The American Sound of Rod Melancon

October 21, 2012, 1:39 pm

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All Photos:  Alan Mercer

I love featuring new and GREAT talent!  I am introducing one of the best and most talented singer/songwriters I have ever met this week.  24 year old Louisiana native Rod Melancon is ready to join the ranks of Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. His first album, ‘My Family Name’ is the best record of the year by a new artist as far as I’m concerned. Recorded in Los Angeles, and produced by bass player and multi- instrumentalist, Chad Watson, who has worked with the likes of Charlie Rich and Janis Ian  and Richard Barron, who engineered and also plays accordion on this disc and has worked with Elliot Smith, Joe Henry, Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlelwood. The sound is spare, rich and deep. With studio support from Dean Parks on steel guitar, Don Heffington on drums, Vern Monnett on lead guitar. The sound of this record sticks close to its roots and keeps the focus on Rod's rich voice and his lyrics laced with Bayou and south Louisiana imagery. 


As an upcoming singer-songwriter, Rod represents a new breed who are drawing from Townes Van Zandt and Kris Kristofferson.  He tells his stories from character perspective rather than from the worms-eye view of the tortured, self-inflicted angst poet. The result is themes that echo Johnny Cash's early Sun recordings and Mickey Newbury's focus on characters and story. There are familiar enough melodies which sound newly born and song structure that leans on lyrics rather than hooks.  Beneath it all is room for great acoustic and electric instrumentation from bluegrass mandolins to big sounding Duane Eddy-like electric guitars.


While other American kids were living in suburbs during the 90's, Rod was absorbing the Louisiana Bayou and his Cajun heritage and traditional southern manners from his father's family. His mother, a high school theater arts teacher, gave Rod a taste for Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner and Jack Kerouac. From her, he learned about drama, story and literature. He credits her for teaching him most specifically about symbolism, which he uses so eloquently in his songs.


Rod came to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting but changed his mind five years ago on a Christmas visit to his family home. It was during the holidays that he gave his grandfather a life-changing gift, A Hank Williams disc. When he saw his grandfather's tears as he listened to the timeless music, Rod knew he wanted to write songs that could bring the same feeling to others. Ironically and perhaps not coincidentally, his parents gave him an acoustic guitar that same Christmas.  He came back to Los Angeles and began to learn guitar and write songs. The songs flowed out of him with a passion he'd never known before. 


As times change and mainstream country music continues to go through its ups and downs with its own chronic and bland pop-leaning identity struggle, Rod is finding a strong following in Los Angeles for real country music through the local ‘Americana’ scene represented by venues like The Echo.  It is young artists like Rod who are the future of timeless American music and what is slowly becoming a resurgence of the early 70's singer-songwriter outlaw movement.  

AM:  Rod, when I listen to your album I go into another world.

RM:  Yeah, that’s the kind of stuff I love.  That comes from my love of film too.  

AM:  Are you a musician who loves film?

RM:  Oh yeah.  I love film.  A lot of musicians say they grew up listening to Hank Williams but I learned about that music through movies.  I learned about Hank Williams through ‘The Last Picture Show.’

AM:  Wow!  That is exciting!  Did you like ‘The Last Picture Show’?

RM:  Yes, it’s one of my favorite films.  I like a lot of films from the 70's like Terrence Malick's 'Badlands’.  All my favorite films create a mood so that’s what I want to happen with my music. 

AM:  Did you write all the music on your album?

RM:  Yes I wrote all of it except 'Kind Woman’ which is a Buffalo Springfield song.  Everything else is original.       

AM:  Were you writing songs as a kid?

RM:  No, I moved out to LA when I was almost 19.  My Mom was a theater teacher so I came out here with my mind in acting.  Then I got a guitar from my family so I slowly started messing with it.  It’s still a relatively new thing for me.  It’s all I’ve been doing now a days.    

AM:  Do you know how many songs you have written so far?

RM:  I don’t know. That’s a good question.  Some of them I wrote once and didn’t think they were very good and I forgot about them.  Probably about 40 songs all together.  I put the ones I felt were worthy of recording on my album.         

AM:  Who are some of your more contemporary musical influences?

RM:  The reason I knew about the movie ‘Badlands’ is because Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska’ album is based on that story of Charles Starkweather.  I went into a different world listening to ‘Nebraska.’  This album is one of my biggest influences as far as the sound and the stories go.  It’s my favorite album ever.

AM:  So you are acting as different characters in your songs.   

RM:  Yes.

AM:  Do you know where the concepts are coming from?

RM:  I’m sure they are inspired by things I read and see or they are just something I kind of come up with.  I write a lot of my songs in character.  When I wrote the song ‘South Louisiana’ I put this snuff under my lip and it made me talk and sing a certain way and that’s how I wrote that whole song with that stupid thing in my mouth. (Laughter)

AM:   You walk a thin line between method actor and musician.  When you say you write in character that sounds like an actor.

RM:  It even sounds strange coming out of my mouth!    

AM:  I like that about you.  It’s what sets you apart and that’s what any artist needs.

RM:  That’s a good point!  I’m sure a little bit of me is injected in all my songs which makes them feel personal.  It’s hard not to put a little bit of yourself into a song.  People can feel when it’s personal.  That’s what my heroes do.  That’s where the power is.

AM:   Tell me a couple more musical influences.

RM:  Towns Van Zant and Kris Kristofferson and some guys I’ve met out here who aren’t as big as those guys but who are just as good.   Bob Woodruff and Dan Janisch are local guys who have been around a long time and are very good.  Another big influence on me is my Mom who is a high school theater teacher.  She explained the symbolism in a Tennessee Williams play, like when the mirror breaks in 'A Streetcar Named Desire.’  My Mom actually plays a big part in my writing.  I like using symbolism.   My Mom is a pioneer in a sense.  When I was in tenth grade we did 'The Laramie Project’ in a small town in South Louisiana.  You could have heard a pin drop.  At the time it didn’t seem like that big of a deal to me but now thinking back it was a big deal.  That’s my Mom!    

AM:  What a great influence!  Do you think she helped you be more courageous?

RM:  Yes, extremely.  It made me open minded in my personal life and as an artist.  

AM:  How do you see your career progressing?

RM:  I’m going to be on the road a lot and being somewhat financially stable so I can feel OK.  I also want to write plays and short stories.  I want to do a lot of different things like that.  I think songwriting is the very beginning.  

AM:  What about making a film with your music?

RM:  I would be interested in writing and directing a film.  

AM:  What about starring in it?

RM:  I don’t know.  That makes me a little nervous.  When I first moved out here I spent so much time trying to prove myself as an actor.  I had good things happen.  I booked a feature film but it would be weird for me to go back into that.  I’m sure I would.  I talk like I wouldn’t but I’m sure I would!  Sometimes I watch a film and I’m right back to wanting to do it again.  I’m sure I will.  It’s inevitable.  

AM:  Right now you’re going to Nashville.  Tell me about that!

RM:  I’m going to record a couple songs with the producer Dave Cobb.  He has produced Jamey Johnson who is the only Country Music Star who records country music.  That gets me excited.  Dave has also worked with Shooter Jennings and has done a song with George Jones.  I think it’s going to be a good fit.  I’m just happy to be associated with him.  

To learn more about Rod Melancon visit his web site http://www.rodmelancon.com/

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Erika Eleniak Is Open To Learning

October 28, 2012, 12:16 pm

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All Photos:  Alan Mercer

Erika Eleniak stood out as a talented beauty the first time I ever saw her in the first two seasons of ‘Baywatch.’  Since then I have seen her work in countless TV movies and films and always enjoyed her performances.  She is a real actress who has developed great skill over the years.  After meeting her in person and having the chance to work with her my love and appreciation has only grown more intense.  I fell in love with her outgoing and uplifting personality right away.  Our photo session was easy and the conversation filled with laughter.  Erika is an inspiration for me and I’m sure she will be for you as well! 


Erika Eleniak was born in Glendale, California.  She is the eldest daughter in her family of four girls and one boy whose parents divorced. Her father, who was born in Edmonton, Alberta, is of Ukarainian descent and her mother is of Estonian and German ancestry. Her first acting role was in the 1982 film 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’ as the girl kissed by Elliott in the classroom scene with all the frogs. 


In 1989, Erika had a recurring role on the TV series 'Charles In Charge’ as Charles's girlfriend, Stephanie Curtis. That same year, she won a role on 'Baywatch’ as female lead Shauni McClain, which she played from 1989 to 1992, leaving after the second episode of Season 3.  She also played the high-school girlfriend of John Stamos in "One Last Kiss", the November 16, 1990 episode of ‘Full House.’  Erika also appeared in the July 1989 issue of Playboy magazine in a pictorial with a nautical theme.


In 1992, Erika filmed a role, playing Jordan Tate, a Playboy Playmate hired to do a striptease for the captain of the U.S. Navy battleship, USS Missouri in ‘Under Siege.’  She hoped to capitalize on this success by starring as Elly Mae Clampett in the screen adaptation of 'The Beverly HillBillies’ in 1993, but the film under-performed.  The next year, she starred in the Dennis Hopper-directed romantic comedy 'Chasers.’ Erika also starred in an interactive game during 1995.  She played identical twins in the 1995 film ‘Panic in the Park.’  She continued to make more independent films including 'A Pyromaniacs Love Story’ and ‘Bordello Of Blood.' 


Erika became a participant on the fourth season of VH1's reality television series ‘Celebrity Fit Club,’ on which two teams of celebrities compete to lose weight.  After filming 'Snowbound’ in 2001 in Canada, Erika became enamored with the city.  She purchased a home in Calgary, got married, gave birth to a daughter in January 2006, and has since gotten divorced and moved back to Los Angeles to resume her acting career.

AM: Erika, out of all the women who have been on ‘Baywatch,’ you seem to be the only legitimate actress.

EE: Wow, that’s a really nice compliment for you to say, thank you. I always wanted a serious acting career. My goal was always to be versatile. This is also why I left ‘Baywatch’ after two seasons. It was fabulous but I was ready to go do something else. 

AM: In regards to Playboy, did it concern you that you wouldn’t be taken seriously as an actress?

EE: It did concern me to a certain extent, in terms of being able to still have the kind of career I had always wanted,after posing for the magazine. I started acting when I was ten so was already fairly established when I did Playboy at eighteen.

AM: That’s the only time to do it! 

EE: That’s right, it’s the only time to do it as far as I’m concerned. Gravity hasn’t knocked on your door yet! I didn’t pose for Playboy naively. I do think I had to work twice as hard to get some of the opportunities I did get by the grace of God ,to prove myself as an Actor.

AM: What is life like today?

EE: I just recently turned forty-three. My daughter is six and half. I feel six and a half too. Since she arrived my entire perspective has changed. 

AM: Are you talking about deep and organic change?

EE: I feel whole now. A book I recently read mentioned we can be the hero of our story or the tragedy of our story, which is so true. I can look back at the choices I’ve made and say look at how much I’ve overcome.

AM: I know that feeling. 

EE: I feel like I was sleep walking before my daughter was born. I feel like a shell of who I was. I feel as if I’m just now getting in touch with some of the feelings I had as a little kid, especially with creativity. I really feel like I woke up, like we are spiritual beings having a human experience together. 

AM: Have you always been spiritually inclined?

EE: Always...I like to call myself a seeker. I do want to make sure I never stop seeking, but I don’t want to be perpetually seeking. I want to enjoy ‘the now.’ 

AM: Yes I agree it’s important to really appreciate ‘the now.’

EE: A seeker can sometimes not be fulfilled. I’ve been seeking since I was eleven. Right now if I were going to go back to school for something, it would be theology. I’m not religious but I love learning about all the different religions. At the end of the day, and this is my humble and personal opinion, there is a thread that runs through all of it, no matter how you label yourself. That is the essence of my spirituality, what I choose to call God in all places and people. 

AM: We should always expect to experience the good in life.

EE: You just said something so key and that is the word ‘expect.’ I never want to be a person who preaches or tries to cram my ideas down someone’s throat. We co-create our life experience. If your glass is half full or half empty will change the entire experience of your life.

AM: Attitude is everything!

EE: I have a new mantra and that is “I will no longer place any limitations or restrictions on what I intend to accomplish or manifest.” This is from Dr. Wayne Dyer. One of the things I don’t believe in with respect to religion, is being condemned if you don’t share the same beliefs as that religion- that somehow God will condemn you or punish you. This is not the God I know.

AM: I’m with you on that. 

EE: I like Deepak Chopra’s message of try to stay in the moment. Do it for five minutes at a time and see how difficult it can be. It’s a challenge. 

AM: Five minutes turns into five years!

EE: Our minds are either in the past or in the future. We’re so rarely in the moment. If you are in a really challenging time, stay in the moment and that’s where you’re safe. 

AM: You are definitely intelligent!

EE: Well thank you! I’d like to expand myself in this life as much as possible. I’d like to live long and contribute and express the highest good as much as possible. In order to do that you have to be open to learning. 

AM: Erika, I mentioned earlier that your beginning was ‘Baywatch’ but that’s not even true, you were in ‘E.T.’! 

EE: Yes, it’s the thirtieth anniversary of the release of ‘E.T.’! I was twelve when I got that part.

AM: How did you get the audition?

EE: I was in a performers audition showcase and because my scene partner was an adult in a father daughter scene, I was able to do the adult showcase ,as well as the kid showcase. Steven Spielberg had a talent scout in the audience. 

AM: Wonderful!

EE: Steven had me come in and all we did was talk. There was nothing to study or read. He asked me to stand up and I was substantially taller than Henry Thomas...like by a foot! (laughter) At twelve I had no idea who he was. What did I know? I was talking to a really nice man, completely unaware of his brilliance, at the time!

AM: Don’t you love that? How nice to not be impressed because you are so young.

EE: Yes!! To have no clue because you’re twelve! Big deal, it’s a movie about a boy and an alien. Anyway, Spielberg asked me if I wanted to be in the movie and I said yeah, sure. (laughter) I will be forever grateful to be a part of such a beautiful and timeless film. 

AM: You have grown into an Independent Movie Queen! 

EE: The funny thing about that is for the longest time, the work I was getting was all so commercial for television and film. My agents at the time told me I was so girl next door they needed to get me in the independent world. Once that happened the reverse happened and I stayed in the independent world. Also the industry has changed so much. Remember when all the networks used to make these great movies of the week? 

AM: Yes, of course.

EE: I made a ton of those. Then I made a movie in Canada and moved to Calgary, Alberta in 2001. 

AM: How did you like living in Canada?

EE: Love, love, love, loved living there. That was one of the most difficult decisions I had to make about moving back to Los Angeles. The best way for me to get in touch with my spirituality is by being in nature. That is paramount to my well-being. I owned my home in Canada and had to sell it to come back here and start over.I also left behind some of the best Friends I have ever had in my lifetime.

AM: That always takes so much courage.

EE: I was also worried about not having quick access to nature but as you can see by where I live I am very close. I hike by some waterfalls and if I want to go in I can. It’s a real hike though, I’ve had my share of run-ins with snakes and tarantulas. You have to be careful, but I love it. I hike every day.

AM: You stay very fit that way too. How were you ever on ‘Celebrity Fit Club’?

EE: I actually like that story now. It used to bother me, but the funny thing is I got the call for that on April 1st and I thought it was a joke. It was April Fools Day! (laughter) When I realized it was real I said no five times. Every blockade I threw up they tore down.

AM: So they broke through? 

EE: I did have a voice in my head telling me “Look you’ve been up in Canada a long time. It’s very endearing to other Moms out there to see a new Mom who has gained weight during pregnancy.” It was all this chatter. Personally it was an amazing experience. I met amazing people and I got to try Krav Maga ( a non-competitive martial art developed in Israel that includes Karate, Boxing, Kick-boxing, Jujutsu, Wrestling, and other techniques) and I always wanted to try that. I got to train with Chuck Liddell.

AM: How did you do that?

EE: The producers made this happen for me. They tried to do something special for each contestant. I like to train hard so they got Chuck and his coach. They were laughing when I walked in and I hung with them for two hours and finally I was either going to pass out or throw up so I called it and I was surprised. I have trained hard before but I had never trained that hard in my life! So from a personal stand point it was a brilliant experience. From a career standpoint, it was treacherous! (laughing)

AM: Why?

EE: First of all I have to say every person on VH-1 was awesome. It was an amazing family. But you know what happens when you are an actor on a reality show and have gained weight...what is your first reaction? We don’t even need to say it. It’s the same thing I thought at the time. I didn’t listen to my gut feeling. Sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t. Again, not the end of the world. The one thing in Hollywood is as fickle as it is, it’s also very forgiving. Do you think the people that give you your next job are watching ‘Celebrity Fit Club’? Once again I am grateful, grateful and from a personal standpoint it’s in the top 5 best experiences of my life. 

AM: Well that sounds like it was worth it then!

EE: It was worth it. 

AM: Before we end I have to talk you about the boxing you have done in two films. It looks all too real for me. I love ‘The Opponent’.

EE: That movie had very little financing. Everything was sponsored. It was so gritty. I was asked if I would do my own fighting. I moved to New York for a few months to film it. I ended up having four different trainers by the end of filming, who each had their own number systems and I always had to start over and learn them. I did not have a stunt fighter. At one point, I was hit in the head so hard that my head gear popped off! 

AM: By a trainer?

EE: No, it was an actor, playing a trainer ( a former boxer himself).It was a scene in the film where I was training Mike Tyson style with my hands tied behind my back. It was totally an accident.

AM: That was in the movie wasn’t it?

EE: Yes and I remember when that happened I was so mad that I body slammed him out of the ring. It was just such an adrenaline surge. I also remember this poor girl who had a boxing scene with me and we didn’t have a choreographer so I was really nervous and instead of backing up she leaned in and I connected one and moved her nose to the other side of her face. There was blood everywhere. I said, “OK, We have to stop now! This is not alright.” Aside from a few of those tough moments, the whole experience was brilliant. That is my favorite independent film. It was hard-core but every second was amazing. 

AM: What is your favorite main stream film that you’ve made?

EE: The polar opposite studio release ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’. This is hands down my favorite project ever! Penelope Spheeris did a great job directing it. That was a hard job due to the public loving the TV show so much. I enjoyed it so much and went to work every day in awe of the incredible cast I got to work with.

To learn more about Erika visit her web site http://www.erikaeleniaksofficialsite.com/

Mojean Aria

November 11, 2012, 8:42 am

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All Photos:  Alan Mercer

At the age of 6, Australian raised Mojean Aria's pre-school teacher called his parents into the office and recommended Mojean take acting classes as he was constantly imitating everyone and full of energy. Mojean later began studying at N.I.D.A (National Institution of Dramatic Arts) whose Alumni consists of Cate Blanchet, Judy Davis, Colin Friels, Mel Gibson, and Hugo Weaving just to name a few.


His talent was so impressive they allowed him to participate in the adult classes at the young age of fourteen. In 2004 Mojean won a scholarship to the McDonald College High School of performing arts where he was able to study acting for 2 to 3 hours a day while finishing his schooling.

In the 2005 Mojean landed the lead role in the feature film ‘Cross Life’ directed by Claire McCarthy. ‘Cross Life’ premiered at the Sydney film festival. Through 2008-2012 Mojean worked on 25 short films. He studied screen writing and continued to devote his time towards acting study.


In January 2012, Mojean relocated to Los Angeles and a few months later, he landed the role of the young Jake LaMotta in ‘The Bronx Bull’ which will be released next month. Mojean continues to train and work closely with his acting coach Marjorie Ballentine.

AM:  Mojean, are you getting excited now that it’s getting close to ‘The Bronx Bull’ being released?


MA:  Very, very, very excited!!!


AM:  Can you tell me about your part in the film?


MA:  My part is the whole first act.  I play the young Jake LaMotta.  It’s the story of what happened before the rage.  This rage was embedded in him from his childhood and his family.

AM:  That must take a lot of acting skill to portray.


MA:  (laughter)  Well it was certainly a lot of work and research about Jake LaMotta growing up in New York during the depression.  I learned what kind of influence his best friend, his father and his mother were.  Those three people were the biggest influences in his life.


AM:  Were you familiar with him before you made this film?


MA: I’m a huge fan of the first film, 'Raging Bull.’   It’s regarded as one of the greatest films of all times.  I knew a little bit about boxing so I knew he had the famous tag line, “No son-of-a-bitch ever knocked me off my feet.”  Of course when I got cast in the film I learned a lot more about him.


AM:  Do you know how many other actors were up for the part?


MA:  I believe there were a thousand actors who auditioned.


AM: How does it feel to win a part over a thousand other guys?


MA:  It’s an honor.  I was very surprised.  It’s a privilege to be given the opportunity to do that part.  When I found out I had the part is one of the highlights of my career so far.  No doubt about that!

AM:  Can you tell me a little about where you grew up?


MA:  I grew up in Sydney, Australia.  I moved around a lot when I was younger.  I actually grew up living in a hotel which is a little weird.  I came to Los Angeles a couple years ago for a little while and then I went back home and decided to come out here for good.


AM:  Has it been a culture shock?


MA:  Certainly, but Los Angeles is a big melting pot of so many cultures.  I appreciate a lot of different cultures and I like to eat a lot of different foods, so that’s been a blessing.  The American way of life and the American government is so very different than Australia.


AM:  So how long have you been here now?


MA:  I’ve been here for 8 months.  I have my own place and a car so I am all settled in.  I feel like I’m on the right track but for me, Sydney will always be my home.

AM:  Do you have any plans to go back and visit Sydney anytime soon?


MA:  Not really, I’m focused on my work right now and I want to experience an American Christmas so I might go to New York to get more involved with the American culture.


AM:  You must be looking forward to making some more movies.


MA:  Yes I am.  This year has been my very best year so far.  I’ve got some things in the works but I’m not allowed to talk about any of it yet.    


AM: What actor do you want to work with?


MA:  There is no actor who I would get more excited about than Daniel Day Lewis.


AM:  What about a director?


MA:   There’s a few directors but my favorite right now would be Paul Thomas Anderson.  I love his work.  I hope one day there will be something I can do with him.  

Peter Marc Jacobson

November 25, 2012, 12:38 pm

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All Photos:  Alan Mercer     Lighting:  Eric V.

Peter Marc Jacobson was born in Flushing Queens, New York. He met his future wife Fran Drescher while they both attended Hillcrest High. In the 70‘s, Peter moved out to California with Fran to pursue a career in acting and modeling.  Careers he was never that comfortable with.  Together, the pair did many small movies like ‘Gorp’ and others.  They married in 1978, when they were both 21 years old.  Peter appeared in shows like ‘Dynasty,’ ‘Facts of Life’ and ‘Matlock.’


Peter wrote a spin-off for ‘Who’s The Boss?’ in the late 80‘s called ‘Charmed Lives’ that starred Fran Drescher and her friend, Donna Dixon. Unfortunately the series was not picked up by the network. Still determined to make it, Peter and Fran eventually co-wrote the pilot for 'The Nanny’ which became a very successful series. Peter wrote, directed and produced for the series. By the 6th season, he had become the resident director and even made a few cameos on the show like Romeo in ‘A Star is Unborn’, a bar patron in ‘Pen Pals’ and a man exiting the bathroom in ‘Ma'ternal Affairs.’


The couple divorced in 1999 after a long separation.  He came out as gay to her after their marriage ended.  The couple developed the 2011 television series 'Happily Divorced’ for TV Land based on their lives.  The third season starts Wednesday, Nov. 28 and promises to be star studded with guests like Joan Collins, Debi Mazar, Cyndi Lauper and Florence Henderson. 

AM:  Peter, you are such a good writer.  How do you so consistently do this?

PMJ:  Thank you I can do it because I have a lot of other great writers that work with me.  Television is a collaborative art form and I have many writers who have been working with me for the last 25 years who are comic geniuses.  Fran Drescher is also a brilliantly funny writer.  My name is up there first but it’s also who supports you and makes it happen.  That’s what makes me look better.  

AM:  So you’ve worked with these writers for a long time.

PMJ:  Most of them I’ve worked with since the beginning of ‘The Nanny.’  I do try to bring new and young people on that Fran and I think are talented so that we can nurture them and let them fly to do their own thing too.  Television is so quick.  You have a week to put up a show.  It’s so much work you need to be with people who know what they’re doing.  When it’s Wednesday and you have to tape a show on Friday you really need people who can pull things together quickly. 

AM:  That sounds very stressful!

PMJ:   It is! (laughter)

AM:   How do you handle all this pressure?

PMJ:  I leave my office at 10:00 at night and I try to turn that switch off.  There were many years when I didn’t and I’d go home thinking about it and lay in bed thinking about it and then come back to work early the next morning.  You get so burnt out this way.  I try as much as I can to turn it all off and I tell myself I will deal with it in the morning instead of all night.  This way I can focus on other things and relax to go to sleep.    

AM:  Were you always wanting to be a writer?

PMJ:  No I wasn’t.  I was planning on being an actor and model.  I did do a lot of TV and films but I discovered I was always more comfortable behind the camera.  I did a lot of commercials and sitcoms but it came hard for me.  I never felt comfortable acting.  I was always asking if I was good enough or if I was going to get fired.  I remember doing an episode of ‘Murphy Brown’ and I kept thinking they were going to write me out.  Then I thought to myself, “Why am I doing this?”  I already got the job and I couldn’t even enjoy it.  That’s when we sold 'The Nanny.’  

AM:  What was life like for you at this time?

PMJ:  Fran and I were fighting a lot because I was miserable with what I was doing.  She told me I had to get out of this or we don’t have a chance.   She also said, “You are always depressed because you’re not working and then when you do work you get worried you’re going to get fired.”  I really had to look at it and I said, “You’re right.”   That night I had dinner with Dan Akroyd about pitching a show that we sold the next day and a week later we sold 'The Nanny’ so I thought about it more and realized Fran was right.  Maybe I was on the wrong side of the camera.  I was booked to do a “Matlock’ that week and a modeling job across the country.  I wasn’t ready to give up acting yet.  Then Fran said, “You have a meeting with the head of CBS.  Why are you modeling?” (laughter)  I said, “Yeah, I think you’re right.”  I’m going to call my autobiography ‘One Last Matlock.’  

AM:  Did you settle in to producing and writing easier?

PMJ:  Yes, I was much more comfortable and secure with my choices.  I felt more at home.  I didn’t feel the pressure of everybody staring at me and judging me.  Even if they were I still felt more secure.  I never had to wonder if maybe I should have done something another way. 

AM:  So are you done with acting?

PMJ:  During the last writers strike I got a call from David Rubin, who is a very big casting director, and he told me there was a part in an Ashton Kutcher film that was perfect for me and would I be interested in doing it.  I said, “Yeah, it could be fun to do that again.”  Then they said I had to audition for it.  So I told myself just to do it and I go to the audition and I see 30 other ‘me’s’ in a line.  I did the reading and made them laugh but the second I left I thought maybe I should have done it another way.  I wish I could do it again.  I hope I didn’t embarrass myself.  It was all the old thoughts that I used to do to myself all over again.  I ended up getting the part and filmed it.  It was interesting to go back.  I had a small part as an actor.  When you’re done you’re done.  Just being on the other side of the camera again was very interesting for me.  Some people would look at me and say I looked familiar.

AM:  You’re recognizable.  People know who you are.

PMJ:  I never think I am but then I’ll be out and people will stare at me.  I still don’t think I’m famous.  I do hear people whispering “Fran Drescher” in bars!  Then I hear more whispers, “Husband...gay!”  (much laughter)     

AM:  Who’s idea was it to do ‘Happily Divorced?’

PMJ:  Fran and I decided we had been divorced long enough that we wanted to take a vacation together.  We hadn’t been to Paris in years so we went there and immediately went back to these old married habits we had before.  I remember we were supposed to go to dinner and I knocked on her door and she answered with no make-up on.  I told her we were supposed to be at the restaurant in 20 minutes!  We got into an argument about how she was always late.  We looked at each other and said this would be a funny movie about a divorced couple who end up going on vacation together and we knew we would call it 'Happily Divorced.’   Then Keith Cox, the head of TV Land asked her if she would do a show that she starred in what would it be?  She said, “That would be easy.  It would be me and my gay ex-husband and my boyfriend.”  They bought the show right away.  Then she called me up and asked me if I wanted to do the show with her.  I said, “Of course I want to.”  We decided to use the movie title of 'Happily Divorced’ so we wrote the script.  The rest is history.

AM:  Are you and Fran soul mates?

PMJ:   Yes, we are definitely soul mates. I always say to people, “Whoever I end up with will have to be happy watching old reruns of 'Happily Divorced’ and “The Nanny’ in between me and Fran in bed.  In my community that isn’t going to be so hard!  (much laughter) 

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Audrey Landers Is A Real Talent

December 2, 2012, 11:50 am

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All Photos:  Alan Mercer   Lighting:  Eric V.

Audrey Landers is an accomplished actress, singer, writer, composer and producer. She is best known to fans all over the world for her memorable role as Afton Cooper for eight years on ‘Dallas’, her controversial Playboy pictorial, with her clothes on, and hundreds of television gigs in the 1980s and 1990s. However, she has been somewhat under the radar in the United States over the past few years, raising her teenage twin boys, managing and producing her son Daniel Landers’ music career and continuing to be a record-breaking singer/songwriter in Europe, recording and performing in several languages.


Audrey began her acting career at the age of 9, when she starred in her first community theater musical, and continued acting and singing in community theater shows in New York State. Music was always a passion, and Landers began writing poetry and songs at a very young age. Landers was first noticed with a country song that she wrote and performed at the age of twelve, which led to a Nashville recording contract with Epic Records, a performance on ‘The Merv Griffin Show,’ and a year-long role on the daytime drama,’The Secret Storm.’


As a singer and composer, Landers has earned 10 gold singles, 4 gold albums and 2 platinum albums. Most are pop and disco records. Some of her biggest hits are "Manuel Goodbye", "Playa Blanca", and "Jim, Jeff & Johnny". Her multilingual, mostly German, world records include duets with renowned German singer Bernhard Brink, ‘Heute Habe Ich an Dich Gedacht’ and ‘Mi Amor’ with Camilo Sesto. Her albums released in Europe from 2006 through 2011 are also in several languages. Audrey has been guiding the career of her teenage son, Daniel Landers, who,  is already an accomplished songwriter, singer and performer.

Now she is back in the United States spotlight, successfully building a fashion business. Keeping it all in the family, her mother Ruth Landers has managed and produced Audrey's career for over 30 years and continuing their long-standing business partnership. Audrey and Ruth have co-created Landers STAR Collection, a line of glamorous fashion and accessories. As a teen, Audrey studied music at the Juilliard School in New York while majoring in psychology at Columbia University and starring in the daytime drama 'Somerset’. She literally grew up in front of the camera and on stage.  


Throughout her career, she has continued to perform live shows in Europe, Las Vegas and Atlantic City, headlining with Billy Crystal and Rich Little, among many others. While working in the United States, she was breaking records in Europe as a singer and composer. She has earned 10 gold singles, four gold albums and two platinum albums. Her most recent album was released in Europe in September 2010. In 1995 with toddler boys at home, Audrey wrote 47 episodes, 250 original songs and performed in the children's series,  ‘Huggabug Club’, produced by Ruth, which aired on PBS for five years and continues to run on other stations.


In 2006, Audrey co-wrote and directed ‘Circus Island’, a full-length feature film, produced by Ruth Landers. It was a family adventure in more ways than one! Landers has been married to businessman Donald Berkowitz since 1988 and they have twin teenage boys. Their family also includes two dogs rescued from shelters.

AM:  Audrey, before we talk about anything else can you share a little about Larry Hagman?


AL:   We are all so sad about Larry's passing. Larry had a way of making the world see him as, somehow, invincible. He will be missed, but he will be in our hearts forever. He was always bigger than life and now his spirit will live on. I have wonderful memories of working with him, and I am so fortunate to have been a part of a show that is pop culture history and ‘Dallas’ is legendary because of Larry's iconic JR Ewing. I found this photo from a couple of years ago. It's my son, Daniel; Larry; my mom, Ruth; and me. I'm so happy that my son had the opportunity to meet Larry, and to spend some time with him. I know it is an experience he will treasure.

photo courtesy of Audrey Landers

AM:  That’s a beautiful tribute.  Speaking of Daniel, I know you left Los Angeles when your boys were about six years old.  Was that so you could raise them in a more normal environment?


AL:  I was fortunate that I grew up with a small town upbringing, even though it was outside of New York City.  I still had more home-spun values with a slower paced childhood.  I really wanted that for my boys.  I had been in show business since I was a child and I felt this was a really important chapter of my life and I really wanted to devote myself to it.  So my sister and Mom and I all sold our houses in Beverly Hills and bought three new houses in Florida.


AM:  Did you want to live in Florida?


AL:  I have to tell you that Florida was not even in my vocabulary.  I thought it was a retirement center!  At the time we were doing the children television series ‘Huggabug Club.’  My Mom produced it.  We did fifty half hours and I wrote 250 original songs.  I even edited the series!


AM:  The show is available for download at amazon.com


AL:  Oddly enough, even though we were living in LA we filmed the show on the west coast of Florida.  It was because of an arrangement we made with the public television station there.


AM:  Did you fall in love with the area and want to move there?


AL:  I did not fall in love with living there, but a couple years later we produced a Live Children’s Show that toured the States.   Sarasota has a big performing Arts Center and asked if we would come do the show there, so we did.  As soon as we got there, we fell in love with it.  Within three months we all moved.  


AM:  Your husband moved there too?


AL:  My husband and I have been together for a lot of years, but his business in is New York and it always has been.  The LA, New York thing was difficult, but we did it for many years.  Florida is at least the same time zone and only a two and a half hour flight.  Although I grew up in the New York area, it wasn’t something I wanted to go back to.  It works for us.

AM:  Do you go see him more or does he come see you?


AL:  When the kids started school he made the effort to come down every weekend.  We would go there for every vacation and for the three months in the summer.  We really have two homes.  It’s like having the best of both worlds.  


AM:  When did you meet your husband?


AL:  We met in 1983 when I started 'Dallas,’ so it’s going on a long time.  


AM:  ‘Dallas’ is probably how most people know you best isn’t it?


AL:  Yes it seems to be.


AM:  Now the new version wants to bring you back, don’t they?


AL:  Yes, it’s official now.  TNT will make the announcement when they are ready.  We have been talking.  I don’t know the extent of how much I will be doing.  The original cast isn’t as involved with this show.  


AM:  I really want to see you on there.  The fans want you back too!


AL:  It will be awesome.  The subject is crazy on twitter.  One of the young characters on the show is named Rebecca and the diehard fans were asking if it was the little girl that Afton had named Pamela Rebecca.  Is this the same character?  On the last show of the first season we found out that Cliff Barnes is her father, so everyone figured it out that Afton must be the mother.  The producers confirmed that Afton is the mother!  They are in touch with my agent.  It’s very exciting for me.  


AM:  I love how the producers of the original show overheard you playing piano and singing on a break one day so Afton got to be a singer.  How perfect was that?


AL:  It was perfect!  It was amazing because I had been writing music and recording since my early teens.  

AM:  You even went to Juilliard music school, didn’t you?


AL:  I did, I went to Barnard Columbia and I studied music at Juilliard.   


AM:  That means you have real talent.  You don’t just go to Juilliard.


AL:  No and you know what’s really exciting in this new chapter of my life is my son Daniel is going to the University of Miami in the Frost School of Music, which is a very prestigious music school.  They’ve asked me to come and do a lecture series that I’m starting in a couple of weeks. 


AM:  You write most of your music don’t you?


AL:  I do, most of the original songs I record I have written or co-written.   


AM:  You’re an amazing songwriter!  


AL:  I was writing and singing since I was a young teenager and I was on soap operas in New York and then the big one, ‘Dallas’ and I played a singer in all the shows.  One day I got the script and saw that I was singing and playing a guitar in two days.  My Mom said I guess we better get you a guitar.  So then I had to learn two chords and write a song.  On ‘Dallas’ I wrote all the songs that Afton sang.  


AM:  I know you wrote the songs as if you were the character of Afton.  Is there a difference in writing from a character point of view than if you were writing as you?


AL:  There is a difference.  I had guidelines.  I knew the songs would have to have a Country flavor.  I would write based on whatever the character was going through.  


AM:  You’ve had great success in Europe, particularly Germany, with your romantic pop songs.  Why do you think the Europeans like your music so much?


AL:   When I was on ‘Dallas’ this German producer named Jack White was living in LA.  He had just had a monster hit with Laura Branigan called 'Gloria.’   He enticed me to record for the European market.  I got signed to a German record label.  We worked over the phone mostly.  He told me he wanted me to write a song called ‘Manuel Good-bye’ and I thought, “WHAT!?!”  This was my first experience with European music.  Then he told me it should be about a boy saying good-bye to his father as he goes on a fishing trip!  Then I told him I couldn’t write that because I can’t sing it from my heart.  I don’t want to tell a story about a fisherman.  So he told me to write about what I wanted, just make that the title so I wrote 'Manuel Good-bye’ about saying good-bye to a lover, within the guidelines he gave me.  We recorded it and it became a smash hit selling six million copies.


AM:  Did you know it was going to be a hit?


AL:  The style was always what was commercially viable for those markets.   The record label was very specific because they knew what they were doing and they were right.  I couldn’t really argue with them but there comes a point as an artist when you say to yourself, “Wait a minute, I’m an artist.”


AM:  Did you write songs you couldn’t relate to that well?


AL:  I didn’t always have my heart in those songs.  I was happy to do them because it was such a challenge to write within those guidelines.  It was an amazing career and a tremendous learning experience.  The record company was so happy and telling me how great my songs were.  I got these platinum albums, but from an American point of view it they never seemed that great to me.     


AM:  Do you perform these days?


AL:  I really don’t except when I go to Europe which is quite often.  I’ll go and perform at a gigantic New Year’s Eve Special that will be televised in nine countries. 


AM:  I saw you and Daniel performing 'One Star’ together on Youtube.


AL:  That was a German hit that I wrote English lyrics for.  It was a great experience for Daniel but it’s not his genre.  While I appreciate all the compliments about my songwriting, he is an amazing songwriter.  He started writing about the same age that I did and I groomed him and became a harsh critic along the way.  I’ve helped him to hone his skills and now at age nineteen there’s not much else I can do.  I can’t help him anymore.  He’s at a whole other level.


AM:  You must be so proud of him.


AL:  I am.  I’m very close to both my boys and I relate to each one of them very deeply, but in very different parts of their beings.   Adam is the scholar and athlete.  I was an academic nut as well.  Both of my boys are, but I relate to Adam on other levels.  I understand Daniel’s passion for his creativity.  I understand his need to create and perform and have people hear his songs.  That is a part of the soul that you just can’t change.  I tried. (laughter)  I moved away from LA so my kids would not be near show business and it didn’t work.  I remember when we were doing the ‘Huggabug Club’ and Daniel was four years old backstage with my Mom, while I had the cast of kids that are like twelve years old on the stage.  Daniel ran on stage and knew every word to every song and every step to the choreography.  I said to myself, “Well I guess I have to let him be in this show.”  I didn’t have a choice.  He learned everything.  He knew that’s what he needed to do.


AM:  What a blessing.  


AL:  I had both of my boys there and afterward I gave Adam the same opportunity to be on stage.  It was not his thing. 

AM:  Let’s talk about the ‘A Chorus Line’ movie!  I remember when they announced you in the cast.  I was so excited!  You have the best part in the whole show!  If you don’t remember anything else about the movie, you remember your part!


AL:  (laughter) Oh thank you.  It was pretty risqué.   


AM:  I wondered how you felt about that since you’re not the most risqué person.


AL:  No I’m not.  There’s one F word in the whole movie and I get to say it.  I had to stand in front of the mirror and say it and say it and say it so it would come out naturally on camera.  Of course having kids now it comes out a lot more easily!  (much laughter)  But anyway when ‘A Chorus Line’ was first casting they were not considering me.  The director Richard Attenborough wanted to keep the original concept of no one person standing out from the chorus line.  


AM:  That makes sense.


AL:  It was filmed during the time I was on ‘Dallas’ so people knew who I was.  I was in Europe with my Mom every two weeks since I had the recording career going on over there.


AM:  Every two weeks!?!


AL:  We would get on a plane every other Friday night and fly to Munich or Paris or wherever we had to go for eleven hours straight and arrive at the airport in the morning to do press and videos and I’d have to rehearse for a TV show I was doing that night and the next day do a concert and fly back the next day.  One weekend I had a show at the Palm Beach Casino in Cannes, France.  Afterwards we were whisked away to a gold record presentation in a castle.  It was a different world.


AM:  I can’t even imagine...


AL:  Mom and I didn’t sleep all night and the next day we got on the Concord to New York and from there I would head back to LA since Mom’s office was in New York.  I had a four hour layover and Mom checked her messages when we heard they wanted me to audition.


AM:  Had you seen the show on Broadway?


AL:  I was probably the only person who had never seen ‘A Chorus Line.’  We found the cassette at a kiosk in the airport so I listened to the music in the car on the way to the audition.  I sang the song for Sir Richard Attenborough and he thought it was great.  Then he told me he had the seventeen finest dancers in the world and for me to meet the choreographer.  I told him I was so honored but I am not a dancer on that level.  So thank you so much, but I have a plane to catch.  He still wanted me to meet the choreographer.  So I walked the few blocks to the rehearsal studio and there was the cast, in the line with a space where Val would be. They had been rehearsing for two months already.  The choreographer called a break and they all sat in a corner smoking and giving me the evil eye.  Again I told the choreographer that I was not that kind of dancer.


AM:  You had done a little dancing hadn’t you?


AL:  I can dance a little.  I had a Vegas act and did a show in Atlantic City but whenever I danced I just did what I could do.  He asked me to do my interpretation of the song so I did it the way I thought she would and that is almost exactly what you see on the screen.  I was so relieved when I was done.  I left as quickly as I could and got in the car to go back to the airport.  I called my Mom and told her I was making it back to the airport in time for my flight and she asked if I had gotten any of the messages she left for me.  Remember there were no cell phones back then. When I told her, “No” She said, “You got the part.  Don’t get on that plane.”


AM:  What did you do?  


AL:  I stayed in New York for the next five months.  On the first day of rehearsal Attenborough told me he understood how I felt and he would get me a double.  I said, “What!?!  I’m in the ultimate dance movie and you want me to have a double?  I don’t think so!”

AM:  Did you have to rehearse all the time?


AL:   Dance rehearsal for the cast went from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm every day.  I came in at 6:00 am with a private coach until 9:00 and then danced all day took a break from 5:00 to 6:00 and then rehearsed some more until 9:00 pm with another coach so that I could get up to speed or at least blend in.  I was really proud of what I did.


AM:  Aren’t you just thrilled to be in that film?


AL:  I am now.  I really am.  It was a hard film to make.  Especially then.  It was the first of it’s kind.  Even then it had a cult following from the Broadway show.  Some people were against making this Broadway show into a film.  Since then we have ‘Chicago’ and some others.


AM:  You got great reviews.


AL:  I was very excited about it.  I was so proud to have been a part of all that. 


AM:  Audrey your relationship with your Mom is legendary.  Have you always gotten along? 


AL:  My Mom and I are really friends.  My sister and I are friends too.  We were much closer when we were younger and first starting in the business.  Now she has two daughters and her life is very busy with the girls.  We all live within a mile of each other.  My Mom and I have several businesses together.  We have a fashion collection we started in 2008.  


AM:  So you pulled back from show business on purpose.


AL:  I did.  


AM:  Now you want to return.


AL:  I do.  


AM:  I think you will be welcomed back.


AL:  I hope so but if not at least I am happy.  I do a lot of things and I’m fortunate that I don’t “need” it.  I love the creativity but I have other outlets.    


AM:  So you’ve never had a life of leisure.


AL:  I don’t know how to do that.  That was the idea when we moved to Florida but it didn’t happen.  The first thing we did was fall in love with a peaceful lifestyle.  Then Mom and I thought nobody has ever shot a film here.  Mom had produced some films in LA and I had written some.  So we quickly went to work and wrote a screenplay called 'Circus Island.’  It’s a cute, wonderful family film.  It didn’t get the recognition it could have but it was an exciting little film.  So that was our first foray into retirement!    


AM:  Somehow I don’t think you will ever know retirement.  



AL:  It’s because we love what we do.  Also Mom and I started a real estate business when the market was really depressed so we bought condos that were on foreclosure and we completely refurbished and redesigned them for rent.   


AM:  Who is stronger at business?


AL:  My Mom is the business person.  She is my inspiration.  She wakes up at 4:30 every morning and studies the world market.  She does all her financial trades the moment the morning bell rings.  She’s almost like a gambler in a casino, except she does all the research and she has a number she wants to hit every day.  She makes money every single day.  She’s the most brilliant business woman.   I don’t understand how she does it.  She studies what is happened the night before and uses her intuition.

AM:  How did you end up in ‘Bachelor Party 2?’


AL:  I took Daniel to meet this casting director in Miami that I knew from a long time ago and she asked me if I would consider being in a little film she was casting.   I read the script and it was so raunchy!  I thought I have never played a character like this in my life.  She is a pill popping, martini slugging, potty mouthed socialite.  It’s a really silly movie.  I asked my boys how they would feel if they see me saying all these words on camera.  I didn’t want to embarrass them.  They said, “Go for it!” So I did and it was a ton of fun!  At the end of the shoot the producers told me their series ‘Burn Notice’ was picked up and asked if I would like to be in it?  So they wrote a little part for me in a few episodes.  I hadn’t been trying for anything and they handed me this part on a little silver tray.  I said, “Thank you!”  It was fun and close to home.  It was a nice experience.     


AM:  I have a feeling we’re going to be seeing and hearing a lot more from you again Audrey!


AL:  A few years ago people started asking me when I was going to release the songs I sang on ‘Dallas’ and I said I have to do that so now I’m going to finally do it and add some new songs. 


AM:  So this will be a recording for the United States!


AL:  Yes, I am not focusing so much on Europe, though if it’s a hit over there, then great!  I’m trying to lure my son who is so talented to do the tracks for me.


AM:  I think we’ll be seeing a lot of Daniel too.


AL:   Me too.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed.  He’s working very hard.  

 To learn more about Audrey Landers visit her web site http://www.audrey-landers.com/

Peace On Earth 2012

December 16, 2012, 9:58 am

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All Photos:  Alan Mercer

“It isn’t enough to talk about peace, one must believe in it.  And it isn’t enough to believe in it, one must work for it”  Eleanor Roosevelt

It’s the time of year when we all come together and celebrate peace and love.  Let’s do our very best to make this a year long commitment we can renew every year.  I have always believed whatever you choose to focus on will come to pass so let’s choose peace and spread it throughout the world.  May all of you have the best holiday season ever and bring peace, love and understanding to all you encounter.   I, along with seven of my friends, and Phoebe the dove, wish you all a most peaceful and love filled year!


White Doves are used in a variety of settings as symbols of love, peace or as messengers. Doves appear in the symbology of Judaism and Christianity and of both military and pacifist groups.  A dove was released by Noah after the flood in order to find land.  It came back carrying an olive leaf in its beak, telling Noah that, somewhere, there was land.  A dove also symbolizes the Holy Spirit, in reference to Matthew 3:16 and Luke 3:22 where the Holy Spirit is compared to a dove at the Baptism of Jesus. The early Christians in Rome incorporated into their funerary art the image of a dove carrying an olive branch, often accompanied by the word ‘Peace’.  It was popularized by Pablo Picasso in 1949 and became widely used in the post-war peace movement.

The internationally recognized symbol for peace was originally designed for the British nuclear disarmament movement by Gerald Holtom in 1958.   Holtom, an artist and designer, made it for a march from Trafalgar Square in London.  The original design is housed in the Peace Museum in Bradford, England. 

“There is no way to peace. Peace is the way”  Reverend A.J. Muste

Phoebe and I wish you the best of Holidays and, especially, Peace on Earth. Let it begin now.

Namaste, Mamie Van Doren

"Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace."  Buddha

“Imagine all the people living in a world of love”  John Lennon

"May the peace of the season be with you and your family throughout the coming year!" Love George & Nancy Jones

“Peace begins with a smile.”  Mother Theresa

"HAPPY HOLIDAY'S FROM HAPPILY DIVORCED!" Peter Marc Jacobson

“Peace cannot be kept by force.  It can only be achieved by understanding”  Albert Einstein

“My wish to you: Cherish life's treasures. What you are is God's gift to you. What you make of yourself is your gift to God. Peace on Earth.”   Audrey Landers

“When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who is at peace with others”  Peace Pilgrim

"Happy holidays and blessings to everyone! Much love and best wishes for 2013!!"  Brad Rowe

“God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there.  There is no such thing.”  C. S. Lewis

May the True Magic of the Holiday Season, reside in your Heart, all year long. Blessings, Erika Eleniak

“God has called us to walk in peace...to seek peace and pursue it”  1 Cor 7:15  PS 34:14

Judy Pace: Mid 20th Century Diva

January 20, 2013, 10:42 am

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All Photos:  Alan Mercer

The Daily Variety, along with many publications, and critics call Judy Pace, one of the most beautiful women to ever appear on screen. In the 1970s, she was the personification of black beauty, but just calling her a black beauty is a slap in the face because she's a beauty, period. Her dark-brown complexion is always mentioned because she was the first dark complected beauty on-screen. She proved to whites and blacks, that beauty doesn't discriminate and a woman with dark skin can be a beauty, too. Her presence is always welcoming, warm, sexy but innocent. She is truly graceful and a vision of loveliness. But don't make the mistake of knowing her for just beauty. She is truly a grand actress.


She came from a humble upbringing. After graduating from high school, she attended Los Angeles City College, where she majored in sociology. Always striking, she was taught modeling by her sister then she got an offer to join the prestigious Ebony Fashion Fair and she auditioned and became the youngest model for the show. Modeling was something new and adventurous for Judy. She went on to model in many leading publications.


She showed great potential as an actress and she realized that she was meant to be an actress so she began taking acting classes and performing in L.A. theater. Small parts on television and films started coming in, leading to bigger and better roles, such as “Three In The Attic’ in 1968. Judy played one of three femme fatales who band together to turn the tables on a white gigolo by loving him to death. This film was one of Hollywood's first interracial love/sex movies. Judy played her part so daringly, enticingly and erotically that you forgot her race and color and were hypnotized by her powerful aura. 


Judy got her first major break in Hollywood as the first black villainess on TV with her role as "Vickie Fletcher" in the hit ABC-TV soap-opera/drama series ‘Peyton Place’ in 1968. Judy was excellent as the manipulative, lying, cheating, back-stabber who ruins everyone's life who walked in her path.  When ‘Peyton Place' was canceled, others found it hard to find work but Judy didn't. Judy played one of three young lawyers who took on cases dealing with the poor and oppressed on ABC-TV's 'The Young Lawyers.' 


The 1970s was the start of a new, exciting, experimental era that'll never be seen again. It was the era of black power and black beauty. Judy, more than anyone, exemplified that era of thinking. She was black and beautiful, truly. She was the "new" black woman - confident, strong, sweet, sexy, vivacious and beautiful. Judy Pace was referred to as "The Black Babydoll" or "The Black Barbie" because she looked just like a perfect doll. 


Judy Pace became a familiar face on both the big and small screen, appearing in popular blaxploitation movies and popular television shows.  She played a character on the soap opera 'One Life To Live.’ Television programs on which she appeared include 'Batman,’ ‘Bewitched,’ 'The Flying Nun,’‘I Spy,’ ‘The Mod Squad,’ ‘Kung Fu,’ ‘Sanford and Son,’ and ‘What’s Happening' just to name a few.   Judy also made a supporting role appearance as Gale Sayer's wife in the critically acclaimed 1971 ABC-TV movie ‘Brian’s Song.’


She never acted black or white. She simply just acted and her portrayals were moving to anyone watching her, she made you become deeply involved in her roles. Even as a bad lady, she made you hate her but love her a little. Judy was a natural, versatile actress; she could play the sweet, innocent girl next door, she could play an evil, femme fatale, she could play the dumb beauty and make it believable. She made you understand her and have a little heart for her.


Judy's first marriage was to actor Don Mitchell, who had success on ‘Ironside. She had two children from that union and, later, she married baseball legend Curt Flood.  Since Flood's death in 1997, Judy has been a major spokesperson for her husband's role in establishing free agency in professional sports. Judy is also the founder and supporter of the Kwanza Foundation with "Star Trek" legend, Nichelle Nichols. Her daughter Julia Pace Mitchell currently has a role in the daytime soap opera ‘The Young and the Restless.’  Her other daughter is a prominent attorney.


A special thank you to Donald Welch for making this happen!  

AM:  Judy, it’s time for your return to show business.

JP:  You know I literally retired because I don’t multi-task.  I know that’s the thing people do now and I applaud everyone who can do that, especially women.  I think being pregnant is a job! (laughing) It takes your full concentration. I admire women who can go to a board meeting and carry a baby but I can’t do that.  I had no role models for that.  When I grew up almost everyone’s Mom stayed at home.  I had the stay at home Mom and a grandmother who was always there. I’m now realizing I had a very blessed childhood with a Mom and a Dad who doted over all of us. 

AM:  That is a rare blessing now.

JP:  I thank the Lord for the blessings I have received.  To get back to the point I couldn’t have a career and my children.  My kids refer to me as a Mid 20th Century Diva. (laughter) I take that title with great pride!  I was lucky I got in the business at the time the Civil Rights movement was going on.  Of course I’m referring to the Sixties.  In those days you had to do everything as a performer.  You had to dance, sing and act and you better do it well.  Since I was a dark brown African American I had to wear blinders like a horse.  The only thing I could focus on was my career.  

AM:  That’s how you did it.

JP:  I had to be like a laser.  It was the only way I could make it. 

AM:  You are considered a pioneer today Judy.  

JP:  I rolled my covered wagon up on Sunset and rolled into Columbia Studios and they signed me. (laughter)

AM:  Did you have to audition or were you signed based on beauty?

JP:  At the time I entered the business, dark brown was not considered pretty in any way, shape or form.  Dark brown didn’t get you in the beauty lane.    

AM:  And yet you are beautiful.

JP:  I was a novelty.  There weren’t any before me.  I broke the color barrier of dark brown.  Interestingly I was working as a model.  I was the continuing national image of Pepsi-Cola and that had never happened before.      

AM:  How did you get started in modeling?

JP:  I had an audition with Johnson Publications who publish Ebony, Essence and Jet magazines.  They had a fabulous traveling show that went to all the major cities called The Ebony Fashion Fair.  Only the best top models could even be in the show.  My dear friend Marilyn McCoo was in high school with me and she called me and told me we had to go to the audition.  We were seventeen years old.  Her Mom wouldn’t let her go but I did and I got a call back to go to Chicago and meet Mr. Johnson.  We had a great interview and they signed me to be a model. I was so excited and went to New York for all the fittings and started doing the shows.  Then I got a phone call from the road manager telling me they were going to have to let me go!  I started crying and Mrs. Johnson got on the line and told me I was the cutest little model but I looked like I was dressed up in my Mother’s clothes.  She told me not to cry because they would have me back the next year and the designers would create a youthful line so I would be their young model.  

AM:  Did they keep their word?

JP:  They did bring me back the next year and I was the teenage model.  I was just too youthful for their sophisticated high fashion clothes.  At this time Ebony got a call from Columbia Pictures looking for a dark skinned Actress to play an African Diplomats daughter.  So I went and signed a contract.       

AM:  What kind of work did you do for Columbia?

JP:  Mainly Sixties television work like ‘Bewitched’ and ‘The Flying Nun’ and all those shows at the time.

AM:  Was it a good experience to guest on these shows?  I know it can be difficult to enter a set where everyone knows each other already and you are the new one.

JP:  My first agent, Lil Cumber, who was a legend, told me to make sure everyone on these sets became my instant best friend.  That includes lighting, sound and director because you don’t want anyone not on your side.  That really helped me and I didn’t have any problems.  No matter what my call time was I came early and stayed late so I could learn how the pros did it.  I soaked it all up. 

AM:  You didn’t stay at Columbia that long did you?

JP:  No, I was also the first dark brown Actress to sign with Twentieth Century Fox.   My daughters made me aware I was the first Black Villainess on television when I filmed 'Peyton Place.’  I along with Glynn Turman and Ruby Dee was part of the first Black family in a prime time drama.  I was also the first pregnant Black woman and teenager on a show.   

AM:  Judy, you have so many firsts!  Did you enjoy filming ‘Peyton Place’?

JP:  We had a great time.  Being part of that show really pumped my career up.  From this I got a contract for a three movie deal with American International Films.  I was the first Black woman to have a three movie deal!    

AM:  What movies did you make for them?

JP:  The first film was called ‘Three In The Attic’ and starred Yvette Mimieux.  It was a box office hit!  Then I did ‘Down In The Cellar’ with Joan Collins and Larry Hagman.  The last one I did was ‘Frogs’ which is now a cult favorite.

AM:  I know ‘Frogs’.  Everybody knows that movie!  What was it like working with Ray Milland?

JP:  Whenever he was working I would go on the set and watch, even if I didn’t have any scenes that day.  Just to watch this professional being brilliant with whatever scene he was doing. 

AM:  I love your looks in that film too.

JP:  I played a fashion model!  You know in all three of these films my boyfriends were Caucasian men.  That was very forward for the time.  It was never made mention that I was Black and they were White.  I was just the girlfriend!  We were always of an equal level. 

AM:  Can you tell me about 'Cotton Comes To Harlem’?

JP:  'Cotton Comes To Harlem’ changed the industry.  It was the first movie with a predominantly Black cast in the Top Ten Movies.  No one expected it to do that.  This movie started the whole genre of African American movies that started around 1970.  Before this, these films were not considered a money making opportunity.  Only the musicals from the 30's and 40's had been made before.            

AM:  You have always played all kinds of characters.  You didn’t get typecast so much.  

JP:  Well I had a lot of fun.  I had a point to make and that was dark brown skinned people don’t always have to play the maid.  If it’s a good role just send me in.  A lot of the roles I took were not written for a Black woman, they were just written for a woman.  

AM:  Did you ever think of another career outside of acting?

JP:  No, it’s all I wanted to do.  I enjoyed working so much.  It’s all I ever wanted to do.  I had that point to prove and it stuck with me.  My Dad always called me his little Hershey bar so to me dark brown was a delicious color.  I didn’t know I was a beauty until I started modeling. 

AM:  What is your favorite type of work?

JP:  I love to do comedy!  That is my favorite, even though on my reel you won’t see any.    

AM:  Comedy is the hardest style of acting.

JP: It is the hardest thing to create, produce, be a character in or be believable.  

AM: Why is that?

JP:  It’s because everybody knows what’s going to make you cry but nobody knows what’s going to make you laugh.  You can give the dialogue to ten different people and maybe only one will make you laugh.  It’s the toughest.  I love comedy and that’s why I love Donald Welch.  He writes interesting and sophisticated comedy.    

AM:  You are about to film Don’s movie 'The Divorce’ right now aren’t you?

JP:  Yes, I’m glad he brought me in for the role in the movie.       

AM:  I’m looking forward to seeing you back on the big screen.

JP:  My daughters told me I needed to get back to work.  They have been giving me one or two films that I have been in the last several Christmas’s.  They were finding them before everything was on DVD.  They wanted to see some of my work.  Most of it I hadn’t even seen.   

AM:  I get the feeling you were just as happy being a stay at home Mom as you were being a well known actress.

JP:   Thank you Jesus for my Mom and Dad.  I’m basically a happy person.  I love life and the blessings it gives you.  I also did nightclub work.

AM:  I didn’t know that.

JP:  It was expected if you were in the entertainment industry at that time.  You better do nightclub work.  I loved doing it.  

AM:  But you also wanted to be a Mom so you let it all go.  

JP:  Yes, I had a shift in my priorities.  I wanted to hang out with my kids and my husband.  All my friends were still in the business so I lived vicariously through them. 

AM:  Did you make 'Brian’s Song’ before you had your daughters?

JP:  Yes, it was right before I married Don Mitchell.  By the way I auditioned with Lou Gossett instead of Billy Dee Williams.   

AM:  Was Billy Dee famous at the time?

JP:  No, but he used to play basketball with Lou and my husband and some other actors and Lou got hurt so Billy got the part.  

AM:  I know you are back to work again Judy.  How did this happen?

JP:  I never meant to retire.  I love show business and all that it involves.  I have been filming a new sitcom the past couple of weeks and I start Donald Welch’s movie ‘The Divorce’ in February.

  

Billy Hayes Has A Plan

February 3, 2013, 7:41 am

≫ Next: Debra Tate: Doing The Right Thing

≪ Previous: Judy Pace: Mid 20th Century Diva

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All Photos:  Alan Mercer   Lighting:  Eric V.

Like a lot of people I first heard of Billy Hayes in 1978 when the film ‘Midnight Express’ was released.  It’s hard to forget such a powerful film, much less think of it as somebody’s reality.  Billy is best known for his autobiographical book ‘Midnight Express,’ about his experiences in and escape from a Turkish prison after being convicted of smuggling hashish. He was one of hundreds of U.S. citizens in foreign jails serving ‘drug charge’ sentences following a drug smuggling crackdown by foreign governments.  I read the book after seeing the movie and found it to be even more harrowing than the film in many ways.  Since then I have always wondered who Billy Hayes really was and what’s he like today?  I got my opportunity to find out recently when Billy met with me for a quick photo session and conversation about what he’s up to and the life long effects of being a world famous convicted drug smuggler.  


Here are some details.  Billy, who was an American student at the time, was caught trying to smuggle four pounds of hashish out of Turkey on October 7, 1970. He was originally sentenced to four years and two months in a Turkish prison, then with his release date weeks away, he learned that the authorities had chosen to penalize him with a life sentence, which in practice, meant 30 years to be released in 2000.


Billy was imprisoned at Sağmalcılar prison in Turkey. Following an incident in prison, he was transferred in 1972 to Bakirkoy Mental Hospital, described as a "lunatic asylum." The United States Department of State on several occasions pressured Turkey to transfer sentencing to the United States, however Turkish foreign minister Milah Esenbel stated that the United States was not in a position to exercise a sentence handed down by Turkish courts. Esenbel stated privately to officials that a release might be possible on humanitarian grounds if Hayes' physical or mental health was deteriorating, but in a private consultation, Hayes stated to U.S. diplomats that his experience at Bakirkoy Mental Hospital in 1972 was highly traumatic and he did not have confidence that the hospital would certify him for early release. Billy also stated that he felt attempts to win early release would jeopardize his prospects of being transferred to a more desirable half-open prison.


On May 12, 1975, the Turkish Constitutional Court declared amnesty for all narcotics offenses which shortened Billys’ sentence from 30 to 25 years. He was transferred to İmralı Prison on July 11, 1975.  He escaped from İmralı on October 2, 1975, escaping at night on a rowboat to Bandirma, blending in with locals and then heading westbound across the border to Greece. He was deported from Thessaloniki to Frankfurt on October 20, 1975 after several weeks' detention and interrogation about what military intelligence Hayes possessed about Turkey. 


Billy then wrote a book on his experiences, ‘Midnight Express,’ which was later adapted into the 1978 film ‘Midnight Express’ starring Brad Davis as Billy. The film was directed by Alan Parker, with a screenplay by Oliver Stone. The movie differs from Billys' account in his book. Among the differences is a scene in which Hayes kills the prison guard Hamid "the bear", the main antagonist of the story. In fact, the prison guard was killed in 1973 by a recently released prisoner, whose family Hamid insulted while beating the prisoner, years before Hayes' actual escape.


For legal reasons, neither the film nor the book had been completely accurate. In 2010, in an episode of National Geographic Channel's ‘Locked Up Abroad,’ titled ‘The Real Midnight Express,’ Billy tells his version of the full story about being sent to the infamous Turkish Sagmalcilar prison, eventually escaping from the Marmara Sea prison on İmralı island.



Billy has acted in a few film roles and directed the feature ‘Cock & Bull Story’ in 2003.  The film is the story of two friends who are torn apart by passion and ambition in the violent world of amateur boxing starring Brian Austin Green.  

AM:  Billy, I can’t even begin to imagine what the arc of your life has been like.





BH:  Interesting is the one word that pretty much covers the whole breath and depth.





AM:  Was it interesting from the day you were born?





BH:  Pretty much so.  I had such an easy life.  Everything was so easy for me, school, sports, girls, being social, it was all so easy.  Then everything changed in an instant.  I had taken everything for granted as most people do, especially Americans.  Then, when everything was gone I had to examine who I was and why I was here.  I had to discover things.  It was actually very valuable to me.  Even today when I get concerned about things I have to stop and remind myself that I am healthy, free and my wife still loves me and nobody is beating my feet.   Everything else is gravy.





AM:  You have your priorities in order it seems.





BH:  I hope so.  I am happy!





AM:  Did you always want to be an actor or performer?





BH:  I always intended to be a writer.  It’s what put me out in the world to explore.





AM: Well you’re good at it so it makes sense.





BH:  Anybody can be a writer.  All you have to do is sit down everyday and do it whether you have something to say or whether you’re good at it.  In college I was a journalism major.  When I returned home for the first time I got off the plane at Kennedy Airport and there were one hundred journalists there, asking me what it felt like to be home again.  I didn’t know how it felt yet.  I hadn’t even seen my Mom yet.  I got asked to speak at high schools and colleges and I wondered why, but then I realized I did have a good story for kids. My message was if you are this stupid, look what can happen to you.  Those kids understood this.





AM:  Did you feel like your trials and tribulations were on display?





BH:  Everybody goes through their own trials and tribulations.  Mine just happened to be more compact and dramatic because of having the media involved.  I was in jail from 1970 to 1975.  Everybody can relate to going through customs so my situation struck a chord.  I got home on a Friday and by Monday I was writing the book.  Before the book was even finished the producer Peter Guber was flying me out to Hollywood to talk about a movie deal.





AM:  Did you imagine your experience being turned into a movie while you were in prison?





BH:  It’s so bizarre.  While I was inside a lot of my letters and writing got sent to a school in Milwaukee.  I always wanted to write a book about it but to have it become a movie is strange, and to have it become what it has to this day is even more weird.





AM:  The story has never gone away.





BH:   No it hasn’t.  I’m a bed bug in the fabric of our culture.  You can’t get rid of 'Midnight Express.’  People have always been talking about it even while I was in jail and then all the media after I got out.

AM:  You actively promoted your book and movie didn’t you?





BH:  I did promotions for the book and then a worldwide promotion for the movie.   Now I’ve got a woman who has been following me around for a few years making a documentary.  She is picking up on all the bizarre aspects of 'Midnight Express’ seeping into the culture.





AM:  I see references to it all the time.





BH:  John Belushi talked about it on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ Jim Carrey has a scene in ‘Cable Guy’ when he gets arrested and put in jail, and there are about ten more examples how the story has seeped into the culture.  There was even a ‘Midnight Express Tour’ that went from London to Amsterdam and back.  There is still a ‘Midnight Express’ Courier driving around town.  I don’t know what to make of all that.  The National Geographic ‘Locked Up Abroad’ TV show did my story two years ago.  The response to it was just incredible.  It led me to a One Man Show I have in progress now.  I did it in Hollywood for a couple weeks just to get it up on it’s feet and help me feel what it’s like getting up on stage.





AM:  Is being on stage natural for you?





BH:  Yes, my Mom said I never have any trouble BSing about myself!  





AM:  I can tell you are an outgoing person.





BH:  Always!   My wife and I are going to London in April because the London Coliseum Theatre is doing a production of the ‘Midnight Express Ballet.’  They are bringing me over to do some promotion.  It stars this Russian dancer named Segei Polunin, who is the bad boy of ballet.  I also have two new books coming out so I will be doing some book signings too.  Every thirty years I make a big splash!  Wait til you see me in my nineties.  (laughter)  It just continues and it’s too bizarre for me to think about.





AM:  This attention you receive seems to suit you very well.





BH:    In prison you try to avoid attention.  You really don’t want any.  There’s too much danger being the center of attention there.  As soon as I got out that’s all I’ve had.





AM:  You went from one extreme to the other.





BH:  Exactly, it hasn’t stopped since I got off that plane at Kennedy Airport.





AM:  Does it ever get old for you?





BH:  It does when it hinders communication.  When it fosters communication it’s great.  I’m constantly having to deal with and adjust to other people’s perceptions of me.  Normally when you meet someone you don’t know them and you find out who they are, but people think they know me.  If they’ve read the book they know one guy.  If they’ve only seen the movie they know somebody else.





AM:   Everyone thinks they know you already.





BH:  Yes and while some concepts are valid, many aren’t.  I have to constantly live with this, but it’s not a big deal.  It is what it is.  For a while I did totally get away from anything ‘Midnight Express’ and ‘Billy Hayes.’  When I got my SAG card it was under the name William Hayes.  I literally showed everyone my SAG card when I got it.  I do that now with my Medicare card!  (laughter)  I never thought I’d see thirty so I am thrilled to be sixty-five.





AM:  How do you stay looking so fresh and young?





BH:  Yoga.





AM:  What about Spiritually?





BH:  I was raised a Catholic until I was eleven or twelve years old when the church and I went opposite directions due to puberty and reason.  I do think religion is the main source of human misery but in prison I discovered my reason for being.  This always sounds so trite, but it’s true.  My reason for being is to love.  I didn’t know this until after many years in the depths of jail.  It changed everything for me.  All my needs are secondary after that.  I’ve been married for 32 years.  Life is kind of sweet now. A lot of good things are happening now.  I always want more, but I think that’s good.  When you lose that you start to die a little bit.  I’m very excited about life and I always have been.    

AM:  When you say you learned that you are here to love, did that awareness just rise up one day?





BH:  I was always a reader of philosophy.  I got rid of religion because it didn’t make sense.  I was an English major in college so I was always seeking.  I had all of this Spiritual yearning that seemed to be part of growing up in the Sixties.   When I realized I was here to love, it simplified everything for me.





AM:  I think keeping things simple is the only way.





BH:  That is the energy I seek in myself and in others.  It’s the arrow by which I guide myself.  I know this energy now and if people vibrate this energy I move in that direction, if they don’t, I move in another direction.





AM:  That is a great way to see things.





BH:  Things just happen.  We decide what they mean and how they will affect us or not.   I used to do the college lectures in the Eighties.  I visited 103 colleges in a three year period talking about all this stuff.  The writer William James said, “People can alter their lives by altering their attitudes.”  It makes so much sense.  We alter our life by altering our attitude.  That’s so simple and profound.  It really helped me deal with prison.  Prison was the worst and the best thing that ever happened to me.  Even down to the fact that when the movie premiered at the Canne Film Festival in May 1978, I met the woman I am still married to today.





AM:  You were mostly pleased with the film weren’t you?





BH:  I was pleased by the fact it was an incredibly well made film.  Alan Parker is a genius and Brad Davis gave his heart and soul.    





AM:  You liked Brads’ performance, of course.





BH:  I loved Brad.  I miss him so much.  I could go weeks and months without talking to him on the phone and then suddenly we’d be having breakfast or lunch.  The cool thing about Brad was you could meet up with him and no matter what your day was like, it was going to change and you’d never know where it was going to lead.  He had an incredible child like nature that was wonderful as an actor.





AM:  So you are moving into the future with your one man show!





BH:  Hopefully this Spring we’ll be putting up 'Riding the Midnight Express’ up in New York.  We want to take it all around the world.  That’s the plan!

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Debra Tate: Doing The Right Thing

February 15, 2013, 6:11 am

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≪ Previous: Billy Hayes Has A Plan

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All Photos:  Alan Mercer   Lighting:  Eric V.

I have always LOVED the film work of Sharon Tate so I was very excited when my friend David Wills asked me if I would do a photo session with Debra Tate.  Of course I was quite familiar with her name and I knew of her hard work.  What I didn’t know was that Debra would be so warm, intelligent, engaging and beautiful.  Having the opportunity to take some photographs and visit with her on a recent Saturday afternoon was a total delight.  


Debra’s older sister, Sharon Tate was a rising young movie star in such films as ‘Valley Of The Dolls’ and just 26 when she, along with four others, were fatally attacked by Charles Manson and his cult members on August 8, 1969.  She was married to movie director Roman Polanski and eight and a half months pregnant.  Debra called Sharon that day asking her if she could spend the night at her house, but Sharon said no. Debra was almost seventeen at the time.


Debra Ann Tate is the middle child of Colonel Paul James Tate and his wife, Doris Gwendolyn.  She was born in El Paso, Texas.  Debra got married in 1984 to William E. Mussenden, their daughter and only child Arieana Tate Mussenden, was born in 1985.


After her mother’s death in 1992, her sister Patty continued to work on her mother’s foundation, The Doris Tate Crime Victims Bureau, when Patty died 13 years ago, Debra took over.  Doris Tate was the first person to make such an impact statement under the new law, when she spoke at the parole hearing of one of her daughter's killers, Charles ‘Tex’ Watson. She believed changes in the law had afforded her daughter dignity that had been denied her before, and that she had been able to "help transform Sharon's legacy from murder victim to a symbol of victims' rights.”


Over the years we have seen Debra on several television shows and documentaries plus she has been a guest in Dateline NBC and Larry King, among many others.  She has no intention of slowing down in her determination to do the right thing.

AM:  What is going on that you need some photographs Debra?


DT:  At this moment I am looking for some photographs that will put me in a good light.  I’m doing a lot of television work with the news like CNN and the Fox Network.  This has to do with the possible release of Bruce Davis who is a Manson family equal, not a follower.  They want to release him into the middle of Los Angeles.  The Governor has 30 days starting February 1st to make that decision.  Hopefully we can stop this because this man is a true menace.


AM:  I can’t even believe this.


DT:  People don’t know.  There is an agenda in the state of California.  This particular governor wants his political career to end on a high note that he has balanced the unbalance-able California budget.  They have already released all the minor prisoners they can.


AM:  Why are they doing this?


DT:  What the public needs to take into consideration is any inmate over the age of fifty, just like the rest of us, becomes a medical liability.  The costs can be millions of dollars.  So the governor doesn’t care who they are or what they’ve done.  He wants them out.  It helps him balance that budget. 


AM:  What can we do as members of the public?


DT:   All of us need to email the Governors office at http://gov.ca.gov/m_contact.php and let him know how we feel as citizens, that we don’t want this man released into the general population.  The clock is ticking.  The parole board granted Bruce a parole date.  The Governor got the papers on his desk February 1st.  He has thirty days to make up his mind, but he could make up his mind anytime before March 1st.


AM:  Obviously this is a personal crusade for you.


DT:  It is a personal crusade and it isn’t.  At this point in time there is nothing that can be done to help my immediate situation, but what I can do is to prevent it from happening to anybody else with the best of my abilities.


AM:  You seem to know a lot about these people.


DT:  I do sit in the parole room with each of these individuals and I can honestly say they are definitely sociopathic individuals.  There is no cure or deprograming for a sociopath.  I’m genuinely worried that it’s business as usual.  They have cell phones and Internet connections.  They are still speaking with each other and they are very organized.  There’s no reason for me to believe that there’s any other agenda with those factors in place. 

  

AM:  Is this something you are prepared to do for the rest of your life?

DT:  Yes.


AM:  Are you aware of how much the public feels for you?  Do you feel this energy aimed at you?


DT:  I know that some power somewhere feels I’m doing the right thing and I feel support from that power.  I’m not sure that I realized it was from people or not because I do have a small group of vocal haters.  Sometimes I feel that’s the more prominent voice.  So sometimes I doubt myself.   


AM:  Please do not doubt yourself at all.  


DT:  I would like to state that one reason I’m not aware of my following in the general population is because I can work my rear end off, and others can as well, and I have never been able to break more than 80 letters against the killers release.  I need all the support I can get.   


AM:  Why do you think people don’t do it?


DT:  I realize there’s a strong possibility that people are afraid to put their names and addresses on things but I’d like to take this opportunity to assure them that, I really need the help and all the names and addresses are blacked out by the prison board.  Nobody ever gets to see them.  


AM:  Have you given any thought to getting the word out on social media like facebook and Twitter?


DT:   My webmaster runs facebook for me.  I haven’t done it myself.  I’m scared due to the fact that I get at least four death threats a year.  I don’t want to taint anything to do with Sharon with this negativity.  Now these threats have been around whether I’m on facebook or not.  They have always managed to find their way to me.  Also, I have many crazy stalkers and imposters and people who try to say I’m not a member of my own family.  It’s all absolutely absurd.  It all hurts my feelings.


AM:  I think it’s the fact that your personal story has taken on a mythological status.  The story is just so famous.


DT:  I think you’re right. It just seems like people with weak personalities want to be me.  I don’t get it.  I don’t think I’m famous and I certainly don’t have any money as a result of all this.  All of this business has just cost me, it’s never made me a dime.  It’s a terrible waste of notoriety.  It’s not what people think it is.   


AM:  It’s not even possible to imagine what you’ve been through.


DT:  I wouldn’t want anyone to even try to imagine it.  It was all so brutal.  I counsel people who have had to deal with a brutal murder on a regular basis.  I will be there for anybody at anytime for something like this.  It’s all so devastating.  So those people who want to be me are are not reality based. 


AM:  You were so young when the incident happened.


DT: I was almost seventeen at the time, but I was integrated right into Sharon and Roman’s social crowd.  Being a military brat, when you are traveling the globe every three years, the only thing that’s consistent in your life is your family members, so Sharon and I were extremely close, even though there was almost a ten year age difference.  


AM:  She was the big sister you idolized.


DT:  She was everything.  She was my whole world.   


AM:  Are you happy with the way Sharon is remembered?


DT:  No, not at all.  


AM: What would you like to change?


DT:  Well I’m hopefully going to be doing a beautiful book about Sharon with David Wills that will say nothing about the last twenty minutes of her life.  Sharon had an amazing body of work.  I don’t know when she had time to interact with friends and family, she was so incredibly busy.  I want to fortify her beauty as a person and as a style and fashion icon.  I want to put that back out there again because she is not just a victim.  That was a very small portion of her life. 


AM:  Well you’re a beautiful person and sister yourself Debra.


DT:  Thank you.


AM:  Do you think Sharon has a bigger following today than ever?


DT:   Her fan base is growing again.  It’s been growing for the last five years or so.  Fashion repeats itself every thirty years so since the Sixties styles came back in again, the Stars have been wearing the Sharon Tate hairdo and the Sharon Tate look.  She is reaching a younger generation who is becoming aware of who and what she was.  I’m told that Kelly Osborne is a big fan.  Drew Barrymore did a VOGUE layout that was modeled after Sharon.


AM:  I hear about her all the time.  She is a contemporary ongoing subject.


DT:  She should be.  The maniacs shouldn’t be able to take that away. 

Vickie Wright Loves Motown

February 24, 2013, 9:27 am

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All Photos:  Alan Mercer

With the help of writer Vickie Wright, Tammi Terrell's only remaining immediate relative, sister Ludie Montgomery, tells the story of the fallen songstress.  In their book, ‘My Sister Tommie,' Vickie and Ludie bring Tammi vividly back to life through rare photos, interviews and family recollections to finally address the many issues about the short lifetime of one of pop's most celebrated, and elusive, female vocalists.


While growing up in Long Beach, California, Vickie somehow always knew she would be writing the story of her favorite singer, but she didn’t know she would also be telling the story of the famous background singers, The Andantes.  Vickie is the Author of ‘Motown from The Background, The Andantes Biography.’  Written with Marlene Barrow-Tate, Jackie Hicks, and Louvain Demps.  Vickie coaxed the stories, the memories, the emotions and the truth from The Andantes themselves.  Both books are available on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com. 


I met with Vickie in Studio City, California for a wonderful conversation and a few casual photos.  We had a great time and I learned a lot about Motown and Vickie!!!


A BIG thanks to Wedigo Watson for arranging this blog!

AM:  How did a girl like you become an authority on Tammi Terrell and the Andantes?


VW:  I was born in 1966 and I had two older sisters so I must have heard this music on the radio.  I loved the Supremes, The Four Tops and Marvin Gaye.  Now I think back and I realize these people raised me.  I just loved Motown.


AM:  But Tammi stood out for you.


VW:  Tammi’s voice just touches you.  Many other people say the same thing.  She sings with such emotion.  It’s beyond just liking a good singer.  There was just something about her, that as I got older, I wanted to know more about her.


AM:  Is this why you wrote the book?


VW:  When I was a teenager in high school I always thought in the back of my mind that I was going to write a book about Tammi.  It had been percolating inside me for a very long time.


AM:  Did you know you were a writer?


VW:  No, I just wanted to tell her story and I felt drawn to her.  There wasn’t that much written about her and what I did learn would rub me the wrong way.  I would read about how Marvin Gaye lost his friend and he was never the same.  As I got older and really started to be able to appreciate the music, I wanted to know the person Marvin Gaye knew.


AM:  Did you start doing research?


VW:  A few years went by and I was working long hours in show business, but this book was always tapping at me.  I decided to look her up.  I thought maybe someone had written a book about her by this time and I could read about her.  When I saw that there still wasn’t anything, I decided to do it.


AM:  What was the first thing you did?


VW:  I contacted some people that I knew could help me find her sister.  I sent Tammi’s sister, Ludie Montgomery, a letter and she was ready to tell the story.  She told me if I had tried to find her before, she wouldn’t have been ready.


AM:  Why not?


VW:  She had a lot of healing to do before she was ready.   During this writing process with Ludie, I discovered the Andantes.   They were heavily featured in Tammi’s work.  So it was really telling the same story as part one and part two.


AM:  So you decided to take on another writing project?


VW:  I wanted to honor the work they had done too.  It was a natural progression.  They are all still alive to tell their story.  It turned out to be really great for them.


AM:  That is why I love the Internet.  It really brings about many opportunities to learn about people from the past.


VW:  Look what ‘Walk The Line’ did for Johnny Cash.  He gained so many young fans when it was released.  Tammi Terrell is like that.  Her music is timeless.  People know her voice and her songs.  Her songs are part of the soundtrack in so many big movies and are featured on ‘American Idol.’  Teenagers love Tammi Terrell.  Michael McDonald recorded three of her songs.  Michael Bolton has just recorded 'Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing’ for his new album.  That’s a testimony of her talent.  She died so young and still has this legacy.


AM:  I like stories like yours where you have a strong calling and you manifest and fulfill it.


VW:  It was very strong.  It really wouldn’t leave me alone.


AM:  It gives you a strong sense of destiny.


VW:  I thought I was just writing a music biography, but once I got into the inner workings of her relationships with her family and friends, it was a mirror to many different aspects of my life.  Her Mom was just like mine.


AM:  So it became therapy didn’t it?


VW:  It was very therapeutic for her sister and me.  It’s the same with the Andantes.  They have their memories locked away.  Since they are not Internet savvy, it is great fun to bring their fans to them.  It was a little overwhelming for them.  


AM:  When did the Andantes book come out?


VW:  It came out in 2007.  Tammi’s came out in 2005. I wrote them back to back.


AM:  Are you planning to write any more books?


VW:  I have other books I want to write I just haven’t been able to concentrate on them.  I don’t sit and write like I used to, but I want to get back to it.

AM:  Writing this kind of biography is the hardest.


VW:  Yes, with Tammi especially.  There is a lot of controversy with her life.  I think it’s because it all happened so fast.  She got to Detroit in 1965 and she collapsed in 1967.  She didn’t have very long.  When you interview as many people as I did, I went with what had consistency.


AM:  Did you use your intuition?


VW:  Yes I did.  If someone who met her in an elevator had the same impression that Nick Ashford, who really knew her, did, that was powerful.   Nick spent quality time with her and was a real friend.  So if you could spend a few moments with her and get the same impression, her essence really came through.  She walked through life a certain way and everyone got good vibes from her.  Tammi loved life and had a lot of integrity.  She was a very easy person to read.


AM:  Did you learn a lot about Motown in general from writing these books?


VW:  I had read many of the other books including Marvin Gaye and Mary Wilson, so I knew a little.  Tammi’s story is not really a Motown story, but the Andantes is!  Those ladies were there for everything.  They were flies on the wall.  I learned a lot about the inner dynamics and the workings there.


AM:   Has the Motown story been fully documented now with all the books from the different people involved?


VW:  I think there’s still pockets out there that havn’t been shared.  The bulk of it is out there but everyone has a slice of it that is a little different.  It’s a very complicated story with many layers.  There was a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes the public doesn’t know about.  They all went to church together.  


AM:  Do you ever get tired of talking about all this?


VW:  Never.  I love it too much.  It’s inspiring.  Look at the Andantes who were just three women going to their job every day.  They were not thinking about being on the radio every day forty five years later.  It’s surreal that it happened in a hap hazard way.  It’s now a part of history.


AM:  Were they well paid for their time and talent?


VW:  I think for what they did, yes.  They could have done it forever but Motown moved to Los Angeles and that ended it for them.  They loved what they were doing.


AM:  What else do you want to do with your life Vickie?


VW:  I’d like to one day own a bed and breakfast place.  I want it to be a spiritual retreat for artists of all kinds.  I had a motivational coach when I wrote both these books.  I have since coached a couple of people who got their books published.  I want a space where people can come for a weekend and map out their goals or work on anything they need to.


AM:  Do you pay close attention to your spiritual side?


VW:  Yes, it’s grown quite a bit in the last ten years.  I think it’s from being involved in this and using my intuition.  I do feel pulled and guided to listen to a higher part of myself.  The Andantes are all in their seventies.  These women have so much wisdom.  They became my spiritual Moms.  I have so many wonderful feelings for them.  They are like mothers to me.  I had access to them for two years and they gave me the greatest advice.  This is separate from the book.  This was my personal gift and a way that I got paid back.


AM:  So you were rewarded.


VW:  That’s why I tell people to do whatever is in their heart because you don’t know what’s in it for you.  Anybody who knew me in my twenties knew I wanted to write a book about Tammi and I didn’t know how.  I wasn’t a writer.  I just knew I wanted to do it very badly.  I just applied myself, but look what was in it for me, her family and her legacy.  It turned out to be a very good, positive and spiritual story.
 

Learn more about the Andantes at their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/112955475397926/permalink/613957841964351/#!/groups/112955475397926/

David Wills Is Obsessed

March 3, 2013, 9:09 am

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All David Wills Photos:  Alan Mercer

Australian-born David Wills is an author, independent curator, photographic preservationist, and editor who has accrued one of the world’s largest independent archives of original photographs, negatives, and transparencies. He has contributed material to many publications and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Phoenix Art Museum, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.


David has produced a series of photography exhibitions based on images from his archive. His shows include ‘Murder, Models, Madness: Photographs from the Motion Picture Blow-Up,’ ‘Edie Sedgwick: Unseen Photographs of a Warhol Superstar,’ ‘Blonde Bombshell,’ ‘James Bond,’ ‘Women with Issues: Photographs from the Motion Picture Valley of the Dolls,’ and ‘Warhology.’



In 2002 David Wills photo-edited ‘Bernard of Hollywood’s Ultimate Pin-Up Book,’ in 2008 he co-authored ‘Veruschka,’ in 2010 he authored ‘Ara Gallant’ featuring an introduction by Angelica Huston, in 2011 he wrote ‘Marilyn Monroe: Metamorphosis,’ and in 2012 he authored ‘Audrey: The 60s.’



His books and exhibitions have received major profiles in the ‘Los Angeles Times,’ ‘The New York Times,’ ‘Vanity Fair,’ ‘American Photo,’ ‘Vogue,’ and ‘Time’ magazines. He has also written articles on photography and popular culture for publications including ‘The Huffington Post,’ ‘V Magazine,’ and ‘Palm Springs Life.’

AM:   How did you get started creating these photo books? What's your educational background?





DW:  As a kid I was OBSESSED with photo books. Some kids spend all their time at toy stores - I spent all mine at book stores.





AM:  What did you like so much about photo books?





DW: A photo book to me was like being able to hold an alternate universe in the palm of my hand. It was escape. I think most children are eager to grow up and explore the world at large, and until I was old enough, photo books were like a portal. I particularly loved anything that had to do with old movies. Later I went to college and studied a combination of journalism, business and psychology. I then left and worked at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. After moving to the States I started working as a photo editor for other people's books, and it developed from there.

AM:  Can you tell me how you came up with your BIG Veruschka book?



DW:  As a child I had seen her and Holger Trulzsch's book "Transfigurations" and was profoundly affected by it. At the time I had no knowledge of her iconic status as a model, I saw her only as this incredible artist. It wasn't until much later, after seeing ‘Blow-Up’, that I made the connection between "Vera Lehndorff" and "Veruschka". We finally met in Los Angeles in 2002. I of course said "Let's do a book". She said yes, Assouline said yes, and before you knew it we had a $500 coffee table book that is as BIG as a coffee table.





AM: You must have loved working with her.





DW: Working with her was a great experience. What really struck me was her perfectionism. She has an extraordinary eye for detail. During the editing process, if something was even just slightly modified, she would immediately notice it.

AM: Why did you decide to do a Marilyn Monroe book? What does your book have the others don't?





DW: There are a lot of books about Marilyn Monroe of course, and her private life has been approached from every conceivable angle, but I wanted to do something that celebrated her unique relationship with the camera, and particularly the way she evolved photographically during the 20 years of her adult life. The book has many classic images, most of which have been digitally restored, but also a wealth of previously unpublished material. Many photographers and estates - including Richard Avedon, Milton Greene, Sam Shaw, Willy Rizzo, to name a few, came together and allowed unseen work to be shown for the first time, so it really was a collaboration. We also went back to original sources, original camera negatives, original transparencies, vintage prints where possible. In some cases we were able to obtain rare dye transfer and carbro prints from her modeling career in the 1940s. As a result the quality of the book is exceptional.





AM:  I’m sure you have been collecting Marilyn photos for a while now haven’t you?





DW: I'd been collecting photography since I was a teenager, and Marilyn had always been a favorite. Most of the unseen material came from a combination of what I had and other photographer's archives.





AM:  Has the public seen every last photo of Marilyn by now?





DW: I'm always amazed at the fact that new images continue to surface. Her body of work is enormous. She was photographed by almost every major photographer in the world. Not only that, she pretty much said no to nobody. So if you went up to her on the street and politely asked to take her photo, chances are she would say yes.

AM:  Have you always been an Audrey Hepburn fan?





DW:  I had admired Audrey Hepburn of course, as anyone would, but I wouldn't say I was always a huge fan. That said, I certainly became a huge fan during the course of doing the book. As I really wanted to pay homage to her status as a 60s icon, I thought combining the two elements would be an interesting idea as it shows a transformation. She came out at a time when Hollywood was obsessed with the glamorzons - Rita Hayworth, Veronica Lake, Hedy Lamarr, etc. And then of course her contemporaries were people like Monroe and Mansfield, so she really stood alone. In the 1950s she was a new type of cinema personality, stylish yet refreshingly casual. By the 1960s she had become much more sophisticated, everything about her seemed to breathe affluence. And by the mid to late 60s she really was a MOD icon, especially in films like ‘How to Steal a Million’ and ‘Two for the Road.’ She also blurred the line between actress and fashion model. Even the Grace Kellys and the Kim Novaks didn't have her Vogue distinction.





AM:  Fashion designers loved her didn’t they?





DW:  Of course her association with Givenchy solidified this. I think it's very interesting that her popularity is something that has really just exploded in the last 10 years. If product licensing is any indication, she really took over James Dean's spot, she's up there with Elvis and Marilyn.





AM:  Why do you think she remains so popular?





DW:  I think the reason for this popularity is that she's desperately needed, girls today don't have anyone to aspire to so they're looking back in time. Everything now of course is about shock value and pushing the envelope.

AM: Tell me about some of your upcoming books...





DW:  I just finished ‘Hollywood in Kodachrome’ about color photography in the 1940s. The film stock back then was the best in history - so vibrant, rich and clear. By the 1950s lesser and faster film stocks took over and the quality was never the same again. My next book will be on fashion and style in the 1970s. Not so much mainstream, more Warhol, Morrissey, Bowie, Debbie Harry, Eyes of Laura Mars, etc.





AM:  Are people today fascinated with the 60's styles?





DW:  I certainly am. You have to consider the impact of a decade in relation to when it happened - not in retrospect, if that makes sense. By the 1960s, never in history were aesthetics so stripped back to their basic line and form. The result was visually explosive. Our current obsession with nostalgia is to the detriment of all advancement in the arts, but we take such comfort in it.

AM:  Do you miss the culture of Australia?




DW:  To be honest, the difference in culture is very minor and that's one of the main reasons I enjoy living in Los Angeles. Americans in the coastal areas of California are very much like Australians. We all have a dedication to the casual that never leaves you.





AM:  Who do you think is a star of today that will have a big picture book at some point?




DW:  None of them I'm afraid.

David on the cover of 'Desert Magazine' with his friend Mamie Van Doren

AM:  Does anyone today remind you of Marilyn, Audrey or Mamie?





DW: No, not even close.





AM:  Do you want to do anything else professionally?





DW:  No, I love writing and photo editing books. It's nice to get out of bed in the morning and enjoy what you do to pay the rent.

Learn more about David Wills and his projects www.blowuparchive.com

Scott K Smith: Reiki Master

March 10, 2013, 7:31 pm

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All Photos:  Alan Mercer

He’s been called a spiritual landing pad and a modern shaman.  I’m pleased to call Scott K Smith my friend.  He is a Massage Therapist, Health Educator and Reiki Master Practitioner Teacher.  He combines over 20 years of Reiki & Energy Work, with a certification in Therapeutic and Relaxing Massage Therapy, and private consulting. Scott provides therapeutic touch, insight and direction.  His specialties include light work, guided imagery, meditation and healing practices, spiritual / intuitive coaching, and healing.  He is a Graduate of the National Holistic Institute School of Massage.


The body is a temple, healing and wellness are not just clinical, they are integral. Through his services, Scott provides therapeutic, compassionate touch, sensitivity, intuition and a working knowledge of the physical, and energetic.  I had a session with Scott a few months ago where he worked on my left hip for about thirty minutes.  That one session wiped away years of chronic pain that has never returned.  That’s enough to convince me that Reiki works, but what is it?


Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. It is administered by "laying on hands" and is based on the idea that an unseen "life force energy" flows through us and is what causes us to be alive. If one's "life force energy" is low, then we are more likely to get sick or feel stress, and if it is high, we are more capable of being happy and healthy. 


The word Reiki is made of two Japanese words - Rei which means "God's Wisdom or the Higher Power" and Ki which is "life force energy". So Reiki is actually "spiritually guided life force energy."  While Reiki is spiritual in nature, it is not a religion. It has no dogma, and there is nothing you must believe in order to learn and use Reiki. In fact, Reiki is not dependent on belief at all and will work whether you believe in it or not. Because Reiki comes from God, many people find that using Reiki puts them more in touch with the experience of their religion rather than having only an intellectual concept of it.


So with an “open and eager to learn more about this” frame of mind, I sat down with Scott after our photo session and he shared his knowledge and experience with Reiki.

AM: Scott, can you explain to me what Reiki is? You don’t use a rake do you?

SS: No! (Laughter) although I have been asked that before! Seriously for me, Reiki is being a facilitator. Some will say they are a channel in the same way a writer says they are channeling a voice or an actor channeling a character. A Reiki practitioner is someone who is holding the space to allow the living life force to pass through them into the client. Simply put, it’s an energetic way to balance the system. It’s more an Eastern concept of wellness as opposed to a Western concept. 

AM: How long have you been practicing Reiki?

SS: I started in 1994. I’ve always been interested in these things.

AM: What is the difference between a Reiki practitioner and a Reiki master?

SS: Experience is part of the difference. A practitioner is a great calling, you will have awareness and connection to a whole new energy which is translated as Spiritual Life Force Energy. There is a lot of schooling and certificates of course, but being a teacher or "Master" is a willingness to step up and be the Reiki. To live it everyday. To be a representative of all the tradition and connection is.

AM: So Reiki comes more from a Spiritual point of view?

SS: A lot of people loosely translate Reiki into Life Force Energy. It gives us the opportunity to pass energy in order to balance the mind, body and spirit. It also brings people into a space where they are aware of that connection.

AM: What’s an example of that?

SS: A good example is I will get someone to come in for the first time and they will report to me how tingly it felt or that my hands felt very hot. There are some common and uncommon sensations but this is only a feeling of what is happening, getting us to relax, to restore balance, and through this become well.

AM: Do you actually touch your client during the session?

SS: I do. I think contact is preferable.We live in a culture that has sexualized touching, so to have human contact without that taboo and for it to be open and compassionate is wonderful in and of itself. Then when you add energy to it, it’s a whole other level of touch for well being.

AM: Are we culturally more open to Reiki now?

SS: People have become more open to the tradition. Energy comes through in different ways so people are open to it at different times through different means.

AM: When did Rieki make it to the United States?

SS: Rieki made it to Hawaii in the 1950's. 

AM: Do some people believe that this interferes with their religious beliefs?

SS: I’ve had that concern raised with clients before but I do not believe that it does, even though it has Eastern roots.  I believe the higher power is all the same source and everyone has their masks of divinity that they see through to that source. Maybe the form we choose changes things for us. The way that you choose to see God sets up the way that you perceive the world. I try to work from that angle as that is my truth and I respect those with different views.

AM: What if I’m barely open minded enough to try it out. What should I expect?

SS: At the very least, it’s assisted relaxation and meditation. I get people who sleep through the whole thing and wake up and feel like they slept for a week. 

AM: People aren’t going to keep returning for more work if it isn’t doing something tangible. 

SS: Correct. If you get an infection, you don’t just take one antibiotic, you take several over a period of time. If you go to a gym you don’t change your body in one visit. It’s the same with any energy healing. Over a period of time I’ve seen many people improve whatever it is they wanted to improve. They become more focused. I do try to be more practical with energy work because you can go way out there! 

AM: This reminds me of the old Pentecostal believe of laying healing hands of people. Is it like that at all?

SS: In a way I think so but it’s also similar to Shamanism. Here’s a perfect example. I have been working with someone over a year with mostly good results. I could tell her desire was there for her healing goal but it wasn’t sinking in. I never know how it’s going to work through but I do know what a reasonable amount of time is. It takes focus, dedication, and personal responsibility as well as energy work. There becomes a saturation point and then there is a shift psychologically, emotionally and spiritually. Recalling that session, for me it felt like their energy fizzed, like alka seltzer in a glass of water. That was it! I knew they were integrating the experience and expanding their awareness. So I’m holding the space and allowing the energy to flow and flow while they go to that expanded place of awareness until the energy begins to ebb. Practicing Reiki is following the energy so my facilitation comes in by keeping the energy open, but also helping people to come back from deep or expanded states. At that point I returned all the energy to my clients body by cupping my hands over their navel and calling it back. Imagine when suddenly they convulsed! The client opened their eyes and said they felt they were falling. They had entered an expanded state of awareness and that had helped them release a blockage. This is a rather dramatic rendition and not generally what one may experience but one I will always remember. Now our sessions are much deeper and more fulfilling. 

AM: What should I look for in a Reiki practitioner to know if they are good?

SS: You do need to go beyond certifications. You should trust your own intuition. Ask questions, look for client reviews, and shop for your practitioner.

AM: How do I do that?

SS: Everybody can recognize that based on their own reaction they have to other people when they are with them. Also look at how a practitioner or teacher conducts themselves in life and business. Does it meet your standards? You should also know what your expectations and concerns are. Any good teacher will practice with a certain professional and moral conduct that is suitable for an honest, respectful and generous person. Basically trust how you feel and bring the questions you want answered. 

AM: What is the ideal life for you Scott?

SS: Well Sonny, I want to take this show on the road! (laughter) That’s how I feel. I’m in the process of establishing myself more in LA. I have my idea that I call Temple Well. People went to temples in the old world for healing. Now it’s become too clinical. There needs to be a balance in the two. We need to respect the spirit. I’m in the process of establishing that. Stay tuned!

To Learn more about Scott K Smith visit his web pages  http://Templewell.com and http://thesacredother.com/

The Making of 'Brand New Day' Strong Enough

March 17, 2013, 7:27 pm

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by Rick Gianatos Guest Blogger

Photo:  Alan Mercer

My friend Music Producer Rick Gianatos has a new song out this week titled 'Brand New Day.'  Many people believe this to be the finest song he's ever produced.  The song is a powerful Gospel influenced Soul extravaganza!  He wanted to tell the story of how it all came about, so I offered my blog to him this week as a guest blogger.  This is his story.  I also took some pictures!

Photo of Rick Gianatos:  Alan Mercer

In‭ ‬2007,‭ ‬I was hard at work on my‭ ‬http://www.dreamgirlsdanceproject.com/,‭ ‬featuring real girl group members doing favorites from the‭ ‬Dreamgirls Broadway show.‭  ‬I had a challenge finding the right vocalist for the showstopper,‭ “‬And I’m Telling You I’m not Going.‭”  ‬I initially reached out to Martha Wash,‭ ‬who I had known since she was one of the Two Tons o‭’ ‬Fun behind Sylvester.‭


“No,‭” ‬she said.‭  “‬I love you Rick,‭ ‬but I really don’t want to tackle that song.‭”  ‬Charlo Crossley,‭ ‬meanwhile,‭ ‬was standing in the wings,‭ ‬bringing the house down with her own showstopper in‭ ‬Hairspray.‭  ‬She was one of the original Harlettes who worked behind Bette Midler,‭ ‬and therefore was perfect.‭  ‬She did the song justice for me and I was happy and satisfied.

Photo of Charlo Crossley:  Alan Mercer

Well,‭ ‬almost.‭  ‬I was determined to find a song for Martha to do.‭


Being a DJ going back to the beginning of the‭ ‬70‭’‬s,‭ ‬I had made a To Do list of songs that were B sides of singles‭ [‬45‭’‬s‭]‬,‭ ‬the last track on Side‭ ‬2‭ ‬of a vinyl album,‭ ‬or any other song I thought was a hit,‭ ‬but was  overlooked and didn’t receive the promotion it deserved.‭  ‬One of those songs was‭ “‬Brand New Day,‭” ‬a single by a group called Minds of Men,‭ ‬released in the mid-90‭’‬s.


I cut a track,‭ ‬but Martha and I could never come together on recording it with her busy tour schedule and her being in NY and me being in LA.‭  ‬The basic track got filed away on another To Do list,‭ ‬this one called‭ “‬Unfinished Tracks.‭”


Fast forward a few years.‭  ‬Scherrie Payne and Freda Payne had turned me on to the stage productions of Mr.‭ ‬Don Welch.‭  After seeing some great shows,‭ ‬including one of my favorites,‭ '‬The Divorce',‭ ‬which he is about to film starring Freda and Judy Pace,‭ ‬I went to see‭ ‬'Hallelujah,‭ ‬Mahaliah',‭ ‬with Tamika Patton.‭  ‬Closing the first act was a recreation of The Clara Ward singers,‭ ‬which featured Kim Yarbrough as Mama Ward,‭ ‬in a character role complete with Mama’s famed skunk stripe beehive hair do.‭

After that number,‭ ‬the light blub went off.‭  ‬Kim had done some background session work for me,‭ ‬we were friends,‭ ‬but I wasn’t sure what to do with her.‭  ‬Gospel style seemed like the key.‭  ‬I had had a great success in the‭ ‬8o’s with a dance track that was an out and out gospel song,‭ ‬entitled‭ “‬I Got It.‭”  ‬I thought about doing a new version.‭  ‬That idea went on my‭ “‬To Do‭” ‬list.


Fast forward to a major photo shoot for Pattie Brooks.‭  ‬Also on the photo shoot were Kim Yarbrough,‭ ‬Charlo Crossley,‭ ‬and Cynthia Manley.‭  ‬Besides the upcoming single release for Pattie,‭ “‬It’s All About the Music,‭” ‬and shooting a portion of her video during the day there,‭ ‬we took combinations of shots with Pattie and each of the others.‭  ‬As the shoot progressed,‭ ‬however,‭ ‬I noticed there was a chemistry there between the whole group.‭  ‬They were jamming to‭ “‬It’s All About the Music‭” ‬as if they had all been singing together for years.‭  ‬I decided it might be fun to put them together on a project,‭ ‬and I christened them DIVAS DELUXE.‭

Rick & the Divas Deluxe photo:  Alan Mercer

I thought about what to record,‭ ‬and‭ “‬Brand New Day‭” ‬popped back into my head.‭  ‬I thought I might do shared vocals on the lead,‭ ‬as I had done so many times with Jean,‭ ‬Scherrie‭ & ‬Lynda of the Supremes‭ [“‬Stoned Love‭”] ‬for the MotorCity Reunion Recordings and later with Scherrie,‭ ‬Lynda and Freddi aka F.L.O.S.‭ [“‬Sisters United‭ (‬We’re Taking Control‭)” – ‬co-written by Scherrie Payne‭ ‬http://www.supremevoices.com/‭]‬.‭


My mind started spinning on this one.‭  ‬I thought about these shared leads,‭ ‬but also bringing in just about everyone I work with to be in a gospel chorus,‭ ‬like I had on‭ “‬I Got It.‭”  ‬I also wanted to have my videographer,‭ ‬Christopher Alexander,‭ ‬film the session documentary style,‭ ‬as he had on the‭ ‬DreamGirls Dance Project.‭


The logistics were a bit of a challenge.‭  ‬Every time I tried to schedule the recording,‭ ‬which would all be done in one day,‭ ‬someone seemed to have a scheduling conflict.‭  ‬Then,‭ ‬when I thought I had everyone on board,‭ ‬my engineer,‭ ‬the amazing Ashburn Miller,‭ ‬double booked himself.‭  ‬I had to concede to the other session,‭ ‬because it was an orchestral date for a movie for Warner Brothers.‭


Before I was able to try again to schedule the session,‭ ‬something happened that was devastating to me.‭  ‬Loleatta Holloway,‭ ‬a voice that I treasured both as a DJ and a producer,‭ ‬passed away.‭  ‬Her biggest success,‭ ‬in fact her only No.‭ ‬1‭ ‬pop hit,‭ ‬was a lyric sampled to from Marky Mark’s giant hit,‭ “‬Good Vibrations.‭”  ‬Unlike other sampled vocals‭ (‬Martha Wash in‭ “‬Gonna Make you Sweat‭”) ‬and (Loleatta and Martha on different Black Box tracks),‭ ‬Mark Wahlberg had the class to get Loleatta involved,‭ ‬and she performs In the video.‭  ‬This is a link to live performance with Loleatta and the group‭ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFzinoft6hY.  ‬I had the pleasure of remixing one track for her,‭ “‬That’s What You Said‭”, Unfortunately never met her or saw her live.‭ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4BVX0Za8Wc

I revisited my‭ “‬Brand New Day‭” ‬track and decided I was going to incorporate music that would give me the opportunity to give my respect to Loleatta.‭  ‬Dan Hartman had created a lovely dance/pop track called‭ “‬Relight my Fire‭”‬.‭ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i--HyjCsX8.  ‬The highlight of this track came in the middle of it,‭ ‬when out of the blue on this very slick pop vocal,‭ ‬Loleatta comes in.‭  ‬In the clubs,‭ ‬this would bring dancers to a frenzy,‭ ‬and I would get chills every time I danced to it or listened to it.‭  ‬The lyric of this section of the song tied in perfectly to‭ “‬Brand New Day‭” ‬lyric.‭  ‬I inserted a breakdown section in the middle of my track that would allow for this as a gospel call and answer,‭ ‬which allowed me to recreate this Loleatta performance without mimicking it exactly.‭  ‬I also determined that I would start the recording with an a slow capella version of it,‭ ‬flavored almost like a dirge,‭ ‬to lead into the up-tempo song.


Then,‭ ‬finally,‭ ‬in October,‭ ‬2011,‭ ‬my Brand New Day came.‭  ‬The stars were aligned,‭ ‬both in the skies and in the studio,‭ ‬as all my musical colleagues were able to attend my latest session booking.‭


First,‭ ‬at‭ ‬10‭ ‬am,‭ ‬Kim came in to lay down a scratch lead for me.‭  ‬This would be my guide to put together all the chorus vocals.‭  ‬Later,‭ ‬shared vocals would be done,‭ ‬with Pattie Brooks,‭ ‬Charlo Crossley,‭ ‬doing different parts of the lyric.‭  ‬Cynthia was going to specifically put down ad libs during the Loleatta section to add her flavor.

Photo of Kim Yarbrough:  Alan Mercer

Kim,‭ ‬who never wants to do a lead vocal in the morning,‭ ‬ran through it almost effortlessly.‭  ‬I didn’t get too specific,‭ ‬touching up sections,‭ ‬because it was not going to be final, or so I thought.

As were finishing this,‭ ‬Pattie and Charlo came in.‭  ‬We were going to start on the a capella portion.‭  ‬As we ran down Kim’s scratch vocal,‭ ‬Pattie and Charlo looked at me and between them said,‭ “‬There’s nothing for us to do here‭ [‬beyond the a capella portion‭]‬.‭  ‬Listen to this.‭  ‬Kim’s got it.‭  ‬She is owning this track.‭”  ‬I concurred with them.‭  The scratch vocal became the final vocal with a couple of ad libs added at the end of the day.  


After Charlo led a prayer between us for the success of the session,‭ ‬we did the a capella part,‭ ‬which took about three takes to get what we wanted.‭  ‬The third take is the keeper,‭ ‬all done live non stop after my suggestions as they did the earlier takes.‭  ‬Here is a private link to that part of the song,‭ ‬not seen in its entirety in the video.‭  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__ytUrYhmlI&list=PLoyej9GrGEdk0j0YNgIGqCUO_i1qq0VE8&index=1

After a short break,‭ ‬at‭ ‬1‭ ‬PM,‭ ‬the rest of the cast arrived for the gospel chorus.‭  ‬What a great pleasure to have all my musical friends there.‭  ‬The energy in the place was overflowing.‭  ‬Under the direction of Pamela Vincent,‭ ‬the arrangements were superb and everyone sounded amazing.‭

The voices are‭ [‬l to r‭]‬:‭  ‬Ernie and Celeste Jefferson,‭ ‬Theresa Ford,‭ ‬Trina Lykes‭ [‬from my first group,‭ ‬d’Llegance‭]‬,‭ ‬Joyce Vincent,‭ ‬Scherrie Payne,‭ ‬Kim,‭ ‬Me‭ [‬no I did not sing‭!]‬,‭ ‬Pattie Brooks,‭ ‬Jim Gilstrap,‭ ‬Charlo Crossley,‭ ‬and down front Cynthia Manley.


Came the evening,‭ ‬and we all were about ready to fall out.‭  ‬Ashburn played a mix down.‭  ‬Everyone came alive.‭  ‬We knew we had something very special.


Charlo came to me and said,‭ “‬When we finished the a capella opening,‭ ‬I pictured the three of us for the video coming out of the fields,‭ ‬tired,‭ ‬feeling down,‭ ‬and looking off in the distance,‭ ‬walking into the light of a Brand New Day.‭”


That sparked an idea to do some story footage for the video.‭  ‬I was also strongly affected by the movie‭ ‬The Help.‭  ‬So,‭ ‬I decided to bring these ladies through time,‭ ‬starting back in the‭ ‬Color Purple early‭ ‬20th‭ ‬century period,‭ ‬with Kim alone,‭ ‬then bring them forward to the‭ ‬60‭’‬s for‭ ‬The Help,‭ ‬and then finally up to modern times and a time of celebration,‭ ‬which I felt should be at a church.‭  ‬The church cast also included some great actors,‭ ‬including Danny DeLoyd,‭ ‬Duane Avery,‭ ‬Marvin Mathews,‭ ‬Perry Moore.‭


Last but not least,‭ ‬my Facebook friend,‭ ‬Dayna Newman,‭ ‬took the photo taken by Alan Mercer, we were using for the CD cover and created an iconic piece of art with it‭!  ‬Dayna is now part of my team‭!

The stars were in alignment for the release date of this recording.

It is my partner, Carla Marlowe’s birthday, which I had intentionally selected for good luck.

It is also the anniversay of the opening of Entourage Studios, where I have been recording exclusively for 23 years.  Their opening date was March 16, 1986.  www.entouragestudios.com.

So,‭ ‬it all came together,‭ ‬not overnight,‭ ‬but when it did,‭ ‬there were great voices,‭ ‬fantastic performances in the video,‭ ‬and hopefully,‭ ‬everyone who sees and hears our project will feel the energy and join us in celebrating a BRAND NEW DAY‭!

Here is a link to the video http://youtu.be/jsaw1PM8iq8

The one stop location for downloads,‭ ‬CDs,‭ ‬and viewing the video,‭ ‬is‭ http://www.kimyarbrough.biz/


Also,‭ ‬please like Nu‭ & ‬Improved Records Facebook page for all the latest news.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nu-Improved-Records-Altair-Records/127461060690227?ref=ts&fref=ts

www.rgpentertainmentgroupinc.com

The Refreshing Nathalie Archangel

March 24, 2013, 7:37 pm

≫ Next: Donna Douglas In Her 'Giving Back' Time

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All Photos:  Alan Mercer      Lighting:  Eric V.

Nathalie Archangel has her fans.  There are many postings on web pages where people write about how talented she is and how strange it was that she didn’t get a hit record.  She released her debut recording in 1987 on the prestigious Columbia label and her second album ‘Owl’ came out on MCA in 1992.  Both of these recordings are considered classics by the people who know them.  


Nathalie has just released her third full album titled ‘Raven’ on the Ninthwave Media label. She continues to grow as an artist who has an uncanny ability to write and record timeless material.  ‘Raven’ is a brilliant addition to her catalog.  I have now heard it many times and the music and production is sublime.  The bulk of the album was produced by long-time collaborator Jim West, from Weird Al’s band.  Dana Walden produced the two covers on the album.


The Columbia debut was produced by legendary pop producer David Kahne, so the quality is top notch, and the songs are fun and quirky synth and dance pop. She released two singles, ‘I Can't Reach You’ and ‘Mr. Perfect For Me,’ that didn't get much attention outside of the hip dance clubs. Unfortunately it was never released on CD anywhere but Japan.


The MCA follow-up was produced mainly by Greg Penny, who has also worked with k.d. lang and Elton John. It is more mature than her first, and has a more timeless quality.  The song ‘So Quiet So Still’ was the lead single, and it was also featured in the film ‘Switch.’ There were other possible singles like ‘My Older Lover,’ featuring Frankie Valli and produced by Don Was, and ‘It Don't Heal Clean’ featuring and produced by Howard Jones.  Nathalie’s music is outstanding in the sense that it truly stands alone.


My friend Charlie Mason hooked me up with his favorite singer in the whole world, Nathalie Archangel.  I met Nathalie and her family, including her husband and three beautiful daughters, in Van Nuys for a quick and informal photo session and chat, while they were on a weekend visit.  I fell in love with Nathalie as a person and as a Grade A Artist immediately.  Do yourself a favor and listen to some of her music.  If you appreciate high quality, you too...will fall in love. 

AM:  Where are you from Nathalie?

NA:  Originally, I’m from Bergen County, New Jersey.  It’s easy to get into New York City which is the best thing about it.

AM:  Did you get your recording contract with Columbia in New York City?

NA:  Yes, it happened by extention through a professor from Juilliard.  I went there once to observe a class.  The father of Actress Jessica Walter was the professor.  A very lovely guy and his son’s friend worked at Columbia and walked my demo tape in, handed it to the right person, who had just finished working with the Bangles and the rest is sordid history. 

AM:  Did you feel lost being on a label like Columbia?

NA:  Yes completely, that year they only got behind two people.  One you know as Mariah Carey and the other one was Terrence Trent Darby, who went away in a flash.  They didn’t get behind anyone else.  It’s too bad but it was also a learning experience.    

AM:  Your album was released right before CD’s started appearing wasn’t it?

NA:  Right around that time, yes.  My second album ‘Owl’ was released on CD.

AM:  What label is ‘Owl’ on?

NA:  MCA.

AM:  How did they compare to Columbia?

NA:  The CBS experience was unsatisfying on every level including artistically.  I was very young and had led a very sheltered life.  In retrospect I should have had a lot more control but I was so intimidated even though I played all the instruments on my demos.  I let the producer handle it all.  It was overall unsatisfying and it failed financially.  

AM:  Was it hard to handle this failure?

NA:  I licked my wounds for a while.  I asked Columbia to release me and they did.  I started talking to MCA a couple of years later.  That record is very artistically satisfying and I’m very proud of 'Owl.’  

AM:  I must say I love it! I’ve been listening to it all the time now.  Great record!

NA:   Thank you, I love it.  I got to work with Frankie Valle!  I’m from Jersey where Frankie and Springsteen are Gods.  Greg Penny produced it and he immediately went on to mammoth success with kd lang.  A lot of people were involved.   

AM:  Nathalie, I love your voice.  It’s so strong.  Were you always a big voiced singer?

NA:  Thank you!  I don’t think of myself as a big strong singer.  I think of myself as more of a character.  I can project but I’m not that big.  

AM:  You can belt it out!

NA:  Sometimes...and sometimes I come close to belting.  I’m pretty close to knowing who I am in the studio.  I know what I can do with my voice.  You’ll know what I mean when you hear the new song I recorded with Charlie Mason called ‘It’s Time.’  You’ll hear it very soon.  It’s a really good tune.    

AM:  The video everyone is watching now is called ‘Next To Me.’  Can you tell me about that?

NA:   Charlie asked me if I’d sing it and I said yes.  

AM: Charlie told me you’re his favorite singer ever!

NA:  I love that about him.

AM:  He’s the one who told me about your new recording ‘Raven.’  It’s out now isn’t it?

NA:  It’s out now.  We are doing a soft release.  We got the video out.

AM:  Your music sound timeless anyway.  ‘Owl’ sounds like it was recorded last week.  

NA:  That makes me feel really good.  My first record does sound dated but we used strings for a couple of numbers on ‘Owl.’  The LA Chamber Orchestra came in and that was intimidating.  Stringed instruments are timeless.  Piano and guitar sounds are timeless as well.  To this day I love that record.   

AM:  I’m assuming you’re loving ‘Raven’ too.

NA:  Yes I love it too.

AM:  Do you write all your material?

NA:  Yes, except the songs Charlie asks me to sing.  I do two cover tunes on ‘Raven.’  One is Tammy Wynette’s ‘Stand By Your Man’ and the other is an interesting cover of Leslie Gore’s ‘You Don’t Own Me.’ 

AM:  Do you have any specific plans or are you waiting to see how it all turns out?

NA:   At this point it’s cool to be older and do these artistic things.  I can do it or not do it and I’m alright.  It’s not like it’s all riding on this release.  The desperation I had when I was young is gone now and it’s refreshing.  Now I’m free to do whatever.

To learn more about Nathalie Archangel visit her web site http://www.nathaliearchangel.com/ and her face book page  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nathalie-archangel/382649457072 

Donna Douglas In Her 'Giving Back' Time

April 7, 2013, 12:48 pm

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All Photos:  Alan Mercer

Donna Douglas as Elly May Clampett has become one of the most popular and recognizable television personalities from the 1960s.   She was a guest star on a number of other television programs and the subject of paper dolls, dolls, coloring books, and various toys during the heyday of the program. She was also the only cast member to be on all seven of the series' TV Guide covers.  In December 2010, Mattel released a new collection of three Barbies called the Classic TV collection. These dolls were Samantha from ‘Bewitched’, Jeannie from ‘I Dream of Jeannie,’ and Elly May Clampett from ‘The Beverly Hillbillies.’


Donna was born outside East Baton Rouge in Southern Louisiana.  She was a ‘Miss Baton Rouge’ and was named ‘Miss New Orleans’ in 1957.  She played softball and basketball in high school.  Donna moved to New York City to pursue a career in entertainment and started out as an illustration model for toothpaste advertisements.  She was featured as the ‘Letters Girl’ on NBC's ‘The Perry Como Show’ in 1957, and as the ‘Billboard Girl’ on NBC's 'The Steve Allen Show’ in 1959. These and other television appearances led New York photographers and newspaper reporters to award her the ‘Miss By-line’ crown, which she wore on CBS’s ‘The Ed Sullivan Show.’


Producer Hal Wallis saw the Sullivan episode and cast her in the role of Marjorie Burke in the movie drama, ‘Career’ in 1959, starring Dean Martin, and Shirley MacLaine.  This was followed by a bit part in the musical comedy, Li’l Abner in 1959 and the role of a secretary in the comedy/romance 'Lover Come Back’ in 1961 starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day.  She also stars along side Elvis Presley in ‘Frankie and Johnny.’


She made numerous television appearances in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including a notable episode of ‘The Twilight Zone,’ entitled ‘Eye Of The Beholder’ in 1960.  Her other credits, among others, were in ‘U.S. Marshall,’ ‘Tightrope,’‘The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,’ and ‘Route 66.’  The turning point in Donna’s career came when she was chosen to play the role of the tomboy Elly May Clampett on 'The Beverly Hillbillies.’ She starred on the program for all nine seasons.   ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ became the number one show in the United States in its first two years.


Donna's first husband was Roland John Bourgeois, Jr. who she married 1949 and divorced 1954, with whom she had a son, Danny P. Bourgeois.  She married Robert M. Leeds, the director of ‘The Beverly Hillbillies,’ in 1971, and they divorced in 1980.


Donna Douglas has remained busy making appearances, speaking for church groups, youth groups, schools and colleges. One key focus of her charitable work has been to appear and speak in support of various Christian children's homes, mostly in her native American South. She has also appeared at conventions and trade shows.  


She has also written a children’s book titled ‘Donna's Critters & Kids: Children's Stories with a Bible Touch,’ which has Bible stories featuring animals and is combined with a coloring book for ages two to seven.  In November 2011, Donna released a new children's book, ‘Miss Donna's Mulberry Acres Farm.’  Donna frequently performs as a gospel singer. She has recorded several gospel albums, the first being released in 1982. She has recorded a few country music records during the 1970s and 1980s.


A special thank you to my friend Jeffrey Dalrymple who set up this photo shoot.  Donna and I had a chance to talk for a few minutes about the very beginning of her career after the photos were taken.  

AM:  Donna, you started your career off as a model.  That must have been difficult considering where you are from.


DD:  I was born outside Baton Rouge, Louisiana and one day I told my folks, “I think I’ll go to New York.”


AM: Did you know anything abut New York?


DD:  I knew it was a place up there on the map.  I didn’t have any modeling training really, only the most basics of how to sit down and stand up, but not New York style of training.


AM:  So you just took off for New York?


DD:  Yes I didn’t know they had two airports there.  We only had one airport in Baton Rouge.


AM:  (laughing)


DD:  I do a lot of speaking to young people at Church Youth Groups and things like that.  I have a pretty good testimony for them.   I’m very simple and basic when I talk to them.


AM:  That’s best I think.


DD:  Anyway I didn’t know anybody in New York or have any contacts.  I thought I could get a job and get my life together.


AM:  Where did you stay?


DD:  I stayed at the Barbizon Hotel.  I was shy and awkward because I had never traveled a lot.  My family as more poor and simple. We had a very basic life.  When we had a vacation we went out on the river.


AM:  I bet you had fun at least.


DD:  Daddy would go cat fishing and set up trout lines.  I had all boy cousins.  I was the only girl in either family.  So I was raised a Tomboy.  See I was getting ready for Jethro long before I ever met him!


AM:  Was it scarey for you in New York?


DD:  Once I was in the Barbizon I felt safe.  I couldn’t stay there too long because I didn’t have much money.  You see I made a commitment between me and God.  I was very simple and I loved Jesus.  I believed with all my heart that if I did the best I could do, God would take care of me.


AM:  So you couldn’t allow yourself to be scared then could you?


DD:  I believed this and it wasn’t complicated for me.  When I made that commitment, everything started coming my way.  I was meeting so many people.  Men wanted to keep me in penthouse apartments.  They wanted to give me everything and make my life so easy.


AM:  That must have been tempting.


DD:  I was getting opportunities I had never seen at home.  People had yachts and wanted to take me out on them.  They wanted to do everything for me but they all had these little strings attached.  I had to make all these choices so I let it all go.


AM:  Wow, not many people could do that.


DD:  God wants to see if what you say with your mouth, you mean with your heart.  Anybody can talk it, but can you walk your talk?  I didn’t have a background in acting, dancing or singing.    I had never done anything like that.  So what could I do?  I could smile.  That was all I could do.   I had no training in anything.


AM:  That just sounds so impossible to get into show business.


DD:  When God sees that you mean what you say and you really are going to walk your talk, he takes over your life.  I didn’t know any scriptures at that time, I just knew I believed in God.


AM:  It really is amazing what faith can do.


DD:  So all these little opportunities started coming my way.  I got a job on national television where I walked out and carried a bundle of letters to Perry Como.  Mama and them could see me down home.  It thrilled my heart.  I also held up little billboards advertising what was coming next week. I did all these simple little things.  In time I became more like a Vanna White.  I’d walk the guests out to the host and smile.


AM:  You must have been so happy!


DD:  I was so thrilled that it was something I could do.  I didn’t see it as simple or small.  I was able to send money home to my folks.   I got my modeling portfolio together and I started doing a little illustration modeling for print ads.  I made the rounds and met a few photographers so I got some jobs on Lexington Avenue.


AM:  Did you get a job that required any talking?


DD:  All I ever did was walk ons.  Nobody ever asked me to say anything.  I was so afraid I couldn’t have said anything.  I got cast in a few commercials and once again I didn’t have to say anything.  Then I met a nice man who was interviewing girls to be elbow grabbers.  Back then you didn’t have to have an agent.  We just went on open calls.


AM:  What was the audition like?


DD:  The man asked me if I minded if he asked me a few questions.  I said, “No sir, I don’t mind.  That will be alright.”  Then he asked me if I’d be willing to go out in a bathing suit before the people.  Well I had just made that commitment to God that I wouldn’t be afraid.


AM:  Were you aware of the reputation city girls had?


DD:  I had heard all these wild stories about girls in the big cities.  So I said to him, “You mean you want me to go out there in front of men and show myself?”  He said I had on a bathing suit and it shouldn’t make any difference.  I told him I’d been in a few contests back home, even though I wanted to be a ball player, but that had a purpose.  I told him, “No sir, I won’t do that.”  Then he asked me if I would be willing to go out on a date with a sponsor.  I said, “Would that man be married?”  Then he asked me what difference would it make, we were only going to dinner.  “No sir, I wouldn’t do that.”


AM:  That must have been rough on you.


DD:  I started feeling so sad and these big ol’ tears started welling up in my eyes and I said, “Mister, I don’t want your job.  It’s not important to me.”  I walked out.  I got the job!  (laughter)  See, I always tell young people where you are willing to compromise, you abort your opportunities, then you’ll never know that you lost the opportunity.  You have to stand on character, not just reputation.


AM:  You’ve lived this way your whole life haven’t you?


DD:  I never had to compromise what I believed to get a job.


AM:  I know you’ve been writing a lot lately.


DD:  I got my little children’s books.  It’s got a publisher and we are very excited about it.


AM:  It sounds like you’ve kept your life full.


DD:  Oh yes!  You don’t retire, you re-fire!!!


AM:  What’s your favorite pastime now?


DD:  Now it’s my “giving back” time.  I’ve always let my light shine.  I have always tried to bring people up.  The happiest part of me is making a difference in someone’s life.  That’s why I speak a lot at churches and youth groups.


AM:  Have you remained strong in your faith your whole life?


DD:  Well, my understanding has expanded.  I don’t speak so much as religion but more as a commitment.  I’m a Christian but I don’t have a particular label.  I speak at all kinds of different churches.  I love doing this.  People always tell me they loved me as Elly, but they love what I'm doing now.


AM:  Are you and Elly May the same person?


DD:  She is a slice out of my life.


AM:  So you were cast because you were her.


DD:  I was homegrown.


AM:  And you still love critters!


DD:  I LOVE critters!!!

To learn more about Donna Douglas visit her web site http://www.donnadouglasofficialwebpage.com/

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Val Garay Should Write A Book

April 21, 2013, 4:36 pm

≫ Next: Mark Lester Has Two Lucys

≪ Previous: Donna Douglas In Her 'Giving Back' Time

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Photos:  Alan Mercer

Val Garay is a legendary record producer and engineer who has worked with some of the most successful artists of all time including Kim Carnes, The Motels, Bonnie Raitt, Eric Burdon, Dolly Parton, Elton John, James Taylor, Neil Diamond, Ringo Starr, Linda Ronstadt, Sarah Brightman,  Kenny Rogers, Santana, Reel Big Fish, Sally Kellerman, Candye Kane and Joan Armatrading, just to name a handful.  


In 1982 he shared a Grammy Award for Record of the Year with Kim Carnes, for the record ‘Bette Davis Eyes.’  He has received numerous entertainment industry awards and additional Grammy nominations including Best Engineered Recording for his work on the James Taylor album ‘JT’ and Linda Ronstadt's ‘Simple Dreams,’ a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year for Kim Carnes ‘Mistaken Identity,’ a Grammy nomination for Producer of the Year,’ and an Emmy nomination for Best Engineered Recording of a TV Special for Neil Diamond's ‘Glad You're Here With Me Tonight,’ as well as dozens of gold and platinum records.


In November 2010, Val partnered with attorney George Woolverton and legendary creative director John Kosh to form a new label, Red Red Records, and is currently working with up-and-coming new artists like Nikki Lang, as well as producing/engineering scores for motion picture and television projects.


With credits including 13 Number One albums, Val’s more than successful track record spans the past three decades, and doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon.  He has nine Grammy nominations.  The walls of his home are filled with gold and platinum records.

Photos courtesy of Val Garay

Starting out as a songwriter and performer, Val soon gravitated toward working behind the scenes with artists as diverse as the Mamas and the Papas and The Buffalo Springfield to Seals & Crofts. It was at the legendary Sound Factory studio that he became acquainted with the studio's owner/operator, Dave Hassinger. Mr. Hassinger was well established as one of rock 'n' roll's top engineers, having helmed many of the Rolling Stones recordings, including ‘Satisfaction’ and ‘Under My Thumb.  Dave Hassinger realized that Val had a "great pair of ears," and offered to teach him the finer points of the craft. Working with Hassinger for a year, Val refined his technique and perfected the punchy bottom sound, guitar blend and mixing approach that distinguishes his work today.


Val Garay helped to create and define what is still being referred to as the "L.A. Sound." With the release and success of Linda Ronstadt's ‘Heart Like A Wheel,’ he suddenly became one of the most sought after engineers in the business, known for creating never-before-heard instrument sounds.


With the release of Kim Carnes' album, ‘Mistaken Identity,’ Val's reputation as a hit-making producer was sealed. The album was a worldwide smash, and ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ became a Number One hit in 31 countries, earning Val Garay a Record of the Year Grammy in the process. Garay followed his successful collaboration with Carnes by producing The Motels' All Four One album, which not only garnered critical acclaim, but also gave the Motels the commercial success that had eluded them in the past. ‘Only The Lonely’ became a Top Ten smash.


Val comes from a Hollywood family.  His father, Joaquin Garay was well known for being the voice of Panchito the Rooster in the Disney classic ‘The Three Caballeros’  as well as a singer, bandleader and nightclub owner.  His best friend was Errol Flynn!  Val was showing me some family photos, and several of his Dad with movie star friends, along with showing me some of his early written music when we started talking about his career.

AM:  I didn’t realize your father was Joaquin Garay.  Everyone knows Panchito the Rooster!  Is that why your dog is named Pancho?


VG:  Yes, after my Dad.  He named all his animals Pancho.  The horse was named Pancho and the dachshund was named Pancho, everything was named Pancho, way before George Foreman.


AM:  (laughter) And you wrote all this music?


VG:  Yes this is 1965 copyrights at the Library of Congress for the lyrics for the group I was in called The Bundles.


AM:  How did the Bundles do?


VG:  Nothing, we played nightclubs all over Northern California.


AM:  Were you always interested in music?


VG:  No, I was going to Stanford studying to become a doctor.


AM:  So what’s the story?  How did you get into music from medicine?


VG:  I met a cocktail waitress who knew I played guitar and told me I should start playing since I had some friends who were already in a band.  She told me I should sing at a club in San Mateo so I started doing it.  Well I started hanging out with her until 4:00 in the morning so the next thing I knew I was missing my 8:00 AM classes.  I dropped out.


AM:  Did you realize medicine wasn’t your passion?


VG:  It was my passion at that point but what I realized was music was something that I always loved.  I used to tell my father he had to learn a certain song.  This was in the Fifties and I listened to the radio constantly.  I didn’t even realize it but I loved songs.


AM:  So when did you start writing songs?


VG:  In 1963.  I’m twenty-one years old.


AM:  And you dropped out of school?


VG:  I finished my four year degree but I was in medical school to become a doctor.


AM:  So you started living life as a working musician.


VG:  Yes, we played all over Northern California, Seattle and went to Hawaii to play.  When I came back I started feeling like my life was hinged on these other four guys and I didn’t like that.   At that time a really close Songwriter friend of mine moved to LA and told me I had to move there too.  I thought, “OK” so I packed up my suitcase which was all I had at the time.  I was living in San Jose.  I packed my guitar and got in the car with a friend of mine and we drove to LA.  We met at Canter’s and I never left.

AM:  Were you part of that Sunset Blvd. Music Scene at the time?


VG:  Are you kidding?  I got arrested with everybody else during the riot on Sunset.  I used to go to Ciro’s to watch Bob Dylan sit in with the Byrds.


AM:  What years are we talking about?


VG:  This is 1964 through 67.  I got signed to Lou Adler so we were always up at Lou’s house in Bel Air.  They put together the Monterrey Pop Festival so I got to go to that free because I was with Lou.  I got to see Jimi Hendrix and the burning guitar and Buffalo Springfield.


AM:  Have you considered writing a book?


VG:  Everybody talks to me about it.  I was living in an apartment building on Formosa Street between Fountain and Sunset with Neil Young when Buffalo Springfield got their name off a steamroller paving the street that had a metal plaque that said Buffalo Springfield.  That was the name of the steamroller company.  When they finished their second album which was called 'Buffalo Springfield Again,’ nobody in the band had a turn table.  I did, so they all came upstairs to listen to the acetate.


AM:  Did you start producing back then?


VG:  No, I figured out I couldn’t get great artists to let me produce them because nobody knew me.  I got a job at The Sound Factory to learn how to be an engineer.   The first album I did on my own was a band called El Chicano.  I had a number one hit with them called ‘Brown Eyed Girl.’  We re-did the Van Morrison record.   About a month after that, Linda Ronstadt came in and wanted to work with me.   That’s when we made 'Heart Like A Wheel.’


AM:  That is one of my all-time favorite albums by anyone.


VG:  It was a monumental record.  The interesting part of the story is she made an album right before on the label Asylum.  David Geffen made a deal with Capitol that she could go to Asylum but at any point Capitol could pick an album.  So we are finishing the album and Al Coury, who was the head of A&R at Capitol came over to hear the record.  We played him all the obscure songs, not ‘You’re No Good’ or ‘When Will I Be Loved.’  He went back to his office and called us ten minutes later and told us he was taking the album.  He had done this long enough that he knew it was a hit.


AM:  All Linda’s albums did well so it didn’t really matter that Capitol got that one did it?


VG: All her albums sold millions and millions of copies.  Because of working with Linda and Peter Asher on this album, Peter asked me to work with him on the next James Taylor album.  I told him I was too busy but he told me he would give me a point and a half so I said, “OK.”   So we made ‘JT.’  That was another monumental hit.


AM:  Do you know how many gold and platinum albums you have earned?


VG:  I have a hundred.  The James Taylor ‘Greatest Hits’ album has sold over 21 million copies.  I had to go in and re-record four of the original songs because the tapes got lost.  We used the same band and the same arrangements, but I did them.


AM:  I think you are best known for the Kim Carnes hit 'Bette Davis Eyes.’  Did you hear it as a Grammy winning song?


VG:   I fell in love with it the minute I heard it.  I didn’t think that far in advance in regards to a Grammy.  I had been working with Kim for six months finding new material.  We cut the song live.  There’s no over dubs on the record.  The first night we started rehearsing the song was the night John Lennon was murdered.  Then we ended up beating him for Record of the Year.


AM:  Did you think you were going to win a Grammy over John Lennon?


VG:   I thought we had a really good chance.  The scary part was we won Song of the Year, then lost Vocalist to Lena Horne and lost Album of the Year to John Lennon.


AM:  Did winning a Grammy generate more interest in you?


VG:   Yes and no.  Did I get a bunch of jobs because of it?  Not really.  I think the only two artsits that came to me then were Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.   I did start working with the Motels.   I made two albums with them and those are the only hits they had.

AM:  You tend to work with legendary artists who don’t have to worry about their careers.


VG:  James has never stopped working.  Linda did retire because she doesn’t have to work.


AM:  Which album did you produce for Dolly?


VG:  It was called ‘The Great Pretender.’  The hit single was ‘Save The Last Dance For Me.’


AM:  Did you enjoy working with Dolly?


VG:  She is the greatest!  It was a difficult time for her because she was making a movie with Sylvester Stallone so she was on the set from 7:00 in the morning until 8:00PM and then meet with me in the studio at 9:00 and work until 3:00 AM.  It was hard but the record came out great.


AM:  You are working with Nikki Lang now and I find that very exciting.  When is her album going to be out?


VG:  Nikki is great.  We are going to release an EP first.  Everywhere we go people just love her.


AM:  I’ll be looking forward to hearing the songs.  Thanks for your time Val.  I’ll be waiting for the book.


VG:  I guess I should write a book.  I was there and lived all this.

To learn more about Val Garay visit his web site http://www.valgaray.com/

Mark Lester Has Two Lucys

May 5, 2013, 3:55 pm

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Mark Lester is an English former child star and actor known for playing the title role in the 1968 musical film version of ‘Oliver!’ and starring in a number of other British and European films of the 1960‘s and 1970‘s and in a number of television series.  Mark was educated at three independent schools, at Corona Theatre School in Ravenscourt Park in West London, followed by Tower House School, a boys' preparatory school near Richmond Park, also in West London, and at Halliford School in Shepperton in Surrey.


In 1964, at the age of six, Mark was cast in Robert Dhery's film ‘Allez France!’ (English title The Counterfeit Constable) with Diana Dors, who appeared in the 1948 film version of ‘Oliver Twist.’ He played a small part as the second schoolboy in ‘Fahrenheit 451.’


In 1967, at the age of eight, Mark Lester was cast in the title role in the film version of Lionel Bart's musical ‘Oliver!.’ The multiple Academy Award-winning adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel co-starred Jack Wild, Ron Moody, Shani Wallis and Oliver Reed, and was directed by Sir Carol Reed. 


In 1969, Mark received critical acclaim for his portrayal of a dysfunctional and withdrawn only child in ‘Run Wild, Run Free,’ starring opposite John Mills, and then as a disturbed child in the first regular episode of ‘Then Came Bronson.’ Mark's acting roles peaked as he starred in ‘Eyewitness’ in 1970, with Susan George, ‘Night Hair Child’ with Britt Ekland, ‘Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?,’ with Shelley Winters, and a film version of ‘Black Beauty’ in 1971. He took roles in a series of films in Italy including ‘Redneck’ in 1972 with Telly Savalas and the Western ‘Scalawag’ in 1973 with Kirk Douglas. The final film of his Italian-based career was in the costume drama ‘La Prima volta sull'erba’ (English title ‘The First Time on the Grass,’ 1974), which was nominated for the Golden Bear prize at the 25th Berlin International Film Festival.  Mark Lester wrapped up his British film career with the lead role in the all-star film ‘Crossed Swords’ aka ‘The Prince and Pauper’ in 1977, starring Raquel Welch, Charlton Heston, Rex Harrison, George C. Scott, and Oliver Reed, who had played Bill Sikes in ‘Oliver!.’


Mark Lester gave up acting at the age of 19. He took his A Levels at the age of 28 and became an osteopath, studying at the British School of Osteopathy. In 1993, he opened the Carlton Clinic, an acupuncture clinic in Cheltenham.  He is a black belt in karate.


He was a close, long-time friend of Michael Jackson, and they were godfathers to each other's children. Mark spent Christmas 2003 at the Neverland Ranch, and vocally defended Michael throughout his trial on child molestation charges in 2005.


I met with Mark and his girlfriend Emma while they were visiting Los Angeles for the Hollywood Show autograph convention.  While they had to have been exhausted from a very long flight, they were charming, generous and kind hearted.  We had a few minutes to visit about his life now.  They have six children between them and they all enjoy being part of a big happy family.  

AM:  Mark your life is pretty far away from acting now isn’t it?


ML:  Yes, I’m an osteopath, but in the United States I would say I’m a chiropractor.


AM:  You do acupuncture as well, don’t you?


ML:  I do acupuncture indeed.


AM:  So you went to school to be an acupuncturist?


ML:  Yes I did.


AM:  That means you’re extra smart!


ML:  (Laughter)  I don’t know about that.


AM:  That is a lot of school!


ML:  It was a four year course to learn osteopathy and a two year course to learn acupuncture.


AM:  You must have a scientific brain besides being creative.


ML:  I don’t really.  It’s more of an art actually.  Obviously there’s a lot of science based chiropractic manipulation, but acupuncture is definitely more of an art than a science.


AM:  Did you always have an interest in this?


ML:  No, I did learn martial arts in my early twenties.  I needed to get fit and I did it through martial arts.  I did that for ten years.  It was through the martial arts that I got interested in sports injuries and it was through sports injuries that led me to train as an osteopath and that led me to train as an acupuncturist.


AM:  Here is my question about the movie ‘Oliver!.’  As the film comes to the climatic end it looks like Oliver Reed is literally man handling you.  Was he as rough as it looks?


ML:  Yes he was dragging me around.


AM:  How did you handle that?


ML:  We were absolutely terrified of him on the set.  There is a scene where he picks up Ron Moody by the throat and he really did pick him up by the throat.  I think because I was only nine years old, he was a little more gentle with me.  He was still terrifying.  He didn’t pull any punches.  He was quite rough.


AM: You made quite a few films before you retired.  Did you get tired or did it just get harder to find good roles?


ML:  It got more difficult to get the right roles.   At the age of eighteen I made ‘The Prince and the Pauper’ with Oliver Reed again.


AM: I like that movie.


ML:  I really enjoyed making it.  It was a great film.  Unfortunately the Salkind brothers put most of their energy behind another film they made at the same time which was ‘Superman.’  That was a much bigger film.  They didn’t really pay enough attention to 'The Prince and the Pauper.’  It should have been a better film.  We had a fantastic cast that included George C. Scott, Ernest Borgnine, Raquel Welch and a lot of mega-stars I got to work with.  


AM:  Did you figure you might as well end your film career with this movie?


ML:  It kind of ended me I think.  There were just no roles coming up at that time.  I’d reached a point where I couldn’t do a TV series.  I was too well known to do anything lesser so I did some stage work for a couple of years.


AM:  Did you enjoy stage work?


ML:  Theater is great for a week and then it’s really boring.  It’s very hard, but you get a week of “fantastic” and then it becomes so repetitive.


AM:  Some actors tell me the character gets in their head and it can be difficult.


ML:  They may well do, but I never let it affect me in that way.  I’m sure certain roles must affect people.


AM:  You’re one of the rare child actors who got to grow up and be normal.  Why do you think you did so well?  Did you have a good family?


ML:  I think it has a lot to do with the family base.  My parents kind of kept me in check.  I wasn’t allowed to be a big star.  I wouldn’t want to be that way anyway.  My sister was just a normal kid.  I think it was the family balance.  They pulled me out of acting school and put me in a normal school with regular kids and I think that’s why I did alright.  


AM:  You didn’t have that drop that some actors have.  Some of them turn fourteen and nobody knows they exist anymore.


ML:  That is very rough.  If I had just done 'Oliver!’ and nothing else that would have been harder to adapt to.  I did a lot of films after that, about three movies a year.  For me at that age it was great to be in another movie away from school.  It really was like a holiday.   It was never difficult.


AM:  What was it like to, out of nowhere, get a call from Michael Jackson?


ML:  Michael contacted me back in 1981.  He was touring the UK with his brothers.  I was living in London at the time.  My sister was a big fan, but I’d never been a fan of Michael.  He was a great guy but I never bought his music.  So she asked if she could come along.  They sent a big limo to pick us up.  He had an entire floor at the hotel.  I’d never seen anything like it before.  We rang the doorbell and Michael came out wearing a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.  He gave me a big hug.  From that moment we were just friends.  From that split second.      


AM:  Was Michael more normal in private?  I heard he talked in a lower voice when there wasn’t cameras around.


ML:  Yes his voice definitely went up a couple of octaves when he was on camera or in front of an audience.  He got stimulated by being a performer.  He was actually a quiet and timid guy.  He was very shy indeed.  He shunned publicity because he felt that being a performer was what he was.  He never liked any of the trappings.  He never went to any parties or did the celebrity thing.  If I was Michael Jackson I would have been enjoying it all.


AM:  You have six kids between you and your girlfriend Emma.  How is the family doing?


ML:  We have six kids between us and they are all wonderful kids.  I’ve embraced Emma’s children as being my own.  Her son named Oliver, strangely enough, is like my second son. Her daughter is now my youngest daughter, little Lucy, and strangely enough my oldest daughter is named Lucy as well, so we have two Lucys!

Shani Wallis Is A Joy!

May 12, 2013, 1:43 pm

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All Photos:  Alan Mercer

Shani Wallis is a joy to be around.  I have a feeling she has always been this way.  I met with her at the Hollywood Collectors Show this past April.  We were instant friends.  I fell in love with her indomitable spirit the moment she started speaking.  She is amazingly talented and versatile.


Making her first stage appearance at the age of four, Shani Wallis later studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art on a scholarship. She went on to play many leading roles in the West End, but she is best known for the role of Nancy in Carol Reed's 1968 film production of Lionel Bart's musical ‘Oliver!’ which co-starred Ron Moody, Oliver Reed, Jack Wild and Mark Lester. Shani Wallis has also appeared with many entertainers including Liberace, Jack Benny, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.


A few film roles came her way earlier in England, including ‘The Extra Day’ in 1956 and ‘Ramsbottom Rides Again’ in 1956, not to mention a minor singing bit in Charles Chaplin's ‘A King in New York’ in 1957. Other than assorted variety show appearances and a televised performance supporting Carol Burnett in ‘Once Upon a Mattress’ in 1964 for TV, she found only a modicum of on-camera work. Then she nabbed the role of a lifetime as the ill-fated Nancy in the Oscar-winning picture ‘Oliver!’ in 1968.  Shani made a durable marquee name for herself while giving her all in the rousing ‘Oom-pah Pah’ number and putting her own indelible stamp on the show-stopping ‘As Long As He Needs Me,’ now considered her signature song. Having never played the part before, she went on to perform Nancy on the theatre stage as well.


Shani was seen only sporadically in films following this breakthrough, including the horror opus Terror in the Wax Museum in 1973, for the live stage was still her first love. Over the years she has gamely performed in a number of musical staples, including’Irma La Duce,’ ‘42nd Street’ and ‘Follies,’ and toured with Liberace for five years during the 1980s.


Shani is a naturalized citizen of the United States, where she has lived for some time. She married her agent/manager Bernie Rich on Friday 13 September 1968. Asked, "Why on that day?" she replied, "Everything good has happened to me on Friday 13th and Shani means ‘lucky jewel.’ The couple have one child, Rebecca, and two granddaughters. 

Special thanks to Jim Forgetta for arranging this opportunity.

AM:  Have you seen all the Youtube videos of yourself Shani?

SW:  Some of them I have.  

AM:  There are new ones added all the time.  You should check routinely.

SW:  I’ll have to take a look.  

AM:  I just fell in love with you watching those videos.  You are a real show stopper! 

SW:  (laughing)  Well I try!  I’ve had the opportunity of singing some great songs so that helps.

    

AM:  Do you consider yourself more of an actress or a singer?

SW:  It just depends on what’s happening.

AM:  You’re a great dramatic actress.

SW:  I’ve done some drama but mostly I grew up singing and dancing.  I’ve always had it in my blood and always enjoyed doing it.   

AM:  Where are you from?

SW:  I’m from London.  I’m a Cockney!  My father was deaf so he never heard me sing.  He was so wonderful.

AM:  Did you learn sign language?

SW:  I never did sign language.  He was deaf from the first world war and I used to just mouth him.  That’s where I go my diction from. You know what, whenever I got in an argument with him all he had to do was turn around and he could ignore me!

AM:  If I was deaf I would still enjoy your performances because you are so visual.

SW:  That’s what he did.  He used to go to my shows, sit in the audience and watch me and watch the people around to see if they were laughing.  When I’d go on television he would watch and tell me I used too many arm movements.  

AM:  So did his advice hone you as a performer?

SW:  I think so.  He was a wonderful man.

AM:  Do you enjoy looking at your past performances?

SW:  I don’t mind.  I did some good stuff and I did some bad stuff.  

AM:  I don’t see any bad stuff anywhere.

SW:  We make mistakes in our lives.  I look back and think why did I do that?

AM:  Did you record a lot of albums?

SW:  Yes, a lot.  When we were in England my husband produced an album with 16 cuts.  MCA owns them.  I’ve done some lovely songs.

AM:  They need to be on iTunes.  

SW:  I haven’t done anything much like this but I did put out a ‘Best of Shani’ on my own.  I’ve been a very private person.  

AM:  How long have you and your husband been together?

SW:  Almost fifty years.  We went together for four years before we got married in 1968.  We went to the Royal Command Performance of ‘Oliver!’ in London and left for our honeymoon in Venice.  

AM:  Did you meet the Royal family?

SW:  We sat with Princess Margaret and she smoked like crazy!  We sat at the table and she was a riot.  She is a wonderful person.

AM: What happened after ‘Oliver!’ that you didn’t make anymore big musicals?

SW:  ‘Oliver!’ was the last big musical.  They wanted me for ‘Paint Your Wagon’ but I’m glad I didn’t do it.  It wasn’t the best.  I did stage work in London for a long time.   

AM:  You are primarily a stage performer.  When did you start?

SW:  I got my big break in 1952 in ‘Call Me Madame.’ I was a little girl of seventeen who became a star overnight.  

AM:  Were you naive?

SW:  Terribly naive but I’d been dancing and singing since I was three years old.  I always wanted to be on the stage.  I still am naive!  (laughing)     

AM;  You are not bored are you?

SW:  No, life is too wonderful.

AM:  What is a day in your life like?

SW:  I look after my husband and my grandchildren.  One is five and the other one is eleven.  I’ve looked after them since they were babies.   

AM:  Can they keep up with you?

SW:  (laughter) Sort of.  They are dynamite.

AM:  Do they like ‘Oliver!’?

SW:  My daughter keeps them away from ‘Oliver!’ right now.  They call me Nana.  I’m just a grandma.

AM:  Are you most proud of being a mother and grandmother?

SW:  I think so, although I’m proud of my work too.  I’m proud of a lot of things.  My daughter is in the pharmaceutical business and she does very well.  

AM:  What is your favorite of all the musicals you have starred in?

SW:  ‘Irma La Duce.’  I did that at the Lyric Theatre in London for almost two years.    

AM:  Did you enjoy being in a show that long?

SW:  No!

AM:  Nobody likes that.  

SW:  Now they let you go after a year.  

AM:  You have your priorities in order.

SW: Don’t you have?  Family comes first.  My husband and I are never apart.  What you must have constant in your life is people who surround you and love you.  Everything else just goes by. 

AM:  Do you mind being an older person?

SW:  No I don’t.  I don’t mind being my age.  I’m glad to have reached this age.  As far as mistakes go....that’s life!  That’s the song.       

Photo of me and Shani Wallis by Jeffrey Dalrymple

Ron Ely Likes People

May 19, 2013, 10:04 am

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Native Texan Ron Ely was born Ronald Pierce Ely. He grew up in Amarillo, Texas and attended Amarillo High School. There is a letter sweater from him in the trophy cases saved from a 1970 fire in the older school.   He attended The University of Texas at Austin in mid-1950s and was in ROTC.  He soon made his way to California.  After signing with 20th Century Fox in the late 1950’s, Ron appeared in small roles in several films and television shows.


Ron Ely played the title role in the TV series ‘Tarzan’ and in two movies made from that series in 1970. He refused to use a stunt double in his vine-swinging or animal fights and was often injured. It has been noted that Ron's physical appearance and dialogue were much more like those of Edgar Rice Burroughs' character than could be said for any other Tarzan.


He won the role of Tarzan in 1966 after playing various bit-parts, including an airplane navigator in the 1958 film ‘South Pacific’ and a guest-starring role on Barbara Eden's first television series, the romantic comedy ‘How to Marry a Millionaire.’ Ron's height at 6' 4" and athletic build also won him the title role in the 1975 film ‘Doc Savage,’ as well as various guest shots. In a 1978 ‘Fantasy Island’ episode, for example, Ron portrayed Mark Antony in a Roman military short tunic and breastplate that displayed almost as much of his physique as his Tarzan costume had.


From 1960-61, Ron Ely starred in the series ‘The Aquanauts.’ In the 1980s, Ron hosted the musical game show ‘Face the Music.’ Additionally, he hosted the 1980 and 1981 ‘Miss America Pageants,’ replacing longtime host Bert Parks. He replaced Lloyd Bridges as ‘Mike Nelson’ in the last season of ‘Sea Hunt,’ from 1987-1988.


In the 1990s, Ron’s roles included a retired Superman from an alternate reality in the 1991 two-part episode ‘The Road to Hell’ of the ‘Superboy’ syndicated television series, and a big game hunter named Gordon Shaw in the 1992 episode ‘Tarzan the Hunted’ of the syndicated ‘Tarzán’ TV series starring Wolf Larson.


Until about 2001, Ron Ely made appearances on popular TV shows, his most recent being ‘Sheena’ and ‘Renegade.’ He is now retired from acting.  In recent years Ron has embarked on a successful writing career and has penned two mystery novels featuring private eye Jake Sands: Night Shadows in 1994 and East Beach in 1995. 


I’m the right age to remember Ron as Tarzan when I was a small boy.  I loved that show.   I continued to watch Ron in anything he did for the rest of his career.  I’ve always appreciated his easy going charm.  When I had the chance to take some photos and talk with Ron at the Hollywood Collectors Show, I was living out a fantasy.  Ron Ely does not disappoint.  He is gracious and kind and exudes a calmness and inner peace with a touch of restlessness now that his children are grown.  Oh yeah, he is tall and extremely handsome...

AM:  I didn’t realize you grew up in Texas.

RE:  I was born in Hereford and lived in Tulia and Amarillo.  Later I bought a house in Midland, Texas and I went to the University of Texas.  

AM:  When did you leave Texas?

RE:  I left in my freshman year and came to California to check it out.  

AM:  Did you always want to be an actor?

RE:  I wouldn’t say I always wanted to do it but I realized by the time I graduated from high school that I’d taken every speech and acting class that was available.

AM:  So you must have already liked acting to take those classes.  

RE:  I did that because I could get good grades in those classes.  It kept my GPA up.  By the time I finished all that, I had a pretty good background.  

AM:  What did you study in college?

RE:  I never got to my major because I hadn’t got that far yet.  It was a toss up between petroleum engineering or radio/television.  I was at the point of making that decision when I left school.  

AM:  Did you just decide to take a chance and audition for roles?

RE:  I felt like a fish out of water in college.  I felt like I was spinning my wheels.  Actually I had a fraternity brother who asked me if I ever had any inclination to go to Los Angeles and act.  I told him, “Yes, I’d thought about it.”  So we began to talk about it.  He already had the idea to come to LA in his head.  We drove a car out together to be delivered.  You used to do that back in the days when you could hitchhike.  Actually I ended up driving the car to San Jose and hitchhiking back to LA.

AM:  And you enjoyed that?

RE:  It was as wonderful experience.  It was in April with all the night blossoms making the air smell like perfume.  When that hit me, I was a goner.  I knew I was here to stay. No matter what, I would do something out here.  Things fell into place for me.  I made the right moves and did the right things.  I worked with the right people.

AM:  What year are we talking about?

RE:  1958.

AM:  Did you start getting parts right away?

RE:  The first part I got in anything was in ‘South Pacific.’    

AM:  That’s a good one.

RE:  Yes it is.  I had about five lines in that.  I did work quite a lot.  

AM:  Was your height ever an issue?

RE:  It was, but anytime they read me, I got the part.   At the same time I was doing ‘South Pacific’ there was a process called the new talent program going on at 20th Century Fox.  In this process they whittled down from 200 to 20.  I made the cut each time.  Then we did 10 short scenes for all the producers, writers, directors and everybody who was under contract at Fox.  I don’t think they ever did it before or ever did it again after, but from that, they chose people to do a screen test for a contract.  Only two of us were chosen to test and I was the only one given a contract.  I did want to do television.  I was very serious about it.  

AM:  Why did you want to do television so badly?

RE:  I thought it was a way to work a lot.  I went to Billy Gordon who was the casting director at Fox and asked him if I could do television.  There was a show wanting me and I loved that show.

AM:  What show was it?

RE:  It was ‘Father Knows Best.’ Billy told me I was coming up on a contract renewal and we could let it drop.  He said, “You can go into television and you can always come back.”  So I went into television and worked in the last 'Playhouse 90' and lots of things I could have never done had I stayed under contract with Fox.  Things just developed from there.  I seem to have no control over what happens in my career.  

AM:  You were just riding your life, which is great.

RE:   Exactly.

AM:  Were you married during this time?

RE:  I married my high school sweetheart.  We were way to young and she was not comfortable out in California.  However she ended up staying out here and married someone I introduced her to.  He’s a great guy and I was really pleased about all that.  I stayed single for a number of years until I met my wife.  I started having my family late in life and that’s when I stopped acting.  I wanted to raise my children.  They are all up and ready to fly now or already flying.   

AM:  Do you find yourself with more time now?

RE:  Yes, more time and able to involve myself in other things.  I was so totally wrapped up in their lives.      

AM: You have to be.  That means you’re a good father.

RE:   I was a good father.  I know that from my own children and I know it from seeing other families.  I coached everything so I see the other parents and what’s happening with those kids.  I know I’m a good father and I know my wife is a great mother.  

AM: The proof is how the kids turn out.

RE:  Yes it is.  My kids are all wonderful, kind people.

AM:  Where did you film ‘Tarzan?’

RE:  We filmed it in Brazil, Central America and Mexico.  Don’t look too closely at the natives because the wigs don’t work sometimes.  (laughter)

AM:  Were you excited to get that part?

RE:  Not really, excitement was a luxury I didn’t have.  I was too busy from the get go.   I stayed busy until the last day of shooting.  It was a lot of hard work and a grueling show to produce. 

AM:  It was so extra physical.  Did you like that part?

RE:   I don’t remember if I liked it or endured it.  I had so many injuries that it did become a matter of endurance.     

AM:  So were you happy when it ended?

RE:  Quite frankly I don’t know that I could have even done anymore.  I was mentally and physically worn out.  At the very least I would have needed a few months to recover.  My body was a wreck.  I had so many muscle pulls and tears and busted shoulders, wrists and bones.  Every part of me had been hurt.  I pay for it today when I get out of bed in stages. (laughter)   

AM:  The work you did after ‘Tarzan’ was less difficult wasn’t it?

RE:  Yes, I did a lot of films in Europe.  

AM:  You also hosted a game show in the 80‘s.  Did you enjoy that?

RE:  Yes, I was trying to break the stereotype of me being a high powered adventure guy.

AM:  That reminds me, can you tell me about making 'Doc Savage?’

RE:  I came back from Europe to do the film.  I was halfway through it when I realized I had jumped from the frying pan into the fire!  This character is even more iconic than Tarzan.  It was huge at the time.  It had so much industry wide attention.  It was unbelievable.  People from other studios were coming over to look at our dailies.  The buzz about it was something else!  They made a 20 minute short about the film to show to distributors.  It was a home run.  We finished principle photography and I went to Europe to make another film.  When I finished it, I came back and saw the cut version.  When we finished principle photography the hierarchy at the studio changed hands.  The new guys didn’t want the product of the old guys so they cut off all the post production funding. 

AM:  Was there still a lot left to do?

RE:  It still needed the special effects, editing and music and they couldn’t do any of it.  George Pall had to go back to his old technique of doing special effects.  The advanced editing techniques were denied us so they had to edit the old fashioned way.  It was supposed to be John Williams music but ended up being John Phillips Sousa marches so the picture was totally changed.  George Pal just reached over, patted me and said, “Sorry.”  I was silent but they read my silence quite well.     

AM:  You have to really learn how to be resilient.

RE:  Every actor has to learn that.  They thing I tell anyone who is interested in acting, including my own children is if you’re going to be an actor, the first thing you have to get by is rejection.  You have to understand it.  It’s a little like baseball.  If you hit the ball three times out of ten swings you have a pretty good batting average.  The same is true with this business.  If you get three out of ten jobs you go after, you’re doing fantastic.  Most people don’t.  It’s the same with life.  If you’re going to stop your course of interest simply because someone rejects it, then you don’t have a prayer of succeeding.  You can’t just depend on luck.  Also you have to go out there for it.  You have to put yourself on the line.  No one is going to drag you out of the house to put you in a film.   

AM:  You also worked on 'Sea Hunt.’  What was that like?

RE:  That’s when I really began to hang it up.  My oldest was two years old and my next daughter had just been born.  My wife and I talked about it and decided we could mange if I didn’t work other than writing.  I stayed home so I could be with the kids all day long.  I was able to coach all their teams and be at every function.  I was there when they came home.  I was never absent.       

AM:  What is your life like today?

RE:  It’s been totally about my kids but my youngest graduated last May so they’re all out of college.  My oldest is a lawyer.  She went to law school and passed the bar the first time out.  My kids need me less and less.   My attention is beginning to drift away from such a constancy with them to a more eclectic set of interests. 

AM:  It’s time for things you always wanted to do but hadn’t made the time for yet.

RE:  Exactly, I’m even thinking of taking up painting. 

AM: Why not?  You should!

RE:  I really want to do that.  I like so many things, but so many of those things are physical.  I have to change my interests.  I can’t do those physical things anymore.  I’ve been under the knife so many times due to my past injuries that it really makes you change the course of your life. 

AM:  You are fortunate to be able to explore some new areas of interest.

RE:  I like people too.

AM:  Well that’s good because people are attracted to you.

RE:  Maybe that’s what happened.  You have a tendency to like people who like you.  

Ted Neeley: Still A Superstar!

May 27, 2013, 10:31 am

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All Photos:   Alan Mercer

Ted Neeley was born in Ranger, Texas. He signed his first record deal in 1965, at age 22, with Capitol Records. He and his group, The Teddy Neeley Five, recorded an album titled ‘Teddy Neeley.’ They played the club circuit for years, and at one point their name on a marquee appeared in an episode of Dragnet. In 1968 Ted starred in the Los Angeles productions of Larry Norman's rock musicals ‘Alison’ and ‘Birthday for Shakespeare,’ with Norman, Richard Hatch and Kay Cole.  Then, in 1969, Ted played the lead role of Claude in both the New York and Los Angeles productions of ‘Hair.’ His work with that show's director, Tom O'Horgan, led to his being called when O'Horgan was hired to stage Jesus Christ Superstar for Broadway.


Ironically, Ted originally auditioned for the role of Judas, seeing it as a great opportunity to play a character few understand.  However, when Ben Vereen was chosen for the role, Ted signed on as chorus and also became the Christ understudy. This particular opportunity led to his taking on the title role in the Los Angeles stage version, which played at the Universal Amphitheatre, after receiving a standing ovation during a performance earlier in the tour. Castmate and close friend Carl Anderson was touring also as a Judas understudy.


Ted also performed the title role in ‘Tommy’ in Los Angeles, which in turn led him to reprise the title role in the film version of ‘Superstar,’ directed by Norman Jewison, alongside Carl Anderson as Judas. For his performance in the film, he was nominated for Best Motion Picture Actor in a Musical or Comedy, as well as Best Newcomer, at the 1974 Golden Globe Awards.


Fresh from the success of ‘Superstar,’ Ted released a solo album, ‘1974 A.D.,’ in 1974, and played the role of Billy Shears in ‘Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on the Road’ in New York. From then on, he was a frequent musical guest star on network variety programs such as ‘The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,’ and ‘A Touch of Gold’ and as a guest actor in network dramas during the 1970s and 1980s, such as ‘Starsky and Hutch,’ and NBC movies including ‘Of Mice and Men’ as Curly and ‘McLaren's Riders.’


At the same time, Ted Neeley also provided his abilities as singer, songwriter, vocal arranger, and producer to albums and appearances by such artists as Nigel Olsson, Tina Turner, Disco Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes, Ray Charles, Bo Diddley, Keith Carradine, and Meat Loaf.  In the late Seventies, Ted expanded his talents once more to live performance with his band Pacific Coast Highway.


However, while Ted moved on in his career, the specter of ‘Superstar’ still loomed large. In the late 1970s, he reprised his performance in the title role for two regional productions in California, both under the auspices of the California Youth Theatre organization. The first reunited him with his Broadway and film co-stars Carl Anderson and Yvonne Elliman (as Judas and Mary Magdalene), and the second reunited him again with his close friend Carl.


Twenty years after first playing the role, Ted gained renewed success in the lead role of Jesus in the 1990s touring company of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ which once again co-starred Carl Anderson as Judas. This modernized version of the original production included a day-glo temple scene, and a glass crucifixion cross that elevated above the stage and was lit from within. Originally planned as a three-month tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the motion picture, the "A.D. Tour" went on to become the longest running revival in North American theater history. From 1992 to 1997, the hugely successful tour criss-crossed the nation multiple times, allowing Ted the opportunity to reprise his role over 1,700 times.


In 2012, Ted performed a new cabaret style retrospective show of his work called "Ted Neeley and the Little Big Band" , from January 20-29th at the Rubicon Theatre Company. Neeley also had a cameo role in Quentin Tarantino's 2012 blockbuster Django Unchained and contributed a background music track, "Tracker's Chant", to the film, which is included on his new CD, ‘Workin’ For The Words.’


Ted Neeley met his wife, the former Leeyan Granger, during the making of the film, Jesus Christ Superstar. They currently reside in California with their children Tessa and Zack.  


I have been a “Tedhead” since 1973 when the movie came out.  I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Ted Neeley perform the role of Jesus twice on stage and he is always in top form.  I’m very happy to share these new photos and my conversation with the remarkable and very kind Mr. Ted Neeley.  

AM:  I had no idea you were from Texas.  Where did you grow up?

TN:  A town called Ranger like Texas Rangers.  

AM:  I lived in Dallas forever.

TN:  Ranger is half way between Fort Worth and Abilene.  If you go on Highway 81 to Abilene you go right through it.  You don’t even know it’s there.  

AM:  How did you get out?

TN:  They chased me out!  Too much rock n’ roll!  (laughter)

AM:  You’ve been singing since day one haven’t you?

TN:  Oh yeah!  I’ve been singing since the day I was born.  I was working in a band since the time I was seven in the church.  We couldn’t really call it a band but we pretended to be one.  All through school I knew these guys who were my buddies that I grew up with and we didn’t know what we were doing but we played instruments since we knew three or four chords.  We could sing anything.  When we graduated from high school our parents were happy about us taking off on the road for the summer.  We went from Ranger out to Los Angeles.  When we got to LA we were hired constantly because we were the only band doing something other than surfer songs.  We played all the nightclubs back then.  

AM:  What was it like auditioning for 'Hair?’

TN:  I didn’t even know I was auditioning for it.  I like to talk to people so anytime we were playing in the clubs I’d go around and introduce myself to people so after a while we built up this following.  We were the band that created ‘Cheers.’  Everywhere we played everybody would come because we all knew each other.  The club owners loved us because we had created a following.  At the end of the night we’d all sit around and have a good time.  Since we were in Hollywood it would be all these actors, singers, dancers, writers and producers who were all coming to see the band from Texas.

AM:  So that’s how you met a lot of industry people.

TN:  We got in this conversation about working and one of the actors told me to come with him tomorrow to an audition.  He wanted me to see what he had to go through to even get a job.  I didn’t work in the daytime so I went to the audition.  We got there and there were so many people waiting.  He told me he forgot it was an open call so the only way you can get in is to “Follow me in line and do what I do.”

AM:  What did that involve?

TN:  I filled out some forms and they gave me a number.  So we finally got to the point where they called his number and he went on stage and did his thing while I watched.  When he was finished we started to walk out, but before we left they called my number.  He told me to get up there and see what it feels like, so I did.  I walked up on stage and it was absolutely dark except for one little light on the piano.  I just stood there in silence and all of a sudden a voice goes, “Are you Mr. Neeley?”  I said, “Yes sir.”  Then the voice said, “What have you prepared for us today Mr. Neeley?”   I said, “Nothing.  I’m just here to watch.”  Then he said, “Since you’re on the stage can you sing an up tempo song that shows us your rhythm and your vocal power?”  I was performing Stevie Wonder’s 'For Once my Life’ at the time so I sang that and I start to walk off, then the voice said, “Excuse me Mr. Neeley can you sing us a love song ballad that shows your passion and vocal range?”  Well I was also doing impressions at the time and I was doing Tony Bennett, so I turned to the piano player and said, “Think Tony Bennett, same song.”  So I did ‘For Once In my Life’ Tony Bennett style.  I start to walk off and the guy came and talked to me and hired me.  They didn’t hire the actor who took me.  The show was 'HAIR.’

AM:  That’s quite a Hollywood story!

TN:  It wasn’t that I was better than the actor.  He was brilliant and still is today, but I could hit the high notes.   That director, Tom O’Horgan was the man who nurtured me for three years in 'HAIR’ as an actor/performer.  He also directed 'Superstar’ on Broadway and he wanted me in that show.  That’s how I go into this business.

AM:   You are such a natural playing Jesus.  Has playing the role for so many years influenced your personality?

TN:  It has certainly affected me spiritually as a human being.  

AM:  You have a peaceful Jesus quality to your personality.

TN:   I don’t think anybody who pretends to be a character and does it over a period of time doesn’t get influenced by the character he plays.  Obviously growing up in a little town in Texas I had all the Biblical knowledge since I was in church every day.  If you grow up in the Bible belt, you go to church.  When I did the stage show and the film the directors would tell the cast if they had any questions on Biblical scriptures or theory, talk to Ted.  He knows all that stuff.  

AM:  I have to tell you I love your 1974 A.D. album.

TN:  Oh that one!  Wow!  Thank you.

AM:  Did you enjoy making that one?

TN:  I loved every second of it.

AM:  It’s a timeless recording and so is your new one, ‘Workin’ For The Words.’  It’s very exciting to me as a Tedhead.  The new album is just so good!  There is passion and hunger in this new music.   You wrote all the music didn’t you?

TN:  I collaborated on the music with Bruce Yauger.

AM:  What was your main inspiration for this?

TN:  The main inspiration was I really wanted to record with a new band.  We did one leg of our tour back east just to test the waters and see if anybody would show up.

AM:  You enjoyed it didn’t you?

TN:  We had the time of our life!  The people who came heard all the songs off the CD.   They sat there and listened to the new songs as if they’d already heard them a thousand times.  They made us feel like we knew what we were doing up on stage.  I showcased my band at the Rubicon Theater in Ventura.  It’s a beautiful theater.  I’ve been there forever.  They are wonderful people.  Bruce and I have known each other forever.  We met on one of the ‘Superstar’ tours.  He is a genius sound engineer.  By nature he is a guitar player and a singer/songwriter so we decided to write together for this CD.

AM:  You all did a great job writing these new songs.

TN:  He just pops out songs.  We recorded it at his backyard studio in Virginia.  He plays every instrument in the world.  I’m just a drummer and singer.  We just sit down and start talking and the next thing you know we’ve written a song.  Then an hour later we are in the studio recording it.  It happens all the time.  It’s inspirational and it’s fun.  When we finish we’ve had a good time and hope that it’s worthy of somebody listening to it.  I’m blessed that it’s still so enthusiastic so long after we did ‘Superstar.’  

AM:  As an artist you are in a unique position as a Rock n’ Roll singer and a Broadway singer.  That doesn’t happen.

TN:  That comes from when I started out in Texas because we were copying everybody.  Anything we heard on the radio we would play.  We were a Texas band that played country rock.  We’d be playing for dances and someone would walk up and ask if we knew the song, 'For Once In my Life’ and I’d say, “No, what is it?”  They would tell me it was from a Broadway show so I’d go listen to it and the next night we’d be playing it.  

AM:  Will us fans get some more new music with less time between your first two releases?

TN:  There’s no question, I’ve already got three more songs ready and I am definitely recording a Christmas album because I’ve never done one of those.  It will be classic Christmas songs.  I’m writing for other people as well.  I can do anything musically but there’s a public out there who will doubt that so it’s better for me to write for other people who they will accept doing it.    

To learn more about Ted Neeley visit his web site http://neeleytour.com/