When I was working on “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” at Shepperton Studios in the UK,  “2001: A Space Odyssey” was shooting on the stage next to us.  Kubrick had forbidden any of the MGM suits from viewing the film and I believe they were blocked from the set as well.  Not being an MGM exec, I walked over to the stage and was able to go in and peruse the miniatures that were there.   I recall actually touching the circular ‘space station’ .  That isn’t my regret…While I was with the MGM accountant and listened to his rant against Kubrick.  He complained that they had to fly Kubrick’s maid, nanny, and family over first class.  MGM wanted to stick it to Kubrick in any way they could.  (they were going to show Kubrick’s expenses as income to Kubrick).. now for my regret..On the accountant’s desk were a lot of camera lenses.  One of these lenses was an oval wheel that was about 10 inches in diameter.  There were what seemed to be different colored crystals sticking out from the wheel.  The accountant told me that was the lens that Kubrick use to shoot the psychedelic ending of the film.. He offered it to my for £5.  At the time, I couldn’t think of a reason or use for that lens…But now–I regret not getting it!!!

This is the type of plane we toured with in 1965

I always thought of the Rolling Stones 1965  tour as “If It’s Tuesday, This Must be Belgium”.  Each city blurred into to a mirror image of itself and it became a McDonald’s and mini mall world with all city’s looking the same.  We would, usually, arrive via our small charter plane, at 1 or 2 AM, immediately drive to the hotel/motel we were staying at and immediately search for food.  The food available usually was fried chicken, beef stew, mostly all night diner fare.  We’d stay up another couple of hours unwinding and then up in the morning to get the troops together for an afternoon (about 2 PM)  sound check.  Off for dinner and relaxing? until the show.  I would have to get to the venue’s early to prevent promoter trickery.  I had been tipped off by our William Morris agent, Jerry Brandt as to some of the scams.  A typical example would be the promoter advertises tickets at $8 at the door or advance purchase at $5.  If you don’t get to the door and check the ticket numbers you shouldn’t be surprised that “all” the tickets were sold in ‘advance’  without a way to prove otherwise.  I always had to get the ticket count before the doors opened while making sure ‘the boys’ got to the venue. 

Exception to the rule-

Sometimes we arrived and got a police motorcycle escort from the airport to our hotel and then after the show to the airport.  These were usually harrowing events.  The motorcycle entourage would leap frog intersection to intersection to stop traffic.  The minute we went thru a light, that officer would jump on his motorcycle and speed up to catch and pass us to get to another intersection, past the one where another officer was holding off traffic.  These guys were flying at over 100 miles an hour , which we also did in some instances,  but were usually doing about 80 throughout the cities.  It was amazing, exciting and scary.

29th October – 6th December: 4th North America Tour.

651029B  29th October: Montreal, Canada, Forum

651030A  30th October: New York City, Hilton Hotel. Press conference.

651030B  30th October: Ithaca, New York, Barton Hall, Cornell University
651030C  30th October: Syracuse, New York, War Memorial Hall

651031A  31st October: German TV (Radio Bremen) ‘Beat Club’.
- footage from the famous Waldbühne-gig in Berlin 15.9.65

651031B  31st October: Toronto, Canada, Maple Leaf Gardens

651000A  October: US radio (WSFA) ‘Teen Time’, incl.
- BJ, MJ, CW & BW reading letters with requests from listeners

651101A  1st November: US radio (Radio Boston), New York.
- recording of ads for the upcoming concert

651101B  1st November : Rochester, New York, Memorial Auditorium
651103A  3rd November: Providence, Rhode Island, Auditorium
651104A  4th November: New Haven, Connecticut, Loews State Theater (1st show)
651104B  4th November: New Haven, Connecticut, Loews State Theater (2nd show)
651105A  5th November: Boston, Massachusetts, Gardens
651106A  6th November: New York City, Academy Of Music

651106B  6th November: US TV ( ), Philadelphia.
- interview with one or more Stones

651106C  6th November: US TV (ABC) ‘Shindig!. Incl.
- Good Times (Sam Cooke) -promofilm
- Mercy Mercy (Don Covay/Ron Miller) -promofilm

651106D  6th November: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Convention Hall
651107A  7th November: Newark, New Jersey, Symphony Hall/Mosque Theater (1st show)
651107B  7th November: Newark, New Jersey, Symphony Hall/Mosque Theater (2nd show)

651109A  9th November: New York, Lincoln Square Motor Inn. Jam-session
(a/k/a ‘The Lost Jam’ due to electricity breakdown)
Line-up: BJ (acgtr, harm)/Bob Dylan (voc, acgtr)/Robbie Robertson (p)/
Bobby Neuwirth (acgtr)

651110A  10th November: Raleigh, North Carolina, Reynolds Coliseum

651111A  11th November: US TV (NBC) ‘Hullabaloo’, New York.
- She Said Yeah (Sonny Christy/Roddy Jackson) -playback with live vocals
- Get Off Of My Cloud (MJ/KR) -playback with live vocals
+ Charlie Is My Darling-footage
Note: The movie-footage was dubbed with Satisfaction played by the
Hullabaloo-orchestra. Televised on the 15th November.
Released on video in 1998 (see 980326A).

651112A  12th November: Greensboro, North Carolina, Coliseum

651113A  13th November: Washington, D.C., Coliseum. Unverified set:
(Everybody Needs Somebody To Love/Play With Fire/Mercy Mercy/
Around And Around/The Last Time/That’s How Strong My Love Is/
Get Off Of My Cloud/Satisfaction)

651113B  13th November: Baltimore, Maryland, Civic Center

651114A  14th November: Canadian TV (CBC) ‘This Hour Has Seven Days’, incl.
- interview with all five Stones by Larry Zolf (on a plane, late April 1965)

651114B  14th November: Knoxville, Tennessee, Civic Coliseum Auditorium

651115B  15th November: Charlotte, North Carolina, Coliseum
651116A  16th November: Nashville, Tennessee, Municipal Auditorium
651117A  17th November: Memphis, Tennessee, Mid-South Coliseum
651120A  20th November: Shreveport, Louisiana, State Fair Youth Center
651121A  21st November :Fort Worth, Texas, Will Rogers Memorial Center
651121B  21st November:Dallas, Texas, Memorial Auditorium
651123A  23rd November: Tulsa, Oklahoma, Assembly Center
651124A  24th November: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Civic Arena
651125A  25th November: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Arena Auditorium
651126A  26th November: Detroit, Michigan, Cobo Hall
651127A  27th November: Dayton, Ohio, Wampler’s Hara Arena
651127B  27th November: Cincinatti, Ohio, Gardens
651128A  28th November: Chicago, Illinois, Arie Crown Theater, McCormick Place (1st)
651128B  28th November: Chicago, Illinois, Arie Crown Theater, McCormick Place (2nd)
651129A  29th November: Denver, Colorado, Coliseum
651130A  30th November: Phoenix, Arizona, Veterans Memorial Coliseum

651200A  Fall: US radio (Boss Radio 90 KHJ), incl.
- jingle by MJ for the upcoming gig at L.A. Sports Arena

651201A  1st December: Vancouver, Canada, Agrodome
Note: The whole show was filmed for a police documentary.

651202A  2nd December: Seattle, Washington, Coliseum
651203A  3rd December: Sacramento, California, Memorial Auditorium (1st show)

651203B  3rd December: Sacramento, California, Memorial Auditorium (2nd show)
Note: A colour super-8 film with KR getting an electroshock during this gig exists.

651204B  4th December: San Jose, California, Civic Auditorium (1st show)
651204C  4th December: San Jose, California, Civic Auditorium (2nd show)
651205A  5th December: San Diego, California, Community Concourse, Convention Hall

651205B  5th December : Los Angeles, Calornia, Sports Arena
Note: A 10-15 minutes police-film about this concert is reported to exist.

651205C  5th December: Los Angeles, Beverly Rodeo Hotel. Press conference.

Sorry to hear that Dick Clark died today-04/18/2012.  I was with the Stones when they played a date for him in 01/05/1965 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Convention Hall.  That date was part of a Dick Clark tour that the Stones were on the bill with.  The thing that stood out most about that date, other than feeling like being the nuts in a vanilla sundae, was the image that I still have in my head of Charlie Watts disappearing in front of my face.  I was in the front of the stage as I had been roaming through the audience, listening for the sound and scanning the audience and I looked up and saw Charlie fly backwards as some fans had come up behind the stage and grabbed him and pulled him down.  There had been a curtain behind Charlie that cut off backstage, so the first things we saw were the hands and arms coming through the curtain.  Charlie got up and security grabbed the girls. Now for Dick.

I always admired Dick Clark, he maintained his ‘vanilla’ image and reputation while being in a business that is anything but vanilla and he delivered good family fare.  I was on the outskirts of a couple of deals involving Dick and Dick’s company and they were straight good business deals- well negotiated, tough, and they had results.  An entertainer and top business man in one person is rare plus he didn’t age.. We will really miss him, especially at New Years..

My friend and partner in film, Tony Anthony, brought me a project, years ago, the Murders at Quiet Dell. I give more detail about the project below.  The scary thing for me is that, Tony gave me the materials which includes original hand written letters (court exhibits) by the serial killer and his handwritten detailed confession. I had put all these pieces into storage because I couldn’t stand having them around and Tony didn’t seem to want them back.  They had the feel of death about them which may sound weird but bothered me enough to not like touching them.. I never forgot the story and since it occurred in the 1930′s, it dovetailed into my project with Helene Fortescue Reynolds and the rape and murder in Hawaii, the Massie Case which I will discuss at another time..

This is a page from his confession that he gave to the Psychiatrist that loaned him the money for his appeal The Psychiatrist could publish the confession and info if Powers lost his appeal and was hung.  If he won his appeal, the story stayed quiet and he would repay the loan.

Here is a letter he sent that was used as a trial exhibit:

One of the books that were released:

Where the bodies were buried:

and a cool other book:

Quiet Dell Murders

West Virginia’s Crime of the Century

By Stan Bumgardner

On August 27, 1931, lurid headlines shocked the town of Clarksburg and quickly took the nation by storm as a grisly story unfolded from the nearby community of Quiet Dell. Each extra of the local newspapers revealed more sordid, vivid details about Cornelius O. Pierson, a.k.a Joe Gildaw, a.k.a. Harry Powers. The nation soon knew him as the “Bluebeard of Quiet Dell.”

The saga began with a phone call from more than 500 miles away. On the evening of August 26, officials in Park Ridge, Illinois, contacted Clarksburg police about a widow and her three children who had been missing for more than two months. The mother, Asta Buick Eicher, had left behind 27 letters from Cornelius O. Pierson, postmarked from Clarksburg. City officials did not recognize the name and dispatched detective Carl Southern to the local post office. Southern discovered that a Cornelius Pierson had rented Box 277 and followed the lead to 111 Quincy Street in the city’s Broad Oaks suburb. It was the home of a local grocer and former vacuum salesman known locally as Harry Powers. Policemen waited outside the Quincy Street house for Powers to appear. When Powers returned home around noon on August 27, he was placed under arrest for manslaughter in the disappearance of Eicher and her children, despite the lack of solid evidence or the bodies of the missing people. In his pockets, curiously, were five letters addressed to five different women.

Additional information led police to a board and batten garage on a small farm Powers owned in Quiet Dell — located today just off the Nutter Fort exit of Interstate 79. With the help of neighbors, detectives broke into the garage and found dried bloodstains but no bodies.

On the morning of August 28, police escorted Powers to the garage and discovered bloodstained clothing and jewelry in a basement beneath the garage, concealed by a trapdoor. Powers admitted the scene looked suspicious but offered no explanation. In addition to the personal effects, police also noticed a noose tied to a rafter above the trapdoor.

Following up on a tip from a local 15 year old boy, police uncovered a drainage ditch beside the garage. On the afternoon of August 28, while excavating the ditch, investigators found what they were looking for — the badly decomposed bodies of Eicher and her three children: Greta, 14; Harry, 12; and Anabel, 9. The victims’ hands had been bound with rope that matched the noose in the garage. Two days later, the police also found the body of Dorothy Lemke, a 50 year old widow from Northboro, Massachusetts.

About 4:25 that night, in the early morning hours of August 29 — following lengthy questioning by police from Clarksburg and Park Ridge — Powers confessed to the murders.

Camden Courier-Post – March 19, 1932

BLUEBEARD DIES ON SCAFFOLD,
SILENT TO END
Harry F. Powers Shows No Emotion
as He Goes to Death on Gallows
FIVE MURDERS LAID TO W. VA. LETTER WOOER
Witnesses Told to Park Guns With Wardens as March Begins

Moundsville, W. Va., March 18- Harry F. Powers, West Virginia Bluebeard, went to his death on the gallows in the state penitentiary here tonight with his lips sealed.

Accused of the murder of five persons- two women and three children- Powers made no effort to talk, although an opportunity was given him at the last second before the trap was sprung.

The official prison announcement said the trap was sprung at 9:00 o’clock. Five physicians declared him dead eleven minutes later.

The murder of which he was convicted and for which he was hanged was that of Mrs. Dorothy Pressler Lemke, of Northboro, Mass.

His life was snapped away in the state penitentiary by a thick bull rope and a five-foot drop before a crowd of nearly 40 persons who pressed forward, tense and nervous, as the trap was sprung.

Displays No Emotion

The modern Bluebeard showed no emotion as he went to his death. A twitching of the lips, a simple twist of his head, a quietly pronounced “no” answering the question weather he desired to say anything before he passed into eternity–these were the only incidents as he stood high up on the platform of the gallows, waiting the drop.

Eleven minutes elapsed from the time the body plunged downward until the five doctors who pressed about him applying stethoscopes announced he was dead. But he had been unconscious, apparently, from the moment the thick rope had snapped his neck, for there was no tremor, not even the slightest movement of the rope.

Moundsville had taken on a holiday festive appearance in preparation for the execution of the man whose crimes startled the world. Outside the prison a crowd gathered along the curbs. Automobiles were lined up for blocks. Inside, state officials, prison officials, doctors, policemen, even one of the jurors who convicted the man, gathered to await the summons that would take them to the dingy death house in a remote corner of the prison grounds.

Powers had been prepared before the march started for the death house. He was dressed in a black suit with a pin stripe, and wore a rather gaudy blue tie and a white collar.

The grim voice of a deputy warden delivered the first warning that the march was about to begin.

“Any person who is armed will leave his guns at the desk until he returns,” he said. Not a man moved forward. The voice rang out again. “Cameras will be left at the desk also”. Again not a man in the crowd stepped forward, but if there had been cameras they would have been useless in the cramped space where the audience stood to witness the death plunge there was barely room to move.

—————————————- —————————————-

TIME MAGAZINE – SEPTEMBER 14, 1931

National Affairs
“We Make Thousands Happy”

Advertisements in cheap, pornographic (“love” and “art”) magazines conform to the standard of their fiction and illustrations but often fall a step lower. Pages are packed with announcements of “red hot” photographs, vigor tablets (“Glow of Life”), bust developers, sex secrets, aphrodisiacs (“Essence of Ecstasy”), contraceptives. Plentiful also are the advertisements of so-called matrimonial bureaus which will furnish lists of lonely men & women, object matrimony. Stressed in the advertisements, prominent on the lists are Wealthy Widows. Sample advertisements:

“LONELY HEARTS—Join the world’s greatest social extension club, meet nice people who, like yourself, are lonely (many wealthy); one may be your ideal. . . . We have made thousands happy. Why not you?—Standard Club, Box 607, Grayslake, Ill.”

“MARRY! New big directory, photos, descriptions, sent sealed, 10 cents.—Cozy Darling, Dept. 10, Kansas City, Mo.”

“LONELY HEARTS—Let us arrange a romantic correspondence for you. A club for refined, lonely people. Members everywhere; strictly CONFIDENTIAL, efficient and dignified service—Eva Moore. Box 908. Jacksonville, Fla. I HAVE A SWEETHEART FOR YOU.”

“WEALTHY LADIES, RICH WIDOWS, LOVELY GIRLS, want to marry. (‘Write for free sealed list)—Mary E. Hill. Monon Building, Chicago, Ill.”

“LONESOME FOLKS, DANDY LITTLE LADIES, many wealthy, will marry —Mrs. Budd, Box 753-L, San Francisco, Calif.”

“There are more people starving for love and companionship than there are starving for bread,” red-inked the American Friendship Society of Detroit, which offered “ABSOLUTELY FREE” lists of wealthy widows to anybody who had the price of a two-cent stamp. In four years the “society” had collected more than $100,000 in “dues.” Its president, a Mrs. Olga Plater, and her husband, Albert Browel Plater (who in 1917 had been accused of impersonating a Russian count, a U. S. Army captain), lived in a $50,000 home near Detroit. Last week the American Friendship Society was involved in a sordid, hideous mess. In a shallow grave beside a garage in Clarksburg, W. Va., were found the bodies of two women and three children. In Clarksburg jail cowered a fat, beady-eyed, flabby little man, battered and bruised into a confession of his sadism. Police in many States followed clues to other crimes, other murders, all linked to Clarks burg’s “Bluebeard” and the matrimonial societies through which he operated. From his papers it was apparent he had conducted at least 115 mail-order “court ships” with lonely, foolish women. Relatives of Widow Asta Buick Eicher, 50, in Park Ridge, Ill., became suspicious when Harry F. Powers, with whom she and her three children had left home after a mail-order courtship, reappeared to claim her house. Letters from Powers postmarked Clarksburg, W. Va., were found in the house. Clarksburg police went to Powers’ home (not far from where famed Lawyer John William Davis once lived) and beside a windowless, cell-like garage dug up the bodies of Mrs. Eicher and her children. The two girls, 9 and 14, had been strangled; the head of the boy, 12, was beaten in with a hammer. The police arrested Powers, pounded a confession out of him. Convicts still digging in the foul trench found the body of Dorothy Pressler Lemke, a grass widow who had withdrawn $1,533 from a bank and left Northboro, Mass, with Powers a month earlier.

Killer Powers was rushed for safety from the city to the county jail while police began to investigate the activities of Luella Struthers, a wife whom he had not killed, who still lived with him and who had paid for construction of the garage. They learned she had been divorced by a man acquitted of murder in 1903, had met Powers through a marriage agency. They sought to connect her with a check forged on Mrs. Eicher’s account and with a letter written to relatives of Mrs. Lemke. Police elsewhere, investigating Powers’ courtships, learned he had been about to marry yet another woman when he was arrested, that he had stolen from many others. They sought evidence to accuse him of a Washington, D. C. murder.

The police also learned that a Detroit widow, mother of three, had found a husband through the American Friendship Society, had been murdered by him just before he committed suicide. While investigation of the “society” was being pressed, unexpected aid came to Killer Powers. One Barratt O’Hara, a Chicago criminal attorney, flew to Clarksburg and aroused the ire of the townspeople by announcing he would defend the prisoner. He refused to tell who had sent him. Clarksburg authorities, fearing an insanity plea, imported Alienist Edward Everett Mayer from the University of Pittsburgh, had him examine the prisoner.

Dr. Mayer’s report: “Powers is a psychopathic personality … of the hypopituitary type—squat, pig-eyed, paunchy, with weakened sexual powers. He is not insane, but he has been a borderline case all his life. Powers is capable of knowing right from wrong.”

—————————————- —————————————-

Harry Powers: Bluebeard of Quiet Dell
Extract from the Transcript of Record, State of West Virginia v. Felony No. 10357 Harry F. Powers, alias Cornelius O. Pierson, Criminal Court of Harrison County, Benjamin B. Jarvis, clerk.
West Virginia State Archives Collection.

—————————————- —————————————-

On another day, to-wit, on the 12th day of December, 1931, the following order was entered: -

State of West Virginia vs. / Upon an lndictment for a Felony No. 10357 Harry F. Powers, alias Cornelius O. Pierson.

This day came again the State by her Prosecuting Attorney as well as the defendant, Harry F. Powers, alias Cornelius O. Pierson, in person, who was set to the bar of lthe Court in the custody of the Sheriff and jailer of this County and represented by J. E. Law, his attorney; and the motion of the defendant, made at a former day of this court, to set aside the verdict returned by the jury in this action on the 10th day of December, 1931, and to grant him a new trial herein having been argued, by counsel and considered by the Court is hereby overruled and said new trial denied; to which ruling and action of the Court in overruling said motion and refusing a new trial herein the said defendant duly excepted.

And it being demanded of the said defendant if there was anything he knew or had to say why the sentence of the Court should not be pronounced against him, and nothing being urged in delay thereof, it is considered and ordered by the Court that he, the said Harry F. Powers, alias Cornelius O. Pierson, be hung by the neck until he is dead, and the execution of this judgment to be done upon him, the said Harry F. Powers, alias Cornelius O. Pierson, by the Warden of the penitentiary of this State at Moundsville on Friday, the 18th day of March, in the year Nineteen Hundred and Thirty-two; said execution to take place within the walls of said penitentiary according to law.

The Clerk of this court is hereby directed to deliver a copy of this order to W. B. Grimm, Sheriff and jailer of this County, who shall retain the custody of the said Harry F. Powers alias Cornelius O. Pierson, until a properly authorized guard, sent by the Warden of said penitentiary to receive him, shall convey said defendant, Harry F. Powers, alias Cornelius O. Pierson, to said penitentiary; and the Clerk shall also notify the Warden of said penitentiary of the conviction and sentence of the said defendant that he may as soon as practicable be removed and safely conveyed to said institution there to be kept in the manner provided by law until the said 18th day of March, 1932, when the execution of the judgment aforesaid shall be done upon him, the said Harry F. Powers, alias Cornelius O. Pierson, And the said defendant expressing a desire to apply for a writ of error and supersedeas to the judgment aforesaid, it is ordered that the execution thereof be, and the same is hereby suspended until the first day of the March Term, 1932, of this court, to enable the said defendant to make such application, and the said defendant hath leave to prepare, tender and have his bill or bills of exception signed, sealed and made part of the record herin within sixty (60) days from the adjournment on the present term of court.

Thereupon the said defendant was remanded to jail in the custody of the Sheriff and jailer of this County.

—————————————- —————————————-

excerpted from
THE LITERATURE OF THE AMERICAN SERIAL KILLER
By Patterson Smith

A lonely-hearts killer operating in [Earle] Nelson’s time was a man named Herman Drenth, who was known chiefly by his last alias, Harry F. Powers. A traveling salesman based in West Virginia, Powers used matrimonial correspondence agencies to ensnare lonely women, whom he robbed then murdered. Police estimated that before his arrest in 1931 he had killed fifty victims, although that number seems highly doubtful. He confessed to killing only those five whose bodies were found buried next to his “murder garage,” wherein he bound and gassed his victims and watched in delight as they died. The pleasure of the sight, said Powers, “beat any cat house I was ever in.”

I have a form letter in Powers’ hand which he used to inveigle female correspondents. In it he announces himself “longing for someone to take [my former wife's] place in my heart,” and promises that his new wife “can have anything, within reason, that money can buy.” The letter begins, “My age is [blank], height 67 inches, have clear blue eyes, medium dark hair.” Powers evidently had used the letter as a model for writing to various women, no doubt adjusting his age to fit the year of writing or the age of his correspondent.

The printed legacy of Powers consists of a scarce book by Evan Allen Bartlett, Love Murders of Harry F. Powers: Beware Such Bluebeards (1931) and a scarcer undated contemporary pamphlet of 14 pages, “Love Secrets of Bluebeard. The use of the term “Bluebeard” in the title to denote a murderer of women, the prevalent usage for the last two hundred years, is somewhat interesting, since the original Bluebeard was a fifteenth-century French nobleman named Gilles de Rais who was a homosexual killer of boys.

By the time I got to New York, the office was in a flurry as they got ready to send the Stones out on the road in ’65.  At about 3 PM, Allen called me over and said, “I want you to go on the road with the Stones and represent me in the box office.” I had a few hours to pack and get ready, which was interesting in itself.  I lived in Newark, New Jersey, but my clothes weren’t there. Unbeknownst to anyone in the office, Candy Leigh had literally taken me under her wing and my clothes were at her apartment.  While being closer in Manhattan, it presented another problem as I didn’t have a key to the apartment and had to get my clothes.  Candy was in a closed door meeting with Allen and the other key Stones people.  Time was running out. She did manage to get an envelope passed out of the meeting to me with the key in it.  The person that gave the envelope to me figured out that it was a key but kept it quiet..I think.  He confronted me years later.

This tour led to my first airplane flight ( it was on a Marin 404 twin prop ), my first rock and roll tour and wild and crazy times..

Representing Allen in the box office became an interesting proposition as Allen had removed comp tickets from the promoter agreements  These are the tickets that the promoter’s give to the press, friends, family, politicians, etc.. Every time I went to a box office to do the accounting and pick up the money, I had to compute the total ticket sales.  Every promoter freaked when they realized they had to pay for their giveaways and would threaten me. Most of them calling me a little punk, I wouldn’t leave alive, they would break my arm or leg…..  I would collect the cash and send it off immediately.. Sometimes the promoters would appear at my hotel room, wanting the money back..but, “it’s in the mail” always worked to get them off my back..

]]> http://meandtherollingstones.com/blog/one-minute-i-was-dancing-to-satisfaction-and-a-month-later-on-the-road-with-the-rolling-stones/feed 0 http://meandtherollingstones.com/blog/clothes-make-the-man http://meandtherollingstones.com/blog/clothes-make-the-man#comments Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:18:27 +0000 ron schneider http://meandtherollingstones.com/blog/?p=1007

I graduated the University of Miami, with a BBA in 1965.  After a couple of vacation weeks in the summer, I packed  my car and drove to New York.  As I started work  my uncle, Allen Klein called me into his office.  He also called in Candy Leigh.  Candy was about 5 years older than me.  Candy was the in house Public Relations press person working at ABKCO.  I always thought of Candy as a strong independent woman. She had been a model and she now had her own business, Call Candy, which was a telephone answering service (check your history books)in addition to her work as  PR person.  Allen said that I needed some suits for work.   I needed suits because I was a Miami boy (even though I was born in Newark I grew up in Miami) …growing up in Miami left me with a wardrobe which consisted of shorts, T shirts, flip flops and no need for a suit.  He wanted me to go to this specific suit designer who dressed all the top business men, stars (Ed Sullivan)  and entertainers in New York,  and get some clothes.  He told Candy to go with me to help me pick out a wardrobe and he gave me $400.00. I was only making $80 a week, the $400 was a welcomed gift that I never forgot,  nor the instructions I received to go with the suits. which I will detail on a “on the road with the Rolling Stones posting” as well as how Candy became ‘my older woman’ and why my suits were at her place when I got called to go on the road and the problems that caused

By my second summer, I was being sent to do the bookkeeping for different accounts that ABKCO represented.  I was to write up their checking accounts, and any and all transactions that the clients transacted.  A lot of these clients were in the famed Brill Building and I still remember walking down the halls hearing music, a piano playing, a guitar strumming and the voice’s of  song writers’  pitching or creating their songs.  I recall doing the books for Scepter Records, which had the Shirelles, Nancy Brown, the Isley Brothers , BJ Thomas,  the song Louie Louie and Dionne Warwick.  Not bad for a bored housewife, Flo Greenberg who started the label. Sometimes I would get a chance to talk to some of the singers, I recall that I loved to walk and talk with Nancy Brown.

One of the nicest guys I recall meeting was Neil Sedaka. I would go to his office to do his books.  His mother ran his office and I would come over and sit at a nearby desk and write up his publishing income and his expenses.  Neil would always be at a piano playing and creating some new song that I would hear on the radio months later.

I believe that Allen started my visits to the offices and the banal bookkeeping work, to see how I did while interacting with the talent and doing the business of entertainment. After doing this for a year, I got to join him when he worked with the other artists he represented.  The first being, Bobby Vinton.  Allen had done a ground breaking record deal for Bobby and was managing his act as well. I would sit and watch Bobby rehearse as Allen helped pick the structure of his show.  The main premise always was, “leave the audience wanting more”.  Most talent never know when to stop.  If they have an adoring audience they will perform forever, so guidelines have to be set (sorry fans).  Allen would help in structure,  building excitement, leveling off, and then building to a wow closing, leaving the audience wanting more.  I joined Allen and Bobby on many shows in the Catskills and major clubs in NY.  Bobby was amazing , his father was a band conductor which led to Bobby playing about 15 instruments. He would amaze the audience that came to see him sing, Mr. Lonely, or Roses are Red when he would break out a dozen instruments and play them.. Another cute trick I noted from the shows.. every night when Bobby would introduce the band to the audience, he would say.. “and let’s hear it for our drummer, it’s his birthday today”….:-) I always wondered what people thought that came more than once to see his show..

Working with Bobby led to Sam Cooke.  Besides an amazing record deal for it’s time, Allen Klein got bookings for Sam that were unheard of for black entertainers at that time. I recall many great shows we went to –I remember July 1964 at the Copacabana (even though Sam had played it earlier he had been treated poorly ). The ’64 show was a blockbuster .  I had a lot of writing to do recording the record royalties for Sam and his publishing company, Kags Music with J.W.Alexander.  I had to compute the royalty splits and write them up by hand as all we had was a calculator.  I have since heard that my handwritten work had been digitized and entered into the ABKCO database..My hand writing now is illegible.

Sam told me that there were two things to his act. One–he would hop over the microphone cord and Two–he would bite his lower lip.  That’s all he needed as his voice did the rest. Those were great years, I recall Allen gave Sam a Silver Cloud Rolls Royce.

I was in my car in Miami back home to finish my final year at the U of M, when I heard he had been shot and killed.  A very sad day and once again, the good die young.

The second contender for Feds checking my place out occurred after the Jonestown suicides.  One of the people that escaped and was in hiding came to my place to query the possibilities of a book deal.  I told them that I did not want to get involved with that one.   The man reeked of fear and death and I wanted him gone immediately.

Next came a great Howard Hughes book, “An Age of Secrets” by Gerald Bellett about John Meier.  Tag line:  The conspiracy that toppled Richard Nixon and the hidden death of Howard Hughes.  I still have the partial manuscript and “the sorry we couldn’t do business with this one” from Doubleday.  He detailed how the Watergate break in was a set up of Nixon by Hughes to get even for a half a million dollar bride Hughes paid to stop Atomic bomb testing in Nevada, which didn’t happen.

Another project I got involved with was with a book about Bella Lugosi:

A friend of mine who is a writer, Bob Brody, brought this to me for a possible feature film.  It told the story of Bela Lugosi “Dracula” and his life- part of it in conflict with the competition between he and Boris Karloff  “Frankenstein” as well as his bout with drugs.  Bella would shoot up on stage while doing plays.. Bella was buried in his Dracula cape .

Bob and I tried for many years to get another horror project off the ground.   Bram Stoker’s other choice for the top horror character was  Sawney Bean-the legendary head of a 48-member clan in 15th- or 16th-century Scotland, reportedly executed for the mass murder and cannibalisation of over 1,000 people.  Bob had arranged for the use of actual body parts in Sawney’s cave.

My Manhattan downstairs neighbor came to me one day and asked if I would like to speak to his cousin about something that happened to him in London.  His cousin was Mark Yarry and he had a story to tell about bringing down a counterfeiting ring operating in London.  He was an eye glass salesman who happened to stumble upon the ring while on a taxi ride from the airport.  Mark ended up posing as  a Mafia connected customer and with an apt Scotland Yard detective, helped end the reign of what the Yard called, the Magician. I got him a deal with Viking Press and a writer- Hank Whittemore,  of “Super Cops” fame at the time.   The book came out a Find the Magician https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/hank-whittemore-2/find-the-magician/#review 

My New York neighbor also introduced me to another relative of his–as I knew her–Helene Fortescue Reynolds and boy did she have stories to tell.  I will devote a separate post to discuss Helene.  Let this be your teaser–Whitney was born Kenyon Fortescue in 1914, but was known as Helene.^[1] Through her mother Grace Fortescue (1883–1979), she was a grandniece (and cousin twice removed) of Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone. Through her father Granville Roland Fortescue (1875–1952), she was cousin once removed of US President Theodore Roosevelt.  Her sister, Thalia Massie was another major story.   What happened to her in Hawaii led to their mother being convicted of murder with Clarence Darrow as her defense attorney.  I recently found more information about Helene and her family that I didn’t know at the time.  Stay tuned..

Another friend of mine, Seth Zimmerman,  wanted help on a TV pilot called KIDAZZLE.   The premise of the show was to take the energy that kids have and divert it from violence ie: war games, to using their minds to solve problems.  He had gotten funding from Walmart and we went all the way from creating the pilot TV show  to presenting it to all the networks during a time when it was thought that they wanted to get violence out of children’s programming.  During a presentation to Disney, we were told that if they could let Mickey fart, they could expand their audience to capture Nickelodeon fans.  Once again, more to follow..

Another project started ahead of it’s time, because of my friend Seth, was our move to saving the environment via Earthengine.   This led to the creation of a film school at the University of Vermont but fell to the wayside due to underfunding and the big boys taking over.

As I started writing about other stuff, I remembered more projects and entertaining people that I will expand upon at a later time.

I see that there are a lot of Brian Jones fans that have recently signed onto my site so I am updating this post.  Please enjoy.  The above pic was snapped on our Martin 404 charter for the US tour, while we whiled away the time and has nothing to do with the story other than it shows us all at a peaceful time.  Now for the story:

We were in Miami, I believe it was the Fountainbleau and they had ski doo’s for guests to take out into the ocean. The ski doo’s were the ones that you sat on like motorcycles. I recall Brian , Anita Pallenburg, Keith,  and  I getting  one. There were a few markers about 100 yards out  in the ocean and we were instructed to stay within the boundries of these buoy’s. Anita seemed to think we were playing bumper boats as she was basically ramming everyone..she charged my ski doo and rode up and over my left side and foot..Needless to say the boat operator’s were upset and whistled us in, we heard them scream that we would shortly be running out of gas and should head into shore..We headed in. When we got to shore we realized that Brain wasn’t with us. We turned and saw him heading straight out into the ocean on this little ski doo. To this day I see his back silhouette riding out into the ocean with a flock of seagulls over his head.. off into the sunset!! The vendors sent a boat out to get him. When he got to shore we asked,”What were you doing, where did you think you were going?”. Brian looked at us and innocently said..”I was following the birds..”.  I loved that and still remember it well.

PS..It cost us over $350.00 to fix the boat that Anita cracked..