Stairway To Heaven (41 page)

 

I launched my entry into management with my friends Michael Lewis and Gary Quinn, along with record producer Peter Rafelson. The four of us decided we would put together an all-girl band—an all-lesbian band, to be exact—and we came up with the name Fem 2 Fem. All we needed was to find five beautiful lesbians, and do it in a professional way (we decided it wouldn't look
good for us to appear to be aging perverts asking any two girls holding hands if they could sing). So we put the word out on the type of girl we were looking for and held auditions while Michael and Peter began writing songs for the new band.

When I arrived at the auditions, I was amazed at the beauty of most of the young women. Our biggest challenge was to find those with the best voices and attitude—and since we had an offer from
Playboy
for a three-page spread and story, we also needed girls who were uninhibited and willing to take off their clothes. As it turned out, we had no trouble filling the slots for the band. Within days, the girls were in the recording studio, as well as preparing for their
Playboy
photo session and a video shoot. With some help from college students from the UCLA film school, we made one video for MTV and another (with nudity) for the clubs and for European audiences.

Fem 2 Fem's first live show was scheduled at the Dinah Shore Golf Classic in Palm Springs. The promoters wanted only two songs, which was fortunate since the girls didn't know many tunes by then. They were also featured on Geraldo Rivera's TV show, in a program about “lipstick lesbians.” Before long we had a record deal, a billboard atop the Virgin Megastore on the Sunset Strip, more TV programs, interviews on radio stations across the country, and a highly publicized appearance on the Howard Stern radio show (during which Howard was more than delighted to get a good look at one of the girl's tits, which everyone agreed were worth their weight in gold).

As we toured radio stations, the girls were plenty of fun to be with, although I did have to raise my voice a few times, particularly when they were all suffering from PMS and were whining and groaning in their bunks. But they always looked drop-dead gorgeous when we arrived at those radio station appearances, even when we had to get there by six in the morning.

From the start, our game plan for the band was to make records, grab some endorsement deals, appear on some radio and TV shows—and that was really all. But then we got a call from a major agency in New York, with an offer for the girls to perform live in concert. I, of course, immediately said yes, told them to send the contract to us—and then nervously asked Michael and Gary, “What the fuck are we going to do now?” When the girls sang on TV and in limited appearances onstage, we kept their own voices low and used backing tracks to give them a well-rounded, professional sound. But now we had to turn the girls into a real singing band. Would it be an impossible task?

Michael took the girls under his wing, and tried to work a miracle. After just a week, he seemed to have succeeded. Fem 2 Fem was ready for prime time. First we tried them out at a gay nightclub in Houston—a city where their first single,
Switch,
was getting plenty of airplay. When our little divas
hit the stage, the queens went nuts. While the crowd screamed and shouted, Michael and I looked at each other in amazement, and then just burst out laughing, not believing our good luck.

Almost immediately, offers came in for Fem 2 Fem to perform in Miami, Tampa, Long Island, San Antonio, and again in Houston. The group also made some additional appearances on TV, including on the Maury Povich and Joan Rivers shows.

Even with everything going so well, however, we had to deal with a hurricane of internal turmoil within the band, forcing us to make some personnel changes. One girl started complaining about royalty checks, and would wander aimlessly through the audience before each show. We made the decision to let her go. We gave another girl a leave of absence after her home was badly damaged in the Northridge, California, earthquake. Two others left when they refused to sing some of the lyrics that Michael had written for the band. But we always quickly found new girls to replace the ones who had left.

At the same time, other problems were brewing: We continued to spend more money to keep the band afloat than we were bringing in. Were it not for the $110,000 we received as a publishing advance on the first record, we might have drowned in debt. I was hoping we could survive long enough to release a new record and reap an inflow of publishing cash.

Meanwhile, Michael flew to England with a couple of the girls to publicize the London opening of a stage show built around Fem 2 Fem that the tabloids there were already calling a “singing sex show.” Members of the London city council were outraged, insisting that they would shut down the erotic show before it ever opened. As Michael appeared on radio programs, defending freedom of speech and art in the theater, council members turned up at the dress rehearsals (or were they
un
dressed rehearsals?) to get a firsthand look at the onstage nudity. The male councilors seemed to enjoy the show, and wiped their sweating brows with their handkerchiefs. But eventually we decided to take much of the sex and nudity out of the program so the show could go on, even though the girls were still scantily clad in very sexy clothing. When the show opened in London, it drew respectable crowds, including a fair number of men in raincoats who longed to see as much skin as possible.

Eventually, I decided to sever my ties with Fem 2 Fem. It was costing me too much money to stay on, and I felt it would be better to pay for my daughter's school tuition than throw any more dollars into the band.

 

In the midst of the controversy surrounding Fem 2 Fem in London, I received a call from Terry Rindal, who managed the reggae band Black Uhuru. He needed a tour manager to fly to Jamaica to sort out the band's visas and then accompany them on a tour of Argentina and Brazil. It was just the tonic I
needed, and I flew to Kingston to rest in the sun for a week before the tour began. It took me a while to get accustomed to working with the Rastafarian band members, but we soon developed mutual respect for one another, and the tour went so well that Terry asked me to work with the band in their upcoming American tour as well. In fact, I would have a working relationship with Black Uhuru for the next three years, traveling all over the world with them.

In one memorable series of dates with Black Uhuru built around the Ruffles Reggae Festival, we began in Argentina and then spent time in Brazil, including performances in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Brasilia. At Rio's Copacabana Beach, the dark-skinned, topless girls on the sand were absolutely gorgeous, and were only too pleased to entertain us. Nearly every band on the festival tour took time for a bit of girl watching and sunbathing.

Leaving Brazil, we headed to England and then Holland to start the European tour. Our flight to London's Gatwick Airport arrived late, causing us to miss ferry connections to the continent. That left us with some unexpected time to drive to Brixton, a Jamaican community where we could purchase some of the Carribean island's imported goods and vegetables to take with us to Europe (it also gave me a chance to visit my mother for about an hour before heading off).

Touring with Black Uhuru was quite rigorous, and we barely had time to catch our breath. There were shows in Vienna, Brussels, and several cities in Holland, then we moved on to Oslo and down to Berlin (which had changed so much since I drove Ronnie Wood of the Stones there on a Creation tour in 1968—most notably, that awful wall had disappeared). From Berlin, the band traveled to many other European cities, including Hamburg and Florence, and then we headed back to London before jetting to the U.S. for shows in Washington, D.C., and Nashville, followed by dates in the Carolinas, Wisconsin, and Thunder Bay, Canada. We were always moving at breakneck speed, and by the time the band completed its last show of the tour in Chicago, we had covered thirteen countries, sixty-six cities, and 53,000 miles. But before we could even catch a good night's sleep, Terry made an unexpected announcement: He had scheduled more shows for us, forcing us to head immediately for San Juan, then Albuquerque and a long list of other cities and finally end up in Hawaii for a couple performances and a little time to swim and sleep on the beach. I still get tired just thinking about it!

There were more tours with Black Uhuru over the next couple of years, and there was never a scarcity of surprises. At a date in Paris, our soundman never showed up, so we had to make the best of things ourselves. I paid the musicians a little extra cash to set up their own instruments, which kept their moaning and complaining to a minimum.

By the time we reached Toulouse, Terry called with some very bad news. He said that a protracted legal dispute over the ownership of the name Black Uhuru had finally been settled—and not in the current lineup's favor. Duckie Simpson, one of the original members of Black Uhuru, had been awarded rights to the name—forcing an abrupt end to the tour. It was a sad evening for all of us.

When I returned to the States, it finally hit me how much I would miss the boys in this band, who had become such a joy to work with. I still keep in contact with some of them, and occasionally hear from Prince (the band's drummer) and receive photos of his son, who is my godson and growing up wonderfully.

 

Before long, I went on the road with Miriam Makeba, a dignified artist who was respected worldwide both as a singer and a human-rights activist. In her home country of South Africa, she was considered royalty, and rightfully so. Miriam's band was composed of talented and professional musicians from various parts of Africa, and they put on a wonderful show. It was a pleasure working for her.

But when the tour reached San Jose, I received a message from the hospital in England where my mother was being cared for. When I returned the call, I learned that Mum had passed away that morning, just a few hours after I had tried unsuccessfully to reach her by phone. I flew to London immediately, leaving the Miriam Makeba tour, which was nearing its end anyway, behind me. In London, accompanied by my friend Jenny Fernando, I arranged for a mass to be said for my mum. It was attended by friends, neighbors, relatives, and the kind people from the home who had taken such good care of her during her last years.

 

In 1997, I received an unusual request: Would I keep an eye on Robert Downey Jr. on a movie set, making sure he complied with a judge's order to refrain from any drug use? Robert had signed an agreement with the court to have someone trustworthy with him at all times, who would inform the judge if he violated any of the drug-related restrictions placed on him. A member of Robert's staff told me that if Robert drank or used drugs, and I didn't report it to the judge,
I
would go to jail for protecting him. Not a pretty thought.

I caught a plane to Boston, where Robert was about to begin filming a Neil Jordan picture,
In Dreams,
with Annette Bening and Aidan Quinn, in Northampton. It was my first time on a film set since Zeppelin made
The Song Remains the Same
about twenty-five years earlier.

Robert turned out to be as pleasant as anyone I ever worked with. True, the
early morning starts on the set were not my idea of a good time, and the weather was pretty miserable. But Robert was a joy to be around, and he and I soon reached an understanding of what my job would entail. I gave him a first-edition copy of
Stairway to Heaven
and told him, “As you'll read in my book, I'm not someone who's going to be fucked with. Even though it's not in my nature to want to contribute to putting anyone behind bars, if you start drinking or using drugs, just remember that I'm not going to jail for someone else's mistakes. So make sure you behave yourself while I'm with you, or I'll have no choice but to call the judge.”

Robert was very professional on the set, always polite, always kind to fans, often signing dozens of autographs at a time. Everyone in front of and behind the cameras liked him. But it was hard to enjoy the experience too much once I had come down with a bad case of the flu. To compound my own misery, Northampton is not the most exciting town on the map; when I used to visit it with touring bands, we tried to leave as soon as possible after the show to find some happier hunting grounds. Fortunately, after a couple weeks—and quite a few sobriety meetings, which Robert and I attended together—the film's cast and crew moved to the next location, Fontana Village, North Carolina. No one was happier about that change of scenery than I. Next we left the Carolinas for San Diego, where we met up with Robert's wife, Debbie, and his son, Indio, and we settled in for a couple days of rest and relaxation before traveling to Mexico to complete the filming at the same studio where
Titanic
had been shot. Robert and I shared a two-bedroom suite at a Marriott hotel south of the border, and got to know each other a little better. He continued to be enthusiastic about going to sobriety meetings and staying on his recovery track. I was so pleased that he seemed determined to get it right this time. At the end of our trip to Mexico, early in the morning on Thanksgiving Day 1997, I delivered Robert to a treatment center in Malibu, where he would be living until his court appearance the next month.

More than a year later, I worked with Robert again. He called one afternoon to ask if I could travel to Pittsburgh, where he would be working with Michael Douglas on
Wonder Boys
. “I like working with you,” he told me, adding that he needed me on the set for about two months. Because the music-touring game had become so slow in early 1999, I figured, Why not?

I flew to Pennsylvania, and checked into the royal suite at the Westin William Penn Hotel, which was certainly much more luxurious than our digs in Northampton in 1997. Our suite had two bedrooms, a lounge, a large dining room, and a kitchen equipped with two coffee machines and a shelf brimming with Starbucks coffee. In those first hours in Pittsburgh, I had forms to fill out and phone calls to make, checking in with the insurance company
that had covered Robert for the film. Until the movie was finished, I had to check in with the insurers every week, reporting on whether he was still clean (which he always was).