Joan Collins, actor
Lugubrious face

I started a budding relationship with Ronald Kass. Ron was head of Apple Records and the music side of the Beatles' company, Apple Corp...

The headquarters of the Beatles' empire at Number 3 Savile Row was in the heart of the conservative part of the West End...

I visited Ron one day in his elegant ground-floor office, with its finely carved paneling and ceilings, expensive paintings and extravagant all-white furniture. We had tea out of Limogues cups, accompanied by cucumber sandwiches...

A cheery head popped around the door in a black-leather flat cap. "Hi, folks. Time for tea?" He beamed. "I smell cucumber sarnies."

"Oh, hi, John. Have you met Joan?"

"Miss Collins." John Lennon kissed my hand, eyes sparkling mischievously. "What an honour."

I shook hands with the most famous and most brilliant of the quartet. Tall and pale, he had a lugubrious face that looked either miserable or about to burst into giggles. He wore tight black pants, a flowing white shirt, and from around his neck a few peace symbols and ankhs caught the light.

"I used to love seeing your films when I was a little boy," he said teasingly.

"Thanks." I laughed. "I guess your mama let you see X-rated films."

"Ooh, those pin-up pics of yours used to make me go all funny when I saw them in Picturegoer. Very nice."

He plonked himself on the sofa and spread half the jar of caviar on to a digestive biscuit. I poured him some tea. "Three sugars, please." He stuck out his long legs and put his feet on the glass coffee table. (London, late 1960s)

From "Second Act," by Joan Collins (St. Martin's Press, 1996)

William Kunstler, lawyer
Pot problems

I had a fleeting relationship with John Lennon and Yoko Ono when they lived near me on Bank Street in Greenwich Village. I occasionally went to their apartment, shared a pizza, and talked about John's legal problems -- he had been convicted of marijuana possession in England and so was threatened with deportation by the United States -- the civil rights movement, and politics in general. (New York, early 1970s)

From "My Life as a Radical Lawyer," by William M. Kunstler with Sheila Isenberg (Birch Lane Press/Carol Publishing, 1994)

Chuck Berry, rock musician
Sixteen years, sixteen inches

In 1971, the great John Lennon mentioned once that I was his hero. This was one of the most stimulating statements that has ever been bestowed upon me. On my forty-fifth birthday, the only time we stood side by side performing together the music we both loved so well, though sixteen years apart in age, we stood sixteen inches apart sharing the lyrics of Johnny B. Goode." I believe somehow in heaven, he now reviews those moments with Yoko and Chuck in Philadelphia doing the Mike Douglas show. Of yes! He was the hero of the whole show in Toronto with Yoko at Varsity Stadium when he raised his hand, holding it up more than sixty seconds under the cry of well over sixty thousand fans in plea for cessation of applause so he could begin his performance.

From "The Autobiography," by Chuck Berry (Harmony Books, 1987)

Geraldo Rivera, broadcast journalist
Shorn

They summoned me to their basement apartment on Bank Street in the Village. It was smack in the middle of their give-peace-a-chance phase. The apartment was a duplex occupying the ground floor and basement of a nice old brownstone. They were both in bed the first time we met. I remember being surprised by this, though I might have expected it.

I rang their doorbell at the agreed-upon time and was met by a big, burly guy who led me into another room where I was met by a less-big burly guy, who led me into another room where I was met by a woman, who wasn't big or burly at all ... I had to go through three or four layers of people, and through three or four rooms, before I was led into the master bedroom.

And there he was. John Lennon. The only bigger kick would have been meeting Elvis Presley on such intimate terms, although by that time Elvis was gaining weight and selling out in Las Vegas. John Lennon was it for me. He was rebel, poet, artist, feminist, working-class hero, and antiwar advocate. He wore fairly thick, rimless glasses, and pajamas. His hair was cut short, and he was clean-shaven; the long, flowing hair and bushy beard of the year before was gone, casualties of the mounting immigration problems John would face over the next few years. (New York, 1971)

From "Exposing Myself," by Geraldo Rivera with Daniel Paisner (Bantam, 1991)

Jerry Rubin, Yippie and counterculture impresario
Politically aware

In 1971, I saw a photograph in the New York Daily News of John Lennon and Yoko Ono arriving in New York. I called them, we met one afternoon in Washington Square Park and then began hanging out together during the next few months.

I felt that Yippie was Beatles' music put to politics, and John was the most politically aware of the Beatles. In his "Working Class Hero" album, John was singing to my soul. I found him to be a good friend, honest, loving and brilliant...

Immediately, the three of us began fantasizing. We would launch a musical-political caravan, tour the United States, raise money to feed the poor and free prisoners from jail. The shows would combine music and fun with political education and consciousness-raising, and all the money would go to the people!

I came often to visit them at their bed. In those days John and Yoko slept, ate, wrote, and conducted business from an enormous king-size bed in their apartment in the West Village.

From "Growing (Up) at 37," by Jerry Rubin (M. Evans and Company, 1976)

Wolfman Jack, disc jockey
Complicated circuits

Another frequent visitor [to radio station KDAY] was this weird English guy named John Lennon.

He's been gone for years now, but Lennon remains one of the most intense, amazing cats I've ever met. I thought I had pressure from the banks and all -- man, he had the whole Federal Bureau of Investigation breathing down his neck.

John liked to have fun, but he also was the kind of guy who lived a whole lot of the time entirely inside the complicated circuits of his own mind. Or, as he once expressed it to me, To boogie or not to boogie, that is the Christian."

He actually talked like that.

We had a natural rapport because John wanted to get close to everything basic and elemental in black American music, to blend it with his own rock 'n' roll vision. (Los Angeles, early 1970s)

From "Have Mercy! : Confessions of the Original Rock 'n' Roll Animal," by Wolfman Jack with Byron Laursen (Warner Books, 1995)

Meat Loaf, musician and actor
Starstruck

One time I had a meeting in Manhattan and I was early. There was a little coffee shop attached to the building, so I went in and I sat down at the counter. There was an empty stool next to me and someone sitting on the next stool. I order a coffee. There's a little sugar thing right in front of me, but I want Sweet'n Low. I glance over and see Sweet'n Low packets in front of the guy on the other stool. I didn't even look at him, I just said, "Excuse me, can you hand me the Sweet'n Low?" He answers, "Yeah, sure, mate," and he's got an English accent. Sounds familiar. I open the packet and I take a quick look and it's John Lennon. Thousands and thousands of questions are in my head. We're both Libras, close to the same birthday -- I even used to dream about John Lennon.

I used to have dreams of going to Lennon's office, and of being signed to Apple Records by him. We would sit and talk about music. He would be behind a desk wearing a white suit. After he died I kept having the same dream, only I could never see his face.

Anyway, I sat next to Lennon in that coffee shop for fifteen minutes and never got up the nerve to speak. I wanted to tell him I'd had the dream; I wanted to say, "I've always dreamed about coming to your office, and you were wearing white"...

I get starstruck around people, what can I tell you? (early 1970s)

from "To Hell and Back: An Autobiography," by Meat Loaf with David Dalton (Regan Books, 1999)

Recent Stories