Doctor Who … Steptoe and Son … the New Seekers at Eurovision … The Generation Game … Doomwatch … Crossroads … The Godfather … Alex Comfort’s The Joy of Sex … Columbo … loon pants … Cosmopolitan magazine … Gilbert O’ Sullivan and ‘Claire’ … ’Puppy Love’ … it’s got to be 1972.
I don’t know if I really wanted to die, I just wanted things to change, that’s why I took the overdose of aspirin last week. That’s why I ended up in hospital in Oxford, having my stomach pumped, and feeling like an idiot when I came round.
All I wanted was to go back to Witney Grammar School and my friends, and not have to go to this horrid Bicester Grammar School any more. I hate it and everybody hates me, everybody’s already got their friends and I’m so miserable and lonely I could cry … and often do. Bicester bloody Grammar School. Everyone is ignoring me or bullying me or laughing at me but Mum says I’ve got to go back anyway on Monday because there’s nowhere else to go. So I’ve got to suffer for another two years and taking the aspirins was a complete waste of time, and I feel peculiar and weak as well.
Anyway, at least it’s still only Friday. It’s good to sit here with Dad in front of the TV. The coal fire’s bright in the grate, the curtains are drawn, the world is shut out and it’s just me, him and Andy Williams.
I love The Andy Williams Show. It means the weekend is ahead which is one good reason to love it, but I’d love it anyway. When the parents decided to get back together again for a trial run last year – 1963 – they found this old house in Weston-on-the-Green and the TV’s become my new best friend.
Mum’s gone to visit her friend Mrs Hill, like she usually does at the weekends. That’s ok. Dad can cook, and we both like to sit here and relax. The weekend starts with the fab new show Ready Steady Go! on a Friday teatime. Keith Fordyce, well he’s a bit old-fashioned, but that Cathy McGowan is good and they often have The Beatles or Billy J. Kramer on. The Andy Williams Show is usually on just before bed.
On Saturday, after Dad comes back from the pub and the betting shop, it will be wrestling with Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy, compèred by Kent Walton in the afternoon, and then Juke Box Jury with David Jacobs, another of my favourites (the show, not him, I think he looks supercilious) and Thank Your Lucky Stars, with Brian Matthew or Pete Murray. Sometimes they’ll have Billy Fury on which makes it even more special. Sundays – they’re no use. Sing Something Simple – ghastly. Nothing to watch on TV, except perhaps Sunday Night at the London Palladium, just homework and dreading going back to that place tomorrow.
Dad’s mother, Grannie Carlisle, died just a few months ago and so he got some money from the sale of her things, and before that he sold off our house in Banbury, what was left after the mortgage, and now he’s selling bits and pieces of the furniture and nick nacks in this house, so he hasn’t run up any debt again. But he’s been made redundant from his job as a telephone sales rep so things aren’t looking good. Dad’s promised Mum that he doesn’t gamble but if he doesn’t, why does he go to the betting shop? But these weekends, we kind of ignore all that and we get on fine, my Dad and I.
Andy Williams – he is so restful, so relaxing. He smiles and I almost believe everything can be ok. He’s got such a gorgeous voice – and although he’s probably at least 30 or even older, and I’m only 14, I think I quite fancy him though I wouldn’t want to admit that to anyone. I wonder what he looks like in real life? I wonder what colour his hair is? And then he has those cute little Osmond Brothers on; they are so sweet but you wouldn’t want to admit that to anyone either. I wonder what they’ll do when they grow up?
I can remember the day now, in June 1965 after finishing my O levels, running away from that hated school down the driveway, chucking my hated brown beret in the ditch on the way home. Even now, if I ever catch sight of schoolchildren wearing brown uniform, I shiver and have to look away.
In summer 1972 I was to find out, close up, what colour Andy Williams’ hair was in real life, and in the same year, I was to find out what the Osmonds were doing now they were growing up.
I also met and interviewed, in no particular order, Slade (four times), Cilla Black, Rick Nelson, Gene Pitney (twice), Jack Jones, Neil Diamond, Johnny Nash, Glen Campbell (aiming on that day for the title of World’s Dumbest Celebrity), Anne Murray, The Sweet, The Drifters, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jonathan King, The Temptations, Mama Cass, Sacha Distel, José Feliciano, Neil Sedaka, Rick Wakeman, Michael Jackson, Peter Skellern, Tony Christie and many others.
Gene Pitney was another of the stars who could have counted me as a true fan, a few years earlier. I went to the New Theatre, Oxford, to see him perform with my friend Cookie, and collected all his records. How well I remember my brother Rob saying ‘How on earth can you go and see him – he’s dreadful! He sounds like a wailing tom cat!’
When I met him – at the Westbury Hotel in the West End, on 28 February 1972, I was delighted to find that he seemed a genuinely friendly and funny person. However, of course during interviews it wasn’t always easy to tell what someone was really like. A year or two later I met and interviewed another huge pop star more than once, who came from my early hometown of Banbury. I thought he was the most lovely man you could meet, and said so in print. I also admired him for his charitable work for children’s charities. Only trouble was, his name was Gary Glitter.
Another huge celeb who always seemed ok to me – if a bit weird – was Jimmy Savile, which all goes to show what a bad judge of character I was, as well as being such a bad judge of who was going to be a big star and who wasn’t.
That said, I do think Pitney was a great guy and all through the years I haven’t heard any dodgy stories about him at all.
Another early hero of mine, based purely on the fact that he had (from what I could tell of the photos printed of him in Roxy magazine and Marilyn magazine) beautiful blue eyes and fantastic curly Elvis-like lips, and sang cutely on a single called ‘Hello Mary Lou’ (coincidentally, written by Gene Pitney) was Ricky Nelson. Sadly when I finally got to meet him in February during his career-revival attempt through country music and a single called ‘Garden Party’, he seemed somewhat lacking in the brains and charisma departments and then later, when I dragged The Boss along to the Albert Hall to see him in concert (yes, by this time we were getting rather lovely-dovey again) that February, he was dire. So dire, we left early, with my full consent. And that was the end of my love affair with the Nelson, who was killed in a plane crash in 1985.
Have I mentioned Tony Blackburn yet in this book? No – I thought not. I don’t know why, as Tony was always popping up in our lives. By 1972 he was perhaps the top Radio 1 DJ, with masses of confidence on air and a cheery chappie radio persona which neatly summed up everything about the bubblegum days of the early ’70s and my kind of ridiculous pop. In real life, although he could be like that, he seemed to be awash with self-doubt and lack of self-belief.
For a while, he had a crush on Julie Webb. We didn’t see that much of each other by now because she was working at NME. But one day we both arrived at a lunchtime press performance by The Carpenters at the old Talk of the Town off Leicester Square. Karen and Richard Carpenter were selling shedloads of albums and the place was packed out. As a dinner-dance/theatre venue, it was cabaret-style seating at long tables, and sitting next to me and opposite Julie, was Tony.
Blackburn was upset at his lack of success with the ladies, and wanted to talk about it. He’d just met a girl called Tessa but didn’t know whether she liked him or not and wanted minute detail from me on how he should behave to gain best advantage. As the gig went on, Tony talked and talked and talked, and at the end of it I felt wrung out but quite flattered that he’d chosen to tell his troubles to me.
As I left, he was chatting to Julie. And next time I spoke to her, I found out that he’d done the same number on her, at equal length – with the difference that at the end, he asked her out. She didn’t go. Of course.
We all put up with Tony, because although he was a bit of an idiot in some respects, he was a lovable idiot, always.
Around this time there was something much more important brewing – the visit to the UK by David Cassidy.
By the time he arrived – on 7 February (a fact recorded in big letters in my diary, almost as if I was impressed by this myself) – he was the biggest star, in teenybopper terms, that the UK had ever seen. Through his role as Keith Partridge in the TV show The Partridge Family, and a string of hit records, despite being no great singer, as far as I could tell, he was massive – and the crowds at Heathrow and the hysterical fans who followed him round everywhere that week proved it. I firmly believe that if you want to be a teen idol, you can get a long, long way on great hair, a wide smile and a good set of teeth. As Mr Bieber knows today.
I was with Cassidy most of the week, and quite puffed up with a sense of my own importance as I was not only the official Fab representative but had also been commissioned by a US magazine called Star to be their UK correspondent for the Cassidy tour.
On the 8th there was a bus organised to take David and selected press, me included, round all the tourist spots of London for photo opportunities – but sadly we only got as far as Buckingham Palace and had to pack it in because the weather was dire and David didn’t want to get wet and cold.
On Thursday 10th I had my proper private interview with him at the Dorchester in his suite and had to shove hundreds of girls, who were crowding the outside, out of the way in order to get there. Even after all these years on Fab I still found this something of a buzz. I guess it made me feel glamorous, that old stardust rubbing off on little old me again. The fact that they all hated me for going to the one place they wanted to go – David Cassidy’s bedroom – kind of didn’t matter.
In truth, David Cassidy was quite unexceptional in every way, as far as I could tell, except that he had quite heavy pancake make-up on, which, in those days, wasn’t the norm apart from glam rockers on stage. This was, I daresay, an attempt to mask the spots which had broken out on his face due, no doubt, to the stress of the tour. The famous smile didn’t show itself a lot except when the photographer, David Porter, turned his camera on him; he was a bit grumpy and a bit taking himself seriously, and while he wasn’t the worst person I’ve ever interviewed he was not easy.
But hey, I went away and wrote how lovely he was, because the truth wasn’t what the teenyboppers or the pop magazine editors wanted to hear, everything had to be wonderful.
A year or two later it turned out that at the time the boy was seriously depressed about his career and looking for some proper meaning in life; he quit the business and his demeanour all that week made sense. He was just being truthful. He couldn’t pretend.
Except, of course, he was supposed to be an actor.
Mind you, he never won any Oscars. And I can understand that.
1972 was also the year I was finally to meet The Osmonds. In March 1972 they had another minor hit in the UK charts, ‘Down by the Lazy River’. Meanwhile in America they were doing much better.
One way or another (probably via Bill Sammeth’s powers of persuasion) they had managed to get a spot on our Royal Variety Performance in May. The group used the opportunity to spend several days in the UK doing press, radio and whatever TV they could get, which, as I recall, wasn’t a great deal. Thus they had to more or less make do with me – and my diary lists ‘Friday 19th, Churchill Hotel, Osmonds’ ‘Tuesday 23rd, Churchhill Hotel, Osmonds’ and ‘Wednesday 24th, 2.30pm, Osmonds’.
Of all this, I recall next to nothing. I still don’t think I was convinced at that stage.
By this time I had finished with doing beauty at Fab for good, and not a moment too early. The TV and film coverage had gone to Georgina, and I was concentrating virtually 100 per cent on music (loosely speaking, as much of it was by no means actual music as you may know it) which suited me well. I still had my coterie of music journalist friends – Julie, Richard Green (The Beast) from the NME, Nigel Hunter, who by this time was working for Music Business Weekly, and Roy Carr. Between us we always had a huge choice of freebies.
One of our favourite haunts was the murkily lit, smoke-infested Ronnie Scott’s club in Wardour Street. I don’t remember ever once paying to get in, probably because there seemed to be a music business reception, or a showcase for a particular artist or band – Long John Baldry was one of the best – there virtually every night. In March we watched Slade launch their album Slade, Alive! which was to stay in the UK album charts for over a year, at the club.
Ronnie Scott would get up on stage at the end of the reception and after a couple of polite attempts to get us to leave, would yell out, ‘Fuck off, the lot of you …’. In those days, hearing someone say those words still had an element of shock, unlike today. If we didn’t fancy fucking off, we’d just stay on all evening. But Ronnie didn’t really mind as we always ordered plenty of expensive drinks from the miniskirted girls who would roam the banks of dimly-lit tables taking our orders.
Other haunts were the Revolution club, The Speakeasy, The Marquee, Scotch of St James and The Cromwellian – but I was never a great nightclub-goer because I always used to fall asleep while all around me disco danced until dawn.
I was still living at 35 Avonmore Road – the bedsit was on the second floor and was pretty basic, with a kitchen partitioned off, a cubby hole curtained off for storage, and a room of about 18ft by 12ft containing two 2ft 6in single beds. One day in the spring of 1972 I was quite surprised when the doorbell rang and when I raced down the stairs, there, clutching a large, leather holdall was The Boss.
‘I’ve come to stay,’ he said. I was so surprised it didn’t cross my mind to say ‘no’, so he moved into the spare bed and thus began our live-in life together. He’d moved from a swish three-bedroom apartment in De Vere Gardens, Kensington W8 to a grotty bedsit in London W14. Well, that was his choice.
One day in July an invitation arrived in the post to a press reception at The Savoy – and as soon as I looked at it I knew it was one I was not going to miss. It was for Andy Williams who was going to be based in town for a few days during a large European tour. I’d met all of my other heroes from my teenage years except Andy, so I wasn’t going to let this slip by. But it was more than just ticking him off, like a trainspotter does with trains. He’d meant such a lot to me.
So at lunchtime I wandered over to The Savoy, which was only a short walk from the office on the other side of The Strand, down some stairs to the large reception room and there he was, right in front of me, it was that easy. The guy who had almost single-handedly saved my life by appearing, soothing, on TV every week when I was a depressed young teen.
He was sitting in a corner surrounded by a few journalists all scribbling notes. So I grabbed a drink and sidled over, sat down nearby and watched and listened. Trying outwardly to look cool, inwardly stomach doing somersaults because that voice was so smooth, so good to listen to, even better here in The Savoy than it had been on TV ten years or so ago. God I wished he’d start singing …
After a while, I realised he was looking at me as he was talking to one of the male journos. To run away, to blush, to ignore him or what? Well, I smiled. Just a small sort of smile, nothing too broad, I didn’t want him to think I was a member of the Andy Williams fan club or anything.
I just really wanted to have his megawatt American smile all for me alone, just once. And I got it. He grinned at me and there I was, back in Weston-on-the-Green, looking at Andy Williams but this time he was in colour – and his hair was light brown.
I got up and walked away, and downed a couple of drinks far too quickly through nerves. On an empty stomach, the first drink went straight to my head. I seem to remember it was champagne. A few people I knew drifted in and I began talking to them.
‘Aren’t you going to go and ask Mr Williams a few questions?’ said one.
‘He’d like you.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Well, I think he likes the young ladies – and I do mean young.’
‘But I’m 23!’ God that’s nearly middle-aged!’
‘Ah but with that short skirt … and you’re skinny – you could pass for 16. Today, anyway!’ And he walked off, smirking.
Williams was still surrounded by press – mostly from the nationals – and I just couldn’t bring myself to go and squeeze myself in and start asking teenage magazine questions, I just couldn’t do it.
So as the party was nearly over anyway, I decided to call it a day and walked over towards the stairs up to the foyer. I glanced over at Andy as I went, thinking well, I’ve seen him – we didn’t talk, but we did smile. That would have to do.
But at that moment he too got up; I heard him taking his leave of everyone and within seconds he, plus his record company minders, was also walking towards the stairs. As I climbed them, in probably the shortest miniskirt I had at the time, I was completely aware that right behind me, my Last Teen Hero was following me up the stairs and I could actually feel his eyes on my legs. I felt myself going hot and as soon as I got to the top I shot out the entrance of The Savoy and hurried back to the office.
It wasn’t because of my skirt length, or the fact that the legendary Andy Williams had been looking at my legs that I had felt embarrassed – it was for the simple reason that I didn’t like my legs from the knee downwards. I was kicking myself for not wearing my over-knee suede boots. But it was mid-July and in those days you just didn’t do that Alexa Chung-boho-period kind of thing with your fashion. So I was quite sure that instead of admiring me and noticing me in a nice kind of way, Andy Williams had left The Savoy going, ‘Oh, hell, just look at that girl’s revolting legs …’.
The next day I was sitting in the office gazing out of my first-floor window at the employees of IPC going in and out of the main building on the other side of Southampton Street when the phone rang.
I picked it up and a male voice with an American accent began, ‘Hi – is that Judy?’
‘Yes, it’s Judy Wills here.’
‘Hi – it’s Andy!’
That’s Andy Williams voice, I thought.
‘Andy who?’ I said.
‘Andy Williams’ the voice said, sounding slightly crestfallen.
‘Oh, hi Andy – how are you doing?’ I said, as if a) I had been expecting his call and b) I talked to him every day.
I had finally sorted out my early telephone phobia and found it much easier to be bold and laid back on the phone than in person. God, if I could have done the Isle of Wight Festival on the phone, just think what wonderful scoops I could have got.
‘Well I noticed you at The Savoy the other day and I asked who you were, so they found me your number. Hope you don’t mind …’.
‘No, not at all …’.
‘I wondered if you’d let me take you out – I haven’t much spare time, they’re keeping me busy, but can we have lunch tomorrow? I could come and pick you up in the car if you give me the address.’
So I spent the next minute giving Andy Williams my work address so he could come and pick me up next day in his car and take me out.
‘One o’ clock then – don’t be late!’ said Andy Williams in his best, smiley, familiar voice, and he rang off.
Ten seconds later.
‘Mum! Andy Williams just rang me. He wants to see me for lunch tomorrow. He’s going to come here and pick me up!’ I squeaked.
‘Mum – and do you know what? He rang me and he said, “It’s Andy here” and do you know what I said to him? I said, “Andy who?”’
My mother retold that story many times in the years ahead.
Well I told The Boss – who, you will recall, was by this time sharing my bedsit in West Kensington – that Andy Williams had rung me. But I didn’t tell him that I was going to lunch with him. Well lunch wasn’t much, was it? Lunch wasn’t a date.
Could have been work, anyway. Perhaps Andy Williams wanted to tell Fab 208 magazine all about his latest easy listening album. Perhaps Andy Williams felt that without Fab 208 magazine his whole European tour would be as nothing.
Back at home several hours were spent trying on and discarding every outfit I had, then deciding on the one I first thought of – another mini dress, floral patterned I believe, and this time I would wear knee-high canvas boots and damn the hot weather.
Washed and ironed hair, bathed.
Next morning I was glad I wasn’t a bloke because I would definitely have cut myself shaving.
And at the appointed minute, I looked out of my office window and a huge Roller was outside, and a chauffeur was getting out and making his way towards our office door. I sat and waited. A minute later the Ed’s Sec arrived at my desk.
‘Andy Williams is waiting for you downstairs,’ she said.
‘Oh, right, thanks,’ I replied, all nonchalance. The second she’d gone I gathered my handbag and scooted down the stairs, only slowing down when I reached the door to the street. At this point I took a few deep breaths and forced myself to saunter out towards the roller’s open rear door, as if Andy Williams came to pick me up every day of the week.
I jumped in and there he was – I’d thought perhaps he had just sent the car to get me, but no, he was doing a personal appearance for a rapt audience of one.
‘We’re going to have lunch at my place,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a nice house in Knightsbridge and they’re doing us food. I hope you don’t mind.’
And there followed some of the most surreal hours of my young life. We arrived at the address in Wilton Place, one of those classical gorgeous terraces tucked away between Sloane Street and Hyde Park Corner. Inside, a few hangers-on were sitting around drinking. I was introduced and Andy and I sat side by side on a squashy sofa tucked neatly into a recess. A couple of helpers buzzed around waiting on Mr Williams’ every whim.
I can’t remember what we had to eat nor exactly what we talked about but an hour or two passed with no bother, some of the time him holding my hand. Andy only left my side to go to the loo once or twice and to take occasional phone calls.
At one stage he remarked that I was uncannily like his great friend Shirley MacLaine both to look at and in personality.
‘That’s why I noticed you,’ he said. ‘She’s one of my favourite, best friends.’
I told him that was interesting because my mother used to tell me I looked like her as a kid.
During the first hour or two at that house, I became aware that there was a certain buzz in the room that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Apart from my tiny foray into the world of cannabis a couple of years previously with Jim Morrison, I still had little experience or knowledge of drugs but now looking back I am fairly sure that some of the party members were indulging in a particular illegal activity involving the use of the nasal passages and I am fairly sure that I was invited to join in – but not knowing what I was being invited to join in with, I said no, I’d stick to the alcohol.
It was well past lunchtime and I was wondering if I should be making a move to leave, when Andy told me he was going to go and have a lie down because he felt tired and had a busy night ahead. No way was this an invitation to join him. He wasn’t making a pass, he was going to pass out. At least I think that’s the way it was.
I felt kind of relieved about this – I didn’t want to sleep with him anyway, partly because of The Boss, partly because, although I felt that I should fancy him like crazy, I didn’t actually want to have sex with him, and partly because I knew I should be heading home. I didn’t want to have to fib about where I’d been. So when Andy said he was going for a lie down, I said I would just go to the bathroom then I would leave myself.
‘Oh come and use my bathroom,’ he offered. And so he led me into his room and to the loo that ran off it. In I went and spent a few minutes in there freshening up.
And when I came out, there was Andy Williams, lying flat out on the bed on his back, fast asleep, snoring very softly. He was in that special kind of a deep, dreamless sleep.
I gingerly sat down on the edge of his bed and looked at him. I took in his high forehead, his hair, his mouth, half smiling even in his sleep, his eyelids, his strong jaw, his tanned good-quality skin with the wrinkles beginning to show. I took in all of it, trying to fix this very private view of my Last Teen Hero in my memory forever. Then I bent over and kissed his forehead and whispered, ‘Bye, Andy. Thanks.’ And I crept out of the room and left his house and his life.
Was it a let down? Did I not want to be seduced? No I didn’t. I think originally that may have been his intention, but things changed, and no it wasn’t a let down. I just wanted my own close up, my own moment. And I got that just fine without the embarrassment of having to say ‘no’. It was a shame that he didn’t know I had thanked him, nor what I was thanking him for – but apart from that, it was perfect.
Whether or not I had been with The Boss, and even if Andy Williams and I had ended up in bed together, we wouldn’t have had more than a fleeting relationship, a one-nighter. I liked him, I found him polite, warm and gentle – and he had fabulously holdable hands. But really, we didn’t have a lot in common and I am sure he found me too quiet, too silly and, in a funny way, too old fashioned, to be anything more than a day’s interest in his life.
Next day in my handbag, I found the IOU note he had written me in return for me giving him my cigarette lighter. I can’t remember why he wanted the lighter, I don’t recall him smoking, but perhaps he did, or perhaps it was for someone else. I still have that note today. I never got the lighter back but who cares? The note’s much better.
Early in August I received an invitation to go to the Park Suite at the Dorchester for a reception for a new West End show – Jesus Christ Superstar. The show was already causing controversy because of its subject matter. It had opened in New York in 1971 and made a star of Yvonne Elliman, who I had trekked all the way out to Great Yarmouth to see at the behest of impresario Robert Stigwood some time earlier. I’d found her pure of voice but a trifle boring.
The West End production was to open at the Palace Theatre and the lunchtime reception was packed out and I could hardly get in the door. Standing in the melee near the entrance, looking like an apologetic teenage virgin but somehow still managing to make himself noticable for that very reason, was a small guy with longish dark hair and vestages of hippydom about him, as if he had once played an acoustic guitar around a fire at every summer festival, but had now been told to smarten up and grow up by his dad. He had a worried air, his face was almost contorted with what could have been the effort of smiling at people when really he wanted to run away. He was obviously forcing himself to greet anyone who entered. I immediately felt deeply sorry for him.
He grabbed my hand and pumped it over-enthusiastically.
‘Thank you for coming! Good to see you! I’m Andrew Lloyd Webber. Have a drink …’ he waved in the direction of the other side of the room where Tim Rice was holding forth near the bar in a much more relaxed way.
They were both very young, of course. Within weeks the pair had a mammoth West End hit and I never had cause to feel sorry for Lloyd Webber again. Later I went to see the show, with Paul Nicholas as Jesus and Dana Gillespie as Mary. Yes, I enjoyed it, yes it was good in the manner of several shows of that era – Hair, Godspell and so on. It was theatre for pop music fans, and there was nothing wrong with that. Later the duo were to make a star of another of my old acquaintances – Elaine Paige.
Back at the office in Southampton Street, the old staff were slowly being replaced by others. Betty was still Ed, Bev was the new picture editor whose boyfriend Martyn took a lot of the photos. Tom, whose real name was Brian, was the art editor, John Fearn, the old art then Ass Ed, had been killed in a car crash and Fid was now in his place. Sue James was the new fashion editor who right from the moment she arrived had the confidence, demeanour and aplomb of a future senior manager, and soon became Betty’s close ally.
While I was never going to be management or editor material like Sue obviously was, Betty had by now realised that I could be trusted on most levels to represent the mag and her in a proper manner. More than anything, she perceived that I was good with the readers and so I would often be the one to do the ‘Dream Come Trues’ – the early, original and best version of Jim’ll Fix It. Every week in the ‘mag’ there was a form for the readers to fill in, saying what their dream was. And every couple of weeks, we would select one and make their dream come true. I enjoyed this as I could select the dreams that I also would enjoy doing and having spent the past few years seeing most of my own teenage dreams come true, it seemed appropriate.
And it was fun (like being the judge at the disco dancing thing) to play god with the teenybopper’s hopes and prayers and to feel benevolent and superior all at once when you watched them achieve their dream, thanks to you and your Solomon powers.
For some strange reason, an early Dream Come True in September involved me arriving with two tiny teenage girls at the Hawaiian-themed restaurant at the top of the modern hotel, the Inn on the Park, Park Lane, to meet up with Betty Hale and a guy who had got lucky with a few hit records and a way with creating manufactured pop – Jonathan King.
The evening was a disaster – the little girls hardly spoke and neither did Jonathan King – at least not to them. While he chatted away to Betty, presumably because he felt she might be useful to him, he more or less ignored the girls and I found him rude, arrogant and boring. No doubt, if my readers had been two teenage boys he would have had a whole different take on the evening.
Shortly after that I had my first holiday with The Boss – we flew to Tunisia for two weeks during which time I got severe sunburn of the knees and chronic food poisoning from the alarming red Tunisian sausages which we were served for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.
I also nearly drowned in the deceptively vicious sea off Hammamet due to the fact that I couldn’t swim properly but had too much pride to inform The Boss, a veritable fish brought up by the Kent coast, of this. I was rescued, as The Boss swam, unconcerned about my shouting (presumably – hopefully – he thought I was just yelling in a having fun kind of way).
The person who rescued me was a weedy little guy, even thinner than me, even paler than me and with long red hair, just like me. After the third time I came up from the deep, screaming, by this time quite loudly, he plucked me up in his arms and somehow got me back to the shore where he lay me down and helped me cough up the lake of seawater I’d swallowed. The Boss eventually sauntered over, ‘What’s the matter with you,’ he grinned. ‘The waves aren’t very tall!’
By this time my rescuer was also lying on the sand, exhausted due to the effort of carrying someone who definitely weighed more than he did out of the waves. The Boss just gave him a filthy look and walked back into the swell.
Back in London it was a fairly boring October during which period I interviewed Rick Springfield (anyone remember him?), Peter Skellern (Lieutenant Pidgeon), Chairmen of the Board, Steve Ellis of Love Affair, Colin Bluntstone and, for the umpteenth time, Johnny (‘I Can See Clearly Now’) Nash, who always asked me out every time I saw him and who, always, I declined not because he wasn’t fabulous looking or because I didn’t fancy him, which I did, in a mildish kind of way, but because of The Boss.
By this time, things were beginning to hot up in the UK for The Osmonds. Their appearance at the Royal Command Performance the previous May at the Palladium had started the fan fever which by autumn had turned into full blown Osmondmania with 14-year-old Donny the main object of teen affection – he’d been at number 1 throughout the summer with his single ‘Puppy Love’.
But the other brothers were popular as well and the whole family were to arrive in the UK at the end of October to promote the new Osmond single, ‘Crazy Horses’. The older brothers were hoping to sell themselves as not just another teenybop band but as great rockers, singers and musicians in their own right. However their stab at credibility was somewhat marred by the release in the same month of their small brother ‘Little Jimmy’ Osmond’s novelty single, ‘Long Haired Lover From Liverpool’.
‘LHLFL’ managed to get to number 1 and stayed at the top for several weeks during the Christmas holiday period, rather overshadowing The Osmonds’ three weeks at number 2 for ‘Crazy Horses’.
Over the past few months I had spoken to one or other of The Osmonds on the phone to do interviews for Fab with increasing regularity, and by the time of their visit I felt I knew most of them rather well, including their mother, Olive, and father, George, both of whom took an extremely keen interest in the boys’ careers and were, basically, their managers, minders, PRs, promotion experts and PAs all rolled into one.
I had begun to realise that The Osmonds were a strong team, highly professional, and quite determined to grab every opportunity – as long as it didn’t conflict with their strong Mormon beliefs which included no alcohol, drugs or tobacco, no caffeine, a healthy diet, no swearing. Not exactly rock world compatible, but there you are. Many years later, The Killers found huge success and they were Mormon too.
On the afternoon of Tuesday 31 October, then, I headed to the Churchill Hotel to meet … The Jackson Five who, by coincidence, were also in the UK doing promotion at the same time, staying at the same hotel as Donny and co.
As I got near, I could hear screaming and shouting through the closed taxi windows, and as we turned into Portman Square I was surprised to find a mass of teenage girls outside the main entrance and scurrying around up and down Seymour Street alongside. Most of the fans, judging by the banners, hats and apparel they wore, were waiting to glimpse The Osmonds rather than The Jacksons. Compared with the fanbase of just a few months earlier it was a definite improvement.
I got out of the taxi, headed up into the entrance and found myself being pushed, prodded and shouted at by the nearest of the fans.
I and some other music journalists spent a couple of hours with The Jacksons, who were, at the time in sales terms, much bigger than The Osmonds in the UK after a string of hits including ‘I Want You Back’, ‘I’ll be There’, and ‘ABC’. Of the five, it was Michael – tiny, shy, with a complete halo of curly black hair surrounding his beautiful face – who most captivated me. He was just 14 years old but looked much younger and was happiest when talking about his friendship with Donny Osmond, his older friend at nearly 15. For all one read about the huge rivalry between the two bands and the two young lead singers, in fact they were good friends. Donny and Michael shared so much in terms of similar backgrounds, you could see why they liked to swap notes.
And two days later I was back at The Churchill to see The Osmonds themselves. I made my way up to room 516 and, with the history of phone calls behind us, we got on rather well. I did a taped interview with Donny and then talked to all the boys, as well as Mother and Father. The Osmonds never called their parents mum and dad, or ma and pa – it had to be Mother and Father, as decreed by Father George Osmond.
Not for the last time, I began trying to find chinks in the stock Osmond armour of big smiles, helpful answers, a permanent positive take on their lives, and a humble attitude to success, fans, their career and so on. And, not for the last time, I found that a hard one to crack. There was nothing bad or negative about them that I could write on the strength of this meeting, unless I were to resort to sarcasm about their teen following or their lack of street cred – something I wasn’t about to do. Especially as the term street cred hadn’t been invented then.
As we were all told years later in various articles and autobiographies, the Osmond life was, of course, far from perfect and indeed their demeanour was in part a smokescreen at least some of the time. It turned out later that Father Osmond had been a hard taskmaster during these early years – not averse to giving the boys a thump if they didn’t do as told. Not being an Osmond Brother didn’t seem like an option to any of them at the time. But because I didn’t have to pretend to be intellectual and because they seemed very happy with the ‘what’s your favourite colour?’ line of questioning (‘Purple!’) in truth I found them quite relaxing to be around that afternoon. The only stress-inducer was remembering not to swear and having to go without a cigarette. They wouldn’t have objected, I found out later, but it only seemed polite.
Some sell-out gigs around London followed and by this time The Osmonds had begun making the pages of the national newspapers because of their ability to cause riots. One evening I journeyed up to the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park to see them perform for the first time. The hysteria and screaming put even my Beatles ’60s Albert Hall concert in the shade. And the boys performed a better set than I had anticipated, from what little I could hear.
By the time The Osmonds had departed they had definitely arrived, and in the weeks that followed Betty Hale and Olive Osmond began discussing a joint project which was, in 1973, to become Osmonds’ World magazine – a monthly publication which would appear to be The Osmonds’ own magazine, but which would be published by IPC, edited by Betty, and in part written – ghosted – by me.
The few weeks to the end of the year were busy with all kinds of interviews – by this time I was moonlighting for several other publications, including Easy Listening magazine and Record Mirror, to earn a little more money. This also had the benefit of broadening my field of work a bit – but still not in the direction of my one-time colleague Julie Webb. I was never going to be a NME or Sounds ‘proper’ music journalist. For Easy Listening I interviewed Jackie Trent and Tony Hatch – famous at the time as ‘Mr and Mrs Music’ – down at their Kent house, and Sacha Distel.
The Distel interview – backstage at the Prince of Wales theatre during a long season he did there with a few guests stars including Olivia Newton-John – was interesting for one thing that happened during the interview. The dressing room was quite cramped and somehow I ended up squashed behind the door, while he sat in the only other chair at the other side of the room directly in front of the door. He was being his usual charming Gallic flirty self, chatting about his family life and what a good guy he was and how his wife trusted him. I was getting quite bored. Then, towards the end of the interview, the door suddenly swung open, hiding me behind it, and as it did so a young female voice exclaimed, ‘Oh, Sacha darling, I’ve missed you …’ and I watched as this slim young female strode across the room, all blonde hair, lithe limbs and expensive clothes, and kissed Sacha passionately on the lips. Wondering why his response was less than enthusiastic and, no doubt, why he was beginning to blush, she looked round and saw me sitting there.
Then she, too, began to blush – ‘Oh, oh … sorry, I was just … I’ll catch up with you later, Sacha …’ she tailed off, and legged it out again.
And thus I was left wondering if there was more to the working relationship between Sacha Distel and Olivia Newton-John than most people realised.