February–June 1974
I was sitting at my corner desk at Journeys, a travel agency owned by my good friend Sara that specialized in booking tours for rock bands, working on the Eagles’ upcoming tour and grumbling to myself about all the phone calls and paperwork. I was getting so tired of planning rock tours and living vicariously through them. I missed my old life. I missed working directly with the bands.
When the overseas call came through, I was surprised to hear Maureen’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Oh, Chris, all hell’s broke loose here.”
“What’s happened?” I asked, worried by the desperate tone of her voice.
“Richie’s freakin’ out,” she said. “He’s still really upset about everything. Says he just can’t cope!”
“Oh, dear,” I mumbled, thinking of poor Ringo pacing the floors of Tittenhurst.
“He’s coming to LA next week, he says he needs to get away,” Mo sighed. I could just imagine her standing by the phone in her kitchen, dressed from head to toe in black, the cigarette holder tightly gripped between her teeth. “Would you look after him, Chris, make sure he’s okay?”
“Of course I will,” I reassured her. I could only imagine the pain they were both going through. “Maureen, how are you doing?”
She sighed again. “It’s just dreadful. But what the bloody hell am I supposed to do? I’ve got to keep it together for the children.”
Ringo arrived on Valentine’s Day. Eileen and I went to a Dylan concert that evening and at the party afterward I spent some time with Ringo. That was fun. I knew from what Maureen had told me that he was in some serious emotional turmoil, but he didn’t talk about “the situation,” as Maureen liked to call it, and he seemed to be in a great mood. A few days later he invited me to record producer David Geffen’s formal party at the Beverly Wilshire and that was even more fun. Bianca Jagger was there, and I walked right past her with my nose slightly up in the air, laughing and talking to Ringo. When I was working for Mick, I always felt insecure around Bianca, even a little inadequate as a woman because she was so stunning and stylish, but with Ringo by my side I had plenty of self-confidence. After the party we went back to Ringo’s room and spent the rest of the night talking and drinking. When he went to bed around five that morning, I drove my Toyota to work and slept in my car until the office opened. He flew back to England later that week, I settled back into work, and life returned to normal.
Six weeks later, Ringo returned to LA. I wrote a short entry in my journal that only hinted at the conflicted emotions I experienced when I saw him again. It’s almost as if I were afraid to put my feelings on paper for fear it was all a dream. Or, perhaps more truthfully, for fear something might be happening, and I was powerless—and unwilling—to stop it.
April 2: Ringo is in town again. He phoned the day after he arrived. Went to the hotel to get Ringo to go to the Record Plant for a session John and Mick were doing. We danced. R & I definitely were feeling attracted to each other. It was weird and made me feel down. It’s this lifestyle. I want the best—all the time. Ringo just represents to me how I want to live. I am lonely. Will he call? Sorry, Mo, I just can’t help the feelings.
Let me tell you about that evening at the Record Plant. The control room reeked of cigarettes, Scotch, and beer, with incense wafting around trying like hell to beat out the other odors.
“Hey, Chris,” John said, turning to smile at me from his place at the mixing board. I gave him a smile and a little wave of my hand.
“Hi, May,” I said, giving May Pang a big hug. May took care of all John’s personal and business needs, including coordinating his recording sessions and the artists he was working with, such as Harry and Ringo. She was extremely organized and was one of the few of us who didn’t drink or do drugs.
I walked over to the table where the drinks were set up, poured some Coke into a paper cup, adding a big wallop of Scotch, and took a seat between May and Ringo. I put the cup to my lips and tasted the sweetness of the Coke, laced with the burning sensation of the Scotch rolling down my throat. I never did like the taste of alcohol, but I loved the way it made me feel. Warm. Loose. Happy. Confident. The musicians started playing again; they were working on “Too Many Cooks (Spoil the Soup),” a song that wouldn’t be released for twenty-five years, when it appeared on the 2007 album The Very Best of Mick Jagger.
“Let’s listen to that again,” John said. “From the top.” John bowed his head, his eyes closed, his body moving to the beat.
“How’s it going?” I asked May, taking another sip of my drink.
“John is doing such a great job,” she said, looking at him with adoring eyes. She was in love with him, no doubt about that, and from everything I witnessed during the weeks I spent with them, he was crazy about her, too. Everyone commented on how happy he looked in LA and called him “the John of Old.” I always wondered how they got together, with Yoko right there in the middle, and one day I just came out and asked May. She was very forthright and detailed with her story, giving me the impression that this was her first opportunity to set the record straight. She was working in New York City with John and Yoko as their personal assistant when one day Yoko walked into her office and announced that she and John were splitting up. “If John asks you out, you should go,” Yoko told May. It was more of an order than a suggestion. May began to protest because she didn’t want Yoko to think she had designs on her husband (and, she told me, she’d never thought about John in a romantic way), but Yoko insisted, telling May that she would rather John was with her than some stranger who might hurt him. Later, May said, she learned that it was John who had been interested in her, and Yoko picked up on it and made the first move.
At the mixing board, John’s head was moving to the beat while May started swinging her long legs. I closed my eyes, feeling the music swelling up inside me, knowing that more than anyplace else on earth, this was where I wanted to be. I took another sip of my drink and, like May, started moving my legs to the beat.
I hadn’t been paying much attention to Ringo, but in the middle of the song, he stood up and did one of his little dances, bobbing up and down, fingers snapping to his own inner beat. Then, just like that, he grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet.
“Care to dance?” he said in a proper English accent. Well, now. Ringo had great rhythm and style, pulling me in toward him, pushing me away, holding my hand up high and spinning me, then twirling me around the other way. Once I got over my initial nervousness, I was able to follow him pretty well except for trying to stay upright in my “corkies,” the current “in” shoe that consisted of three inches of solid cork that you wobbled around on trying to maintain your dignity. Corkies came in all colors, and I probably had six pairs of them. I was wearing the metallic pink ones, my favorites, that night.
“Hold on just a second,” I said, stooping down to unbuckle my shoes and tossing them off to the side of the room. When I stood up, I was the same height as Ringo and we were looking straight into each other’s eyes. That’s when it happened. I saw into his eyes for the first time. It was as if two wires suddenly connected, sending an electrical jolt of attraction right through me. In that instant, Ringo wasn’t just a friend, he wasn’t just a Beatle—he was a man. A very desirable man.
“Hmmm,” he said, pulling me closer. He felt it, too.
We kept dancing until the music stopped and then I went back to my chair and started putting on my shoes. The song was finished, the dance was over, the moment had passed, and it was time to leave.
On the way out of the studio John asked Ringo if he was going to Roman Polanski’s party.
“Do you want to go?” Ringo asked me.
“Why not?” I said, trying to stay casual. I kept hearing Maureen’s voice in my head. “Take care of Richie, Chris.” I wondered if Ringo was hearing Maureen’s voice, too. “Chris will take care of you, Richie.”
“Are you coming with us, Ringo?” May called out in the parking lot.
“No,” he said, “I think I’ll ride with Chris.” That made my heart beat a little faster.
It was around 2:00 a.m. when we arrived, and only a few stragglers were left at the party. We walked through the expensively decorated but sterile modern house looking for our host and found him lying on the bed in his bedroom with several women sprawled out around him. The television was on. Everyone looked pretty relaxed—actually, they all looked a little out of it. Roman lifted his head and peered at us.
“Oh, hello,” he said, slurring his words slightly and resting his head back on the pillow, “make yourself at home.”
Ringo grabbed my hand and pulled me back into the living room.
“That was weird,” I said, thinking about how Roman didn’t even bother to get off the bed.
Ringo laughed. “Yeah, you’d think he’d be happier to see us!”
We sat on a sofa facing a huge picture window with a fabulous view of the city. For a moment we didn’t speak, looking at the city spread out beneath us. Then Ringo turned to look at me, studying my face as if meeting me for the first time.
“You know, I don’t really know a lot about you, Chris O’Dell,” Ringo said, his knee pressing against mine.
A shiver ran through me. “What would you like to know?”
“Well, anything. I just don’t feel like I really know you,” he said, reaching for my hand.
I’m not imagining this, I thought, this is happening. Ringo is looking into my eyes, he’s holding my hand, his body is touching mine. We talked for three hours, or was it four or five? I have no idea how long we talked. I was in a dream world, nothing else existed in that time and space but Ringo and me. Maureen never once entered my mind.
When we got back to the Beverly Wilshire, John and May headed up the stairs to the loft bedroom that overlooked the living room.
“Man, I’m tired,” John yawned. “We’re going to bed.”
“Night,” Ringo said from the bar as he fixed us a drink.
We looked at each other, wondering what came next.
“Let’s go sit on the balcony,” he said.
We sipped our drinks and watched the sun slowly rise over the Beverly Hills skyline. Then, without a word, Ringo disappeared into his bedroom. I sat on the balcony for a while, wondering what the hell to do. Should I follow him? I waited, hoping he’d come back. Finally, as the sun turned the sky from deep pink to bright orange, I walked into the suite and peeked in his room. He was sound asleep. I stood there, still confused about what to do. I was tired, I’d been up all night drinking, and I wanted to get into bed with him. But I wasn’t about to embarrass myself. This was a tricky situation, no doubt about that. I could just imagine Ringo telling John—or, worse, Maureen—the next morning, “Well, I woke up and there she was in bed with me, what could I do?”
I drove home to my little studio apartment in the San Fernando Valley, near Burbank, in a mess of emotions. My mouth felt like cotton and tasted like stale alcohol, my hands were shaking, my head felt as if it was filled with static, like when you’re stuck between stations on the radio, and when I finally got home and looked in the mirror, I discovered a new pimple on my face. Oh God. How could anyone, let alone Ringo, find me attractive? I climbed into bed and tried unsuccessfully to fall asleep.
Three hours later the phone rang.
“What happened to you?” Ringo said, his voice playful.
“Oh hi,” I said, scrambling to get my thoughts together. “I just thought I’d better come home.”
“Are you going to come over to the hotel and then we’ll go to the lunch?” he asked.
“Okay, sure,” I said. I had forgotten all about Ringo’s invitation to go to actor Roger Moore’s house for lunch. How the hell was I going to get myself ready in an hour? I felt like shit.
“Are John and May going?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, I just woke up,” he said.
John and May didn’t end up going, so it was just Ringo and me at Roger and Luisa Moore’s house for lunch that day. I have never had to endure a more agonizing three hours. I was in no shape to be social. My eyes were puffy and red, my hands were shaking, and my zit was still there (I couldn’t stop thinking about it). What did this elegant, extraordinarily cordial couple think of me, of us? Ringo introduced me as his friend, but Luisa Moore looked at me curiously and asked more than once about Maureen.
We were sitting on the terrace having drinks, engaging in what felt to me like excruciatingly stilted small talk, when the French doors opened and there stood David Niven, drink in one hand, cigarette in the other, looking like he had just stepped off a movie set. What the hell? I looked at Ringo, not sure whether to laugh or cry. I was right at home with rock stars but had no idea how to behave around movie stars.
We sat down for lunch in the formal dining room as the butler prepared to serve us. I’d never been served by a butler before. I watched him go from one person to the next with his big silver serving tray and wondered how I was going to be able to transfer the food to my plate. I couldn’t hold a steady gaze let alone keep my hands from shaking. Why didn’t they just serve us something, like they do everywhere else?
“Here, let me help you,” Ringo said. The butler nodded ever so slightly and placed the serving tray next to Ringo, who took the silver tongs and expertly transferred the chicken, niçoise salad, baby potatoes, and green beans to my plate. I sat there with a frozen smile on my face. It was just such an enormous effort to try to hold myself together and act normal. Every so often Ringo reached under the table and squeezed my leg.
After lunch Luisa asked us if we could stay a while longer but, thank God in heaven, Ringo said he had plans that afternoon and had to go.
“That was fun,” Ringo said as we drove back to the hotel. “Let’s not do it again.”
I laughed, then groaned. “I thought it would never end.”
“What do you think they’re saying about us now?” Ringo said.
“Gosh, I don’t know. Do you think they noticed how out of it we were?”
He looked at me sideways, a silly expression on his face and broke into a huge grin. “Who cares? I haven’t had so much fun since war broke out,” he said, one of his all-time favorite expressions.
We laughed all the way back to the Beverly Wilshire where we fell into bed and immediately conked out.
I spent most of the next three weeks with Ringo at the beach house, a two-story white stucco mansion in Santa Monica that John had rented from Peter Lawford. Ringo’s room was on the second floor in a library that had been converted to a bedroom. Hanging right over his bed was a big print of the famous photograph of John-John Kennedy peeking out from under his father’s desk in the oval office. President Kennedy, according to the story I heard, was a frequent visitor to the beach house, the site of his secret trysts with Marilyn Monroe. We were all sort of spooked by the legend of Marilyn, especially John, who was convinced that her ghost haunted the house. He said something woke him up every morning, and we all just assumed it was Marilyn.
I was drinking a lot during those weeks, which helped with the guilt about Maureen, and I often encouraged Ringo to get drunk, too. Alcohol made it easier for both of us to dull our feelings and continue the affair, but reality kept finding its way in.
“This is awkward,” I said one morning.
“Yes, it is,” he said. He seemed depressed. “We should talk.”
“Okay.”
“I can’t do what all my friends are doing. It’s not right.”
“I know,” I said. “It isn’t right. But I’m just having a hard time fighting my attraction to you.”
“Yes. Well.” He opened up his arms to me. “Come here, then, and we can cuddle.”
One evening we went to Disneyland with Hilary, Harry Nilsson and his girlfriend Una, and Klaus Voormann and his new girlfriend Cynthia. Ringo held my hand the whole time.
Back at the beach house, Ringo told me we’d better have another talk. “That last one isn’t working,” he said, putting his arms around me as I snuggled closer.
On Easter morning we turned on the television to watch Easter Parade, and he got such a kick out of the word “rotogravure” that he kept repeating it over and over again, as if the word had texture and he liked the feel of it on his tongue.
“Rotogravure,” he said, smiling at the television screen, “that’s what I’m going to call my next album.”
I started calling him Rich. Maureen called him Richie, the world called him Ringo, but Rich was my special name for him, although I never really felt comfortable calling him that. It seemed forced, fake, like I was trying to claim some part of him that didn’t really belong to me.
We went to the Beverly Wilshire for dinner with Klaus and Cynthia, to the Rainbow Bar and Grill with Alice Cooper, and at least a dozen times to our favorite bar at the Beverly Wilshire where we both really loved the Brandy Alexanders. On a scrap of paper Ringo wrote a song for me (I added the last line):
I’ve got a girl
with plenty
of charm
She’s got nine legs
and big long arms
And when we go to party’s she
causes a riot
Because she
dances with 5 guys
You oughta try it.
Was it real? It was real to me. We comforted each other at a time when we both needed comforting. He was good to me, and always, always kind, and just being with him made me happy. I wanted it to last, but I knew it wouldn’t. Ringo and I were always meant to be friends; we just got mixed up there for a while.
Ringo flew back to England for a month, and when he returned to LA, he didn’t call me for a few days. “I am accepting the fact that it’s all been a fantasy,” I wrote in my journal. “It’s difficult. But I must be strong. I can handle it.”
He called, finally, and we went to a party at the beach house. He was playing poker when Maureen called and asked to speak to me.
“I think Richie is seeing someone there,” she said. Her voice on the overseas line sounded hollow. “Do you have any idea who it is?”
Oh shit. I wasn’t prepared for that moment. I really didn’t think Maureen would ever find out about me and Ringo. Why would she? He wasn’t in love with me—I was just a temporary Band-Aid, a friend when he needed one, someone who could console him when his wife, the woman he really loved, was supposedly having an affair with another man.
“Gosh, Maureen,” I lied, “I don’t know of anything going on out here.”
Maureen called Ringo about a week later to tell him she was coming to town. We agreed not to tell her what was going on between us, but we had already started to drift apart. The “situation,” as Maureen kept calling it, was becoming too painful. For the first few days after she arrived, I let my answering machine pick up her phone calls (I learned that little trick from Leon), but she just wouldn’t give up. Knowing I couldn’t avoid her forever, I finally picked up the phone.
“Chris, it’s me. Where have you been? I want to see you.”
“Hi, Maureen, gee, I’m so sorry, I’ve just been so busy with stupid stuff.” Shit. I was so afraid my “ums” and “ahs” and awkward pauses would give it all away.
“Can you come over after dinner tonight?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said, knowing there was no way out. I was so conflicted. I wanted to see Maureen because I loved her, but I was afraid because she was so damn smart and intuitive. I feared she’d immediately pick up on the vibes, once warm and loving but now fearful and cooling fast, between me and Ringo. How would I act around him? How would he behave toward me? How would I react if he ignored me or glared at me? What if I stumbled and said something that gave away the whole thing? God, how I dreaded that meeting.
I walked into the lavish marble lobby of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and headed to the back wall of elevators. My insides were shaking, my breathing was shallow and fast, and I wished more than anything that I could run back to my car and head home to the safety of my little apartment. The elevator came to a halt and as I walked down the wide hallway to the familiar suite—the same suite I’d shared with Ringo—I talked to myself. “Remember, we agreed not to tell her.” And in the next second I felt overwhelmed with anxiety, thinking about walking into that suite and pretending everything was normal, just the way it used to be. But then again, maybe she didn’t know about Ringo and me. But she was so smart, so sharp, savvy, streetwise. “Okay,” I kept talking to myself, saying, “just be yourself, focus on Maureen, forget about Ringo. Stay calm. Don’t give it away.” In the hallway I knew that I would keep my promise to Ringo and deny that anything had happened.
Maureen opened the door, and we gave each other a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Ringo was sitting on the sofa across the room, looking at the floor.
“Want a drink, Chris?” Maureen asked. Ringo suddenly stood up and walked over to the window, where he stared out at the night.
Boy, did I need a drink. The room was air-conditioned, and the night was cool, but I was beginning to perspire.
“I’d love a drink—Scotch and Coke, please,” I said, keeping my voice light.
Just as I was taking the first sip, Maureen asked the question she must have planned for days.
“Are you sleeping with my husband?”
Everything stopped. I looked at her and she stared back with those dark, piercing eyes. “Deny it, deny it” kept running through my head. I was trapped. It seemed like hours went by as I searched for the words I needed to get out of this situation. Another moment passed and then the silence in the hotel room was broken by the rattling sound of the ice in my glass. My hand was visibly trembling. I caught a glimpse of Ringo, his face ashen but expectant, waiting for my answer. Would I lie and deceive Maureen or tell the truth and betray him? But the ice had already revealed our secret.
I took a deep breath and answered her question. “Yes,” I said.
“Well,” Maureen said, looking over at Ringo but speaking directly to me, “at least you were honest with me.”
I don’t know how I drove home that night. My thoughts were chaotic, careening all over the place. Would Ringo blame me for what happened? Would Maureen ever forgive me? Had I destroyed two relationships, all at once? Overwhelmed with guilt and shame, I kept trying to rescue myself by finding someone to blame. Wasn’t Maureen the one who started this whole mess with her affair with George? Hadn’t she told me to take care of Ringo? Didn’t Ringo have some responsibility for me, for my feelings? Then I plummeted back into the shame. Why didn’t I have the courage to stick to my agreement with Ringo? Why did I betray him? But I told the truth—how could I not tell the truth? Maureen was my friend. But Ringo was also my friend. I had betrayed them both. I had lost them both. God, I was a mess.
That was Sunday night, June 1, 1974. Monday passed and not a word from either of them. Then, on Tuesday morning at 4:30 a.m., the phone rang.
“Chris,” Maureen said, speaking in a very soft voice, almost a whisper, as if she were trying to hide the phone call from Ringo. “Things have gone all awful here. Can I come to you?”
“Of course you can,” I said, finally finding my voice. “What’s happened?”
“I’ll tell you when I get there.”
I gave her my address and half an hour later she showed up at my apartment. We talked for hours, sitting at the table in my living room, smoking one cigarette after another, drinking cup after cup of strong, dark tea. I had never seen Maureen in distress before. She was always in perfect control, the one with all the answers or the bravado to pretend she had them. But now she seemed utterly defeated.
“It’s bloody awful,” she said. “We yelled and screamed at each other. I don’t think it can fix itself.”
“I’m so sorry, Maureen,” I said, “I wish I could make it all go away.”
She waved her hand at me as if to say, “Oh don’t worry about that, we’ve got other things to think about right now.” I tried to talk about George with her that night, but she vehemently denied having a sexual relationship with him, and not once did she admit that she might have some responsibility for the damage to her marriage. I’m not faulting her, because I truly believe she considered her relationship with George a fling without any lasting significance. Ringo was the love of her life.
“I know ‘the situation’ got us here,” she said. “But that’s not what’s keeping me and Richie apart. He’s just so angry. He won’t listen. He won’t talk to me.”
I tried to console her. Maybe after they’d both had some time to calm down and think, they’d be able to find a way to get back together again.
“I don’t know, Chris, I don’t know,” she said. “This is bad, really bad.” She took a sip of tea and looked at me with those dark eyes, her thick makeup smudged from tears and lack of sleep, as if to ask: How could it ever be good again?
She lit another cigarette. “And what about the children?” she said, exhaling deeply. “How am I going to protect the children?” There it was again, that tone of despair and defeat. And yet—she had her children. They were her refuge.
“I need to get back to the children,” she said, a tone of desperation in her voice. We called the airlines and she booked a flight to England leaving later that day.
“I’ll call you when I get back,” she said.
That night I called Ringo. “I’m sorry I let you down,” I said.
Silence.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I thought we agreed not to tell her.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
I had hoped for something more from that conversation. I wanted Ringo to tell me that everything would be okay, that we would all be just as we were before.
But he was honest enough to tell me the truth with his silence.