1: that Cass Elliot truly became a star, gaining her entry
1:46
Speaker 1: into a world of Hollywood celebrity and hedonism, a world
1:50
Speaker 1: that her presence would perhaps forever alter with disastrous results.
1:56
Speaker 1: On this episode, a London arrest would hedonism California dreaming
2:02
Speaker 1: in Mama Cass, I'm Jake Brennan in This is Disgraceland.
2:37
Speaker 1: It was innocent entertainment in the City of Sin. Mama
2:41
Speaker 1: Cass Elliott at Caesar's Palace Circus Maximus. Mama Cass's solo
2:47
Speaker 1: stage debut, like the woman herself, was to be Extra.
2:52
Speaker 1: Mama Cass, formerly one of four uniquely compelling singers in
2:56
Speaker 1: the hip hop group The Mamas and the Papas, personified
2:59
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty eight American vision of Extra. Cass was
3:04
Speaker 1: extra everywhere, from her big, charismatic voice to her technicolor
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Speaker 1: hippie fashion to her physicality. She was the first plus
3:13
Speaker 1: sized female pop singing sensation, and there was nothing subtle
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Speaker 1: about her. America loved her. The record buying and TV
3:21
Speaker 1: consumed public welcomed all of the extra that cass Ellio
3:24
Speaker 1: had brought to popular culture as an innocent version of
3:27
Speaker 1: the whole hippie thing. Mama Cass wasn't dangerous. Mama Cass
3:31
Speaker 1: wasn't Jim Morrison, Mama Cass wasn't Jimmy Hendrix. Mama Cass
3:36
Speaker 1: was Mama Cass a real straight shooter. Whatever that meant,
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Speaker 1: America could accept her, even if her former bandmates could not.
3:45
Speaker 1: Little did Cass know her bandmates were there in the
3:48
Speaker 1: audience that night, Michelle and John at least, and so
3:52
Speaker 1: was half of Hollywood's entertainment industry, there to support their
3:55
Speaker 1: friend Cass Elliott as she dropped the Mama from her
3:58
Speaker 1: moniker and embarked on her solo ca in Earnest with
4:00
Speaker 1: her debut performance. Mia Farrow, Sammy Davis Junior Peter Lawford
4:05
Speaker 1: were right there up front. Joan Biahs sent flowers backstage.
4:10
Speaker 1: Jimmy Hendricks was in the crowd too, No shit, Jimmy
4:13
Speaker 1: Hendrix there to see her. Cass Elliott She'd come a
4:18
Speaker 1: long way from Mama Cass. Mama Cass was yesterday, Mama
4:22
Speaker 1: Cass was fat jokes. Mama Cass was a John Phillips production.
4:27
Speaker 1: This debut at Caesar's Palace was a solo production. John
4:31
Speaker 1: that prick. He never wanted cast in the band to
4:34
Speaker 1: begin with, supposedly because her voice didn't blend with the
4:37
Speaker 1: voices of him and his wife Michelle, or with Denny
4:40
Speaker 1: Daugherty's bullshit. Cass's voice was the voice John didn't want
4:46
Speaker 1: cast in the band because he thought she was too fat.
4:49
Speaker 1: It was that simple, John alfho Fuco that he was
4:53
Speaker 1: didn't hide his true colors when the rock press wasn't
4:55
Speaker 1: around either. After the Mama's in the Papa's first bit
4:59
Speaker 1: of success with their debut album If You Can Believe
5:01
Speaker 1: Your Eyes and Ears and their megawatt hit singles California
5:05
Speaker 1: Dreaming in Monday, Monday, music that revolutionized pop music, music
5:10
Speaker 1: that took traditional folk and alchemized electric instruments and jazz
5:13
Speaker 1: vocal arrangements into some sort of irrepressible pop gold. Hits
5:18
Speaker 1: that radio could not deny, Hits that Americans, both kids
5:22
Speaker 1: and parents could not deny. Once that music exploded onto
5:26
Speaker 1: the scene, making tremendous stars of each of the four
5:28
Speaker 1: members of The Mamas and the Papas inevitably, talk of
5:32
Speaker 1: solo careers crept into the band's conversations. John was unthreatened
5:37
Speaker 1: by Cass seeking fame outside of the group, at least
5:40
Speaker 1: he postured as such, telling Cash she could go right
5:43
Speaker 1: ahead and start a record label called Fat Records. Hits stung,
5:48
Speaker 1: but Cass took it in stride. She knew there was
5:51
Speaker 1: power in her voice. She knew that whatever that extra
5:54
Speaker 1: thing was, it took a singer from being just a
5:56
Speaker 1: deliverer of a song and transformed them into being a star.
6:00
Speaker 1: He knew that she had it. She knew that her
6:02
Speaker 1: voice was the voice. Sure, Denny could sing, and so
6:05
Speaker 1: too could John, of course, and Michelle was pretty enough,
6:08
Speaker 1: even if she could just barely hold a tune. But
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Speaker 1: Cass was a singer born to sing, biologically designed to sing.
6:16
Speaker 1: Who cared if she didn't look like one of those
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Speaker 1: beautiful young girls from the canyon that John's song seemed
6:21
Speaker 1: to soundtrack. Cass had it. Work counted in spades, and
6:25
Speaker 1: she was charismatic too. Her personality was a new kind
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Speaker 1: of hippie innocence, but digging into deeper and there was
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Speaker 1: a body, funny, good time gal that everyone who came
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Speaker 1: in contact with love John Lennon, her hero beatle. John
6:40
Speaker 1: was a fan and a friend, maybe even an admirer.
6:44
Speaker 1: That shit blew Cass's mind, but it was true. He
6:47
Speaker 1: was right there. On film and Bob Dylan's tor film
6:50
Speaker 1: from Over in London. In sixty six eat the document,
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Speaker 1: Cass almost fell out of her seat. She heard none
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Speaker 1: other than Bob Dylan and John Lennon talking about her
6:58
Speaker 1: from the back of a limo, glowing beneath the haze
7:00
Speaker 1: of grass and the glare of Da Pennebaker's sun gun.
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Speaker 2: I don't know about the model, then, Papa, I believe
7:07
Speaker 2: you are backing them very bigly over there. Great, I
7:09
Speaker 2: knew we did that.
7:11
Speaker 1: I believe you are backing them.
7:12
Speaker 2: Nah, you just just did in the Big Chick, right.
7:17
Speaker 1: You interested in the big Chick. She got a hold
7:19
Speaker 1: of you too. She's got a hold of you too.
7:23
Speaker 1: She's got a hold of everybody. I know. Everybody asked
7:26
Speaker 1: me the same thing, and I don't know what they mean. That,
7:30
Speaker 1: of course, is a horrible, cheasy recreation of an incredibly
7:32
Speaker 1: cool scene from the film Eat the Document that me
7:34
Speaker 1: and my friend Chris recorded one night over one too
7:36
Speaker 1: many bourbons. Regardless, we highly recommend you check out the
7:38
Speaker 1: original film after listening to this podcast. Now back to
7:42
Speaker 1: our regular schedule programming cast. Knew what John and Bod
7:47
Speaker 1: meant too. She was a novelty. No her talent was
7:50
Speaker 1: too intense for that, but her size was immense enough
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Speaker 1: to make her an aberration. She broke the mold. All
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Speaker 1: that weight and all that confidence, big girl weren't supposed
8:00
Speaker 1: to behave that way. Where did she get the gall
8:03
Speaker 1: to be that charismatic? Shouldn't she have been ashamed for
8:06
Speaker 1: not looking like Michelle, for not looking like Mia both
8:09
Speaker 1: in the audience right now at Caesar's watching her. How
8:12
Speaker 1: could Cass possibly stand the glare? Truth was, Cass could
8:18
Speaker 1: hardly stand the glare, but it wasn't entirely due to
8:21
Speaker 1: insecurity surrounding her way on stage in front of a
8:25
Speaker 1: sold out audience of Vegas hipsters, gamblers, mafioso friends, and
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Speaker 1: seinsters from the Hollywood entertainment industry, admire as she admired
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Speaker 1: more than they could possibly know, all waiting for her
8:36
Speaker 1: to turn in what was expected to be a dynamic
8:38
Speaker 1: solo debut performance, Cass Elliot stood stone still in the spotlight,
8:44
Speaker 1: preparing to show the world that she was more than
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Speaker 1: just a fat chick, and the mamas and the papas
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Speaker 1: that she was Cass Elliott to prove to them that
8:52
Speaker 1: she was an artist on the level with Jimmy Hendrix,
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Speaker 1: on the level with Sammy Davis Junior. She steeled herself
8:58
Speaker 1: to do the one thing that letter to this momentous
9:01
Speaker 1: point in her life, to sing, except she couldn't. Her voice,
9:08
Speaker 1: her one weapon that no one could neutralize with a
9:10
Speaker 1: fat joke, was gone. She froze and the band fumbled.
9:17
Speaker 1: Cass blurted out a weak melody. The band forced fake smiles,
9:21
Speaker 1: cast missed entire vocal phrases, and the audience looked at
9:24
Speaker 1: each other for answers, and there were none. Cass stumbled
9:27
Speaker 1: through the opener. The audience applauded weakly. The band kicked
9:31
Speaker 1: into the next number. Cass sang flat. The audience shifted uncomfortably.
9:35
Speaker 1: The band braced for a long night. Cass smirked. Cas
9:39
Speaker 1: fumbled to the finish of the song. She made bad
9:42
Speaker 1: self deprecating banter some and the audience got up and left.
9:46
Speaker 1: John Phillips sat satisfied. Michelle felt for her old friend.
9:50
Speaker 1: Mia wondered what Frank kept going on at the Sands.
9:52
Speaker 1: Kas kicked into another tune. The band buckled up. Hendrix
9:56
Speaker 1: vau must Sammy Davis scanned Amateur Hour wondered what Frank
9:59
Speaker 1: kept got going on at the Sands. Cass felt woozy,
10:02
Speaker 1: her voice was fading faster and faster, and there was
10:05
Speaker 1: a second show. Fuck would there even be an audience
10:08
Speaker 1: to not sing to? The Vegas hipsters bounced, The gamblers
10:12
Speaker 1: returned to their tables. The tourist got a story to
10:14
Speaker 1: bring back to their barbershops and bingo parlors. Peter Lawford
10:17
Speaker 1: ran through the Blue Fact Girl jokes in his head
10:19
Speaker 1: to pass the time. Clark Sammy decided Frank at the
10:22
Speaker 1: Sands was the place to be in skatamuched. Cass apologized
10:26
Speaker 1: and promised a better second show. She failed to deliver.
10:29
Speaker 1: Two weeks of shows, two nights each, forty grand a
10:32
Speaker 1: week down the drain. Cass knew the rest of the
10:35
Speaker 1: shows weren't going to happen, not after this disaster. She
10:38
Speaker 1: knew it when she hit the backstage, and she knew
10:40
Speaker 1: it when she saw him there. He was still there, Pick.
10:48
Speaker 1: He was there before the set, and he was there
10:50
Speaker 1: after the set. He was always there until he wasn't.
10:54
Speaker 1: And that was a problem. He was a problem. At
10:58
Speaker 1: least that's what Cass's friends thought. But to Cass, Pick Dawson,
11:02
Speaker 1: international man of mystery, he of the violently handsome good
11:05
Speaker 1: looks and endless stash of class A substances, was the
11:09
Speaker 1: love of her life. But don't tell Pick that Pick
11:13
Speaker 1: was there for his own reasons, to rub up against history,
11:17
Speaker 1: to rub elbows with Cass's famous friends, to up his
11:20
Speaker 1: resume from drug dealer to Hollywood star, perhaps on the
11:23
Speaker 1: wings of one of his girlfriend's connections. For that to happen,
11:27
Speaker 1: though Cass had to perform. Cass had to keep her
11:30
Speaker 1: star and ascendance. Cass couldn't blow the show, despite the
11:34
Speaker 1: fact that before going on stage that night at Caesar's,
11:38
Speaker 1: it was clear to everyone backstage that Cass was in
11:41
Speaker 1: no shape to perform. Blame it on her fever, Blame
11:44
Speaker 1: it on her tonsils, Blame it on the crash dieting
11:47
Speaker 1: she put herself through for the past six months in
11:49
Speaker 1: preparation of her solo debut. She weighed three hundred pounds
11:53
Speaker 1: when she started the diet, and then lost a hundred
11:55
Speaker 1: of it from basically starving herself. Then she resorted to
11:58
Speaker 1: a diet of mainly milk and cream and regained quickly
12:02
Speaker 1: another fifty pounds. Physically, she was in no shape to perform.
12:07
Speaker 1: Pick took matters into his own hands. He dipped into
12:10
Speaker 1: his supply of Iranian hashish, chipping bricks backstage and smoking
12:15
Speaker 1: casts up to alleviate her pain. When that didn't work,
12:18
Speaker 1: he turned to the hard stuff and shot cast up
12:21
Speaker 1: with this heroine. By the time cast at her mark
12:24
Speaker 1: at Caesar's, she was near blotto, on top of being fevered,
12:28
Speaker 1: and with her voice failing. During the sets closer, Cass
12:33
Speaker 1: ran through the motions of her solo hit, her version
12:35
Speaker 1: of the nineteen thirty one Andre Schwan and Kahn dance
12:39
Speaker 1: tune dream A Little Dream of Me. It was functional
12:42
Speaker 1: at best. Cass was gone her head in the past.
12:47
Speaker 1: Just a few years ago. It was all so easy,
12:50
Speaker 1: so simple. She opened her mouth to sing, and the
12:52
Speaker 1: world opened itself up to her. The mamas and the
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Speaker 1: papas were celebrated. FEEDI accepted, which was of course all
12:59
Speaker 1: casts were wanted from her earliest days in the burgeoning
13:02
Speaker 1: folk scene back in Greenwich Village to be accepted. And
13:06
Speaker 1: then that little dream she dreamed came true. It seemed
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Speaker 1: that every day brought a new adventure. Cass remembered back
13:13
Speaker 1: to sixty seven, just a year earlier, off the coast
13:17
Speaker 1: of Massachusetts, on board the SS France and off to
13:21
Speaker 1: London were her crush Beatle John awaited. The Mamas and
13:25
Speaker 1: the Papas were embarking on their limitless future, a five
13:28
Speaker 1: day cruise across the Atlantic. Everything seemed possible until it didn't.
13:37
Speaker 1: When they arrived abroad, authorities were waiting for her, for
13:41
Speaker 1: Mama Cass to place her under arrest. October tenth, nineteen
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Speaker 1: sixty seven, Southampton Dock, United Kingdom, America's innocent pop star
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Speaker 1: Mama Cass Elliot in handcuffs, arrested on the trumped up
14:19
Speaker 1: charge of stealing towels and soap from a hotel upon
14:22
Speaker 1: her previous London visit. But in reality, once British authorities
14:26
Speaker 1: got Cass and the cooler, all they wanted to talk
14:29
Speaker 1: about was our international man of mystery, slash on again,
14:33
Speaker 1: off again, boyfriend Pick Dawson. The arrest in nineteen sixty
14:37
Speaker 1: seven was for a minute, anyway, all anyone back home
14:40
Speaker 1: in the States could talk about. It will remain one
14:43
Speaker 1: of America's most infamous busts from the world of pop
14:46
Speaker 1: stardom until two years later in nineteen sixty nine, when
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Speaker 1: another arrest for the murder of one of cass Elliot's
14:52
Speaker 1: good friends would nearly eradicate casses seemingly innocent bust from
14:57
Speaker 1: the pop consciousness.
15:02
Speaker 2: We have a weird homicide late last night, another bizarre
15:08
Speaker 2: murder in Los Angeles, the second in two days. Roman Polanski,
15:12
Speaker 2: the film director and husband of Sharon Tate, Paul Newsman
15:16
Speaker 2: to a hotel in Hollywood today and there he made
15:18
Speaker 2: a long emotional statement, told a good deal of what
15:21
Speaker 2: had been on his mind since his pregnant wife and
15:23
Speaker 2: four others were killed at their home on August eighth.
15:26
Speaker 2: Twenty one year old Susan Atkins is involved in still
15:30
Speaker 2: another murdered case.
15:32
Speaker 1: She appeared in the Santa Monica City courtroom this morning
15:35
Speaker 1: to enter a plea in a trial stemming from.
15:37
Speaker 2: The July thirty first murder of thirty four year old
15:41
Speaker 2: Gary Hinman, Los Angeles police have placed miss Atkins.
15:45
Speaker 1: Also known as Sadie Gluts.
15:47
Speaker 2: At the scene of the Teat murder, taking into account
15:50
Speaker 2: the published report in the Los Angeles Times, the story
15:53
Speaker 2: that Susan Atkins told about what allegedly happened that night
15:57
Speaker 2: after the murder at the Tate House from Clo Drive
16:01
Speaker 2: at the base of Benedict Canyon. Up here we found
16:05
Speaker 2: some trousers and some shirts appeared to be turtleneck shirts
16:10
Speaker 2: or something dark in color. Did they appear to have
16:14
Speaker 2: any stains on them? This is where they live among
16:17
Speaker 2: the state Les barns and tony buildings of an.
16:20
Speaker 1: Old rundown movie location, twenty miles from Los Angeles.
16:24
Speaker 2: They called themselves the Family. Five members are now in
16:29
Speaker 2: jail on other charges in the Desert John of Independence.
16:32
Speaker 2: The family's leader, Charles Manson, is jailed here. It is
16:36
Speaker 2: expected that he will be charged on the Tate murders.
16:40
Speaker 2: Weird hot Side.
16:50
Speaker 1: Charles Manson was arrested on October twelfth, nineteen sixty nine,
16:54
Speaker 1: in Death Valley, California, for grand theft auto. It took
16:57
Speaker 1: authorities a minute, but with Manson and and fellow Manson
17:01
Speaker 1: family member Susan Atkins also behind bars and blabbing like
17:04
Speaker 1: a schoolgirl. The investigators connected to dogs, and by the
17:07
Speaker 1: end of the year formerly charged the career criminal and
17:10
Speaker 1: cult leader with the Tate LaBianca murders. LA County Deputy
17:15
Speaker 1: District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi went to work piecing together a
17:19
Speaker 1: fantastical tale that supposedly detailed Charles Manson's motive for the murders.
17:25
Speaker 1: It involved uber dark, acid induced inspiration from the Beatles
17:29
Speaker 1: so called White Album, converting teenage runaways into savage murderers
17:34
Speaker 1: with orgies, endless amounts of drugs, Verbo's preachings on nouveaux
17:38
Speaker 1: hippie interpretations of togetherness, ego, and the dangers of the establishment,
17:43
Speaker 1: some twisted idea of jump starting a race war between
17:46
Speaker 1: America's black and white populations, in which Charles Manson himself
17:50
Speaker 1: would remain in the end king of the world. His
17:54
Speaker 1: supposed motive also involved a healthy dose of spite, jealousy,
17:58
Speaker 1: and rage aim at Hollywood's music and entertainment industries that
18:02
Speaker 1: had rejected Manson because of his supposed complete lack of
18:06
Speaker 1: anything resembling actual musical talent. It was a lot to swallow,
18:12
Speaker 1: but somehow America did just that. It was an explanation,
18:17
Speaker 1: and after Mama cass Elliott's good friend Sharon Tate was
18:21
Speaker 1: savagely murdered along with six others, America desperately needed an explanation.
18:29
Speaker 1: Historians painted Charles Manson's arrest as the punctuating moment in
18:33
Speaker 1: mid century American culture, that moment when the lights went out,
18:37
Speaker 1: when innocence was lost, when peace and love went dark.
18:42
Speaker 1: It was December sixty nine. Charles Manson was on the
18:45
Speaker 1: cover of Life magazine. Woodstock was over, Altamont was death.
18:50
Speaker 1: The hippie dream was Donzo. Charlie Manson is dirty little
18:53
Speaker 1: hippie girl's group sex, the summer of love in a
18:56
Speaker 1: sixteen year old Sally's living room, right there on the
18:58
Speaker 1: six o'clock news. But this thinking was bullshit, convenient huey,
19:04
Speaker 1: dreamed up by lazy rock journalists and hack historians. Anyone
19:08
Speaker 1: who knew anything about the history of Hollywood and or
19:11
Speaker 1: twentieth century America knew, even back in the immediate aftermath
19:15
Speaker 1: of the Tate LaBianca murders, that America was never innocent,
19:19
Speaker 1: and that Los Angeles, even before Charles Manson, was a
19:23
Speaker 1: violent psychedelic Healscape Watts was on fire as far back
19:29
Speaker 1: as sixty five, when the Mamas and the Papa's first
19:31
Speaker 1: saying California Dreaming in lou Adler's studio on Sunset. There
19:35
Speaker 1: were snipers on the rooftops. Los Angeles was a flame.
19:39
Speaker 1: Rock had overtaken Folk mcgwynn's shimmery guitar, Sonny Cher and
19:43
Speaker 1: the what the fuck is that about? Of it all?
19:45
Speaker 1: Tanks rolling down Crenshaw, Uncle loo Venice, Jim Crazy, Charlie,
19:49
Speaker 1: Terminal Island, Kim the Vampire, the Roadmangler, Sunset Strips, sizzling
19:53
Speaker 1: with sex, sex, sex, Jack on the make Hop Gone blotto,
19:57
Speaker 1: Monkeys in the pool, The hippies are at the studio,
19:59
Speaker 1: g with the pitchforks. The kids were about to twist
20:02
Speaker 1: one up and absconde with the keys to the teaboard
20:04
Speaker 1: and the castle, and Bob Evans was the only one
20:06
Speaker 1: with a fucking clue. After sixty five, Hollywood came alive.
20:11
Speaker 1: Everything went electric. But even in its analog days, Hollywood
20:15
Speaker 1: had always been its own little Gomorrah. Studio heads were
20:18
Speaker 1: big dads who exploited young talent, male and female, not
20:23
Speaker 1: only for profit, but for sex. The agents were pimps, publicists,
20:28
Speaker 1: ministers of propaganda. Lapd moonlighted as bagman for gangster Mickey Cohen.
20:33
Speaker 1: Studio security were nothing more than fixers who made problems disappear,
20:36
Speaker 1: in pleasure perpetuate. Everyone was in on it, and most importantly,
20:41
Speaker 1: stars got what they wanted. Always didn't matter the era.
20:46
Speaker 1: If Greta Garbo wanted to steal away with a young,
20:48
Speaker 1: beautiful starlet in one of the Garden of Allas private
20:50
Speaker 1: villas without anyone being the wiser, then Hollywood made it happen.
20:54
Speaker 1: If Marlena Dietrich wanted to kill a story about her
20:56
Speaker 1: maid raping her thirteen year old daughter, then Hollywood made
20:59
Speaker 1: it happen. If Errol Flynn needed to be acquitted on
21:02
Speaker 1: the statutory rape charge of a seventeen year old, then
21:05
Speaker 1: Hollywood made it happen. If director Raoul Wallsh along with Flynn,
21:09
Speaker 1: wanted to steal John Barrymore's dead body and take it
21:12
Speaker 1: on one last cruise through town, then Hollywood made it happen.
21:15
Speaker 1: If Robert Mitchen wanted to toke up the evil reefer
21:18
Speaker 1: as early as nineteen forty eight, then Hollywood made that
21:20
Speaker 1: happen too, And If Chet Biker wanted to waste his
21:23
Speaker 1: god given talent as a first rate jazz man by
21:25
Speaker 1: pumping the big age into his veins on a nightly basis,
21:28
Speaker 1: then you got it. Hollywood made it happen. Hell, if
21:31
Speaker 1: the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, wanted
21:34
Speaker 1: Marilyn Monroe, the most beautiful woman in town, naked in
21:38
Speaker 1: his bed ready in waiting for him at Frank Sinatra's
21:41
Speaker 1: Palm Springs the state upon his arrival out West, then
21:43
Speaker 1: Hollywood made it happen. And later in nineteen sixty two,
21:48
Speaker 1: if the President's brother, Robert F. Kennedy, wanted Marilyn Monroe
21:51
Speaker 1: to keep a secret, then well that's a different story entirely.
21:56
Speaker 1: For this story, we highly recommend you check out the
21:58
Speaker 1: two part episode on Marilyn Monroe the other podcast series
22:00
Speaker 1: I as bad Lands in season one Hollywood Land. The
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Speaker 1: point is Hollywood was a company town. Anything went as
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Speaker 1: long as the company made money. This was Hollywood's m
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Speaker 1: going back to its earliest days when the eventual President's father,
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Speaker 1: Joe the Bootlegger, helped establish the town with gangster capital.
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Speaker 1: Hollywood is forever frothing with sex, depravity, violence, and greed.
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Speaker 1: There's never been any innocence In sixty nine. It was
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Speaker 1: a fucking lie and it still is. It's a cheap postcard.
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Speaker 1: They sell you over and over again in cheaper documentaries.
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Speaker 1: Manson the Murders. It was nothing more than reality flicking
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Speaker 1: the light switch on in the middle of the night
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Speaker 1: and America catching a quick glimpse of the scurrying vermin.
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Speaker 1: But before the light flicked on, the vermin were happily
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Speaker 1: partying with America's plus sized sweetheart at her home in
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Speaker 1: Laurel Canyon, and back in the late sixties, in a
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Speaker 1: haze of grass and LSD, it was becoming increasingly difficult
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Speaker 1: to tell the difference between the good and the bad guys.
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Speaker 1: But one thing's for sure, all of them, the good
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Speaker 1: and the bad, we're all getting fat at the home
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Speaker 1: of Mama Cass. We'll be right back after this.
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Speaker 2: We're were were.
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Speaker 1: Cass Elliott was the unofficial denmother of Hollywood's music scene.
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Speaker 1: In her home on Woodrow Wilson Drive was the scenes
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Speaker 1: on official clubhouse. It wasn't a crash pad, but it was,
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Speaker 1: as Cass put it, a very free house. On most afternoons,
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Speaker 1: there was a pool party David Crosby, Eric Clapton, members
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Speaker 1: of the Monkeys, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young were
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Speaker 1: all friends of Cass and as such were all regulars,
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Speaker 1: and the guests weren't just musicians. Up and coming Hollywood
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Speaker 1: A listers frequented cast as parties as well, Jack Nicholson,
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Speaker 1: Dennis Hopper, Warren Baty, Ryan O'Neill, and a young, good
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Speaker 1: looking at Donnie Wayne Johnson who would later go as
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Speaker 1: just Don and split from Hollywood for Miami and its
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Speaker 1: different type of Sonnyvice. Don Johnson, along with all the others,
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Speaker 1: were all regulars at Cass's home, and true to Cass
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Speaker 1: Elliott's spirit of openness, the party welcomed newbies, friends of friends,
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Speaker 1: anyone who seemed open and caring of the hippie ethos
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Speaker 1: of creativity and togetherness. It being Hollywood hustle, or to
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Speaker 1: put it bluntly, young ambitious men and women on the make.
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Speaker 1: Her boyfriend picked Dawson chief among them. Pick knew no bounds,
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Speaker 1: no guardrails, even within the context of the hippie movement.
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Speaker 1: Picked Dawson colored outside the lines. He moved serious drugs
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Speaker 1: kept bag company came and went as he pleased, and
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Speaker 1: had Cast convinced that someday he would marry her. But first,
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Speaker 1: of course, there was the matter of whatever score he
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Speaker 1: was trying to hook up. The new synthetic drug MDA
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Speaker 1: was Pick's newest bag. Pick had some friends, Billy Dory,
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Speaker 1: who was always slightly less handsome and mysterious than Pick,
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Speaker 1: and who, in the spirit of the sixty sexual liberalism,
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Speaker 1: was also romantically involved with Mama Cass. Despite both of
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Speaker 1: the relationships with Pick Dawson, Billy as a friend Cass
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Speaker 1: as a lover, Pick didn't care, though Pick had plenty
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Speaker 1: of relationships, including another friend who was always around, another
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Speaker 1: good looking piece of Western trade who Casts and everyone
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Speaker 1: else in their circle seemed to be in awe of,
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Speaker 1: and for good reason. She was badass, butch and mooey mysterious.
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Speaker 1: She went by the name Cowboy. Cowboy was different from
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Speaker 1: most everyone else who hung around Cass's home. Cowboy was
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Speaker 1: a vibe and scary but attractive tall real tall over
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Speaker 1: six feet, broad shouldered and stunning but somewhat masculine. She
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Speaker 1: dressed in the requisite denim and heavy leather and swayed
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Speaker 1: to the day. But on Cowboy, her build made it
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Speaker 1: all come off more gower gulch than whiskey at Go go.
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Speaker 1: Word was. Cowboy had a made for movies background, bizarre rumors,
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Speaker 1: had her origins in Tennessee post war, born from some
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Speaker 1: sort of country music royalty, and then a quick run
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Speaker 1: through the seams of the studio system, some combo of honeypot,
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Speaker 1: muscle and fixer. None of it made sense, but then again,
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Speaker 1: it was nineteen sixty nine, so all of it made sense.
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Speaker 1: Cowboy was way into guns, all kinds, and knives too.
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Speaker 1: Cowboys screamed military, the kind of military you didn't hear about,
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Speaker 1: the sneaky kind, the kind of ducks past enemy lines
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Speaker 1: at night, plants whatever needs planting, and is gone before
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Speaker 1: sun up in a way before whatever atrocity was just
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Speaker 1: committed as available in the papers for you to read about.
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Speaker 1: A cowboy liked to get high too, and she always
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Speaker 1: had the best grass, so Cass's crew let her in.
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Speaker 1: Cowboy taught Crosby how to shoot, Cowboy taught a monkey
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Speaker 1: had to swim, and Cowboy taught Mama Cass how to
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Speaker 1: properly handle a man's unique set of needs, just like
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Speaker 1: a big girl should. Cowboy came and went at Cass's
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Speaker 1: house freely, and so too did her friends. And Cassa's
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Speaker 1: boyfriends picked Dawson and Billy Doyle, all of them mixing
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Speaker 1: it up with Cassa's rock star and celebrity pals, and
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Speaker 1: most notably introducing their own strange element into the unique
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Speaker 1: Hollywood mix druggies, black magic shaman, straight up hippie losers.
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Speaker 1: Most of these Charlatans who entered Cass's home were too high,
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Speaker 1: too dumb, too starstrucker, some combination of all three. That
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Speaker 1: most would just leave an embarrassment and never return, but
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Speaker 1: some some gave off the vibe that they weren't ever
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Speaker 1: going anywhere unless it was of their own volition. The
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Speaker 1: English actor Michael Kane was not some drugged out, sunset
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Speaker 1: stripped rube who wandered into the A list scene at
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Speaker 1: Mama Cass's house by accident. Michael Kane was fresh off
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Speaker 1: of the film The Italian Job, and he entered cass
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Speaker 1: Elliott's home brimming with unnoticeable excitement and understated cool. Nineteen
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Speaker 1: sixty nine, Hollywood was in full flex, and Michael Kane
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Speaker 1: had arrived. Of course he had. He was the star
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Speaker 1: he put in the work constantly, and this was as
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Speaker 1: much his destiny as it was Cass Elliots or any
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Speaker 1: of her other megawalk guests. It was a scene, ma'am
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Speaker 1: Cass's backyard pool overflowing with sixties bash and pop, beautiful
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Speaker 1: caramel skinned, bikini clad young women everywhere, in the immediate
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Speaker 1: smell of grass, A glass of something iced and wet
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Speaker 1: quickly placed in your hand. Neil Young in the corner
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Speaker 1: looking out beyond his scraggly black bangs over his acoustic guitar,
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Speaker 1: Peter Torque, and the monkeys running around in a kimono.
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Speaker 1: Jimmy Hendrix's experience blasting through the high five. Was that
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Speaker 1: Mia Farrow who was the older gentleman in the ascot
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Speaker 1: with the siltaire? Was that Bob here who offered him
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Speaker 1: that joint? And how old was she? She couldn't have
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Speaker 1: been more than fifteen? And where were her clothes? And
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Speaker 1: that was definitely Dennis Hobber, wild eyed and frantic, you
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Speaker 1: couldn't miss him. But who was the young man on
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Speaker 1: the sofa and the short shorts making eyes? And how
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Speaker 1: young was he? Was that Candy Bergen, such a beauty,
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Speaker 1: but she was with her moonfaced boyfriend, the music producer
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Speaker 1: Guy Doris Day's boy Terry Melcher. And what were those
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Speaker 1: women at the edge of the pool chanting? And what
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Speaker 1: was with their get up? They looked like they had
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Speaker 1: him bathed in weeks And that was definitely Dennis Wilson
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Speaker 1: from The Beach Boys in the middle of them, and
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Speaker 1: he definitely didn't seem to mind the funk. Cass went
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Speaker 1: to work making introductions, first to Pick and Billy and Cowboy.
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Speaker 1: Michael was unimpressed, so too were a Pick and Billy
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Speaker 1: and Cowboy. Then intros to more familiar faces. Michael, this
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Speaker 1: is Sharon, Sharon, this is Michael. But Michael definitely knew
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Speaker 1: who Sharon was. She was the the hottest, at least
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Speaker 1: physically speaking, actress in Hollywood at the time. The Texas knockout,
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Speaker 1: the very tall, the very leggy, and the very blonde
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Speaker 1: Sharon Tate, who was as she was most always with
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Speaker 1: her ex and now close friend Jay See bring hairstyles
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Speaker 1: to the stars, including Michael Kane. And though Sharon's husband,
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Speaker 1: Roman Polanski wasn't there, Michael could feel his presence the
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Speaker 1: whole town could. Roman was the hottest director on the
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Speaker 1: planet at the time. Steward of nineteen sixty eight psychological
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Speaker 1: horror smash the satanic thriller Rosemary's Baby. But Michael didn't
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Speaker 1: know the other's cast proceeded to introduce him to, and
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Speaker 1: he didn't care to get to know them beyond introductions.
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Speaker 1: One a friend of Roman's, a big polish brute named
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Speaker 1: Voytech Freikowski, and his slight, well heeled girlfriend, Abigail Folger.
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Speaker 1: Another pole even more brutish than another fellow, a short,
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Speaker 1: scruffy dude who was with yet another group of very young,
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Speaker 1: very filthy girls, girls who looked an awful lot like
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Speaker 1: the group of girls assembled at the end of the
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Speaker 1: pool around Dennis Wilson, and this dude, unlike Dennis and
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Speaker 1: unlike most everyone else at the party, did not appear
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Speaker 1: to be the social type. Cass introduced him to Michael
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Speaker 1: Kaine shortly after making the introduction to Sharon. Michael, this
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Speaker 1: is Charles Manson. Charles Manson gave Michael Cain a weak smile,
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Speaker 1: didn't offer his hand, and skulked away. All of the
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Speaker 1: dirty young women followed. Michael Caine felt something very strange
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Speaker 1: Emini from the freaky little hippie who just blew him off.
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Speaker 1: He looked around, Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring and this new weird,
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Speaker 1: angry little man named Charles Manson. It wouldn't be until
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Speaker 1: months later, in nineteen sixty nine that Michael Kin would
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Speaker 1: fully realize what strange company cass Elliot kept. I'm Jake
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Speaker 1: Brennan and this episode of Disgraceland is to be continued.
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Speaker 1: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
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Speaker 1: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
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Speaker 1: found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com.
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Speaker 1: slash at Disgrace, fran Pot Rock and Roller. He's a bad,
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Speaker 1: bad man.