"Mayor of the Sunset Strip"

Not long after the disco closed, in 1976, Bingenheimer got his slot on KROQ, and his web of rock star (and rock star wannabe) acquaintances continued to grow. Hickenlooper interviews a starburst array of them, including Blondie's Debbie Harry, former groupie extraordinaire and ex-GTO Pamela Des Barres, Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek, Brooke Shields and Nancy Sinatra. Courtney Love recounts how she met Bingenheimer: "I stalked him." And Des Barres, looking prettier and more vivacious than many women half her age, reveals that Bingenheimer was the first boy she kissed when she got to Hollywood. "He tried to feel me up, but I wouldn't let him!" she adds, breaking into a fit of giggles.

We learn more about Bingenheimer from these interviews than we do from what he says about himself, which is actually very little. Nearly everyone speaks of him both fondly and a little protectively, particularly Cher, who explains that she and her ex-husband Sonny Bono really liked Bingenheimer and were happy to have him hanging around -- a good thing, since he obviously hung around a lot. David Bowie, a busy man with much bigger fish to fry, speaks with Bingenheimer on-camera, clearly having made time to do a favor for someone who helped him out early in his career. Bingenheimer meekly points out that the not-yet-famous Bowie used to send him demo tapes. Bowie retorts that those tapes are now "extremely valuable" and then goes on to ask, perhaps only half-kiddingly, if Bingenheimer has sold them off.

Bingenheimer murmurs that he hasn't, and although the guy clearly lives modestly -- he putt-putts around town in his mother's old Nova -- you don't doubt him for a second. Bingenheimer takes us on a mini-tour of his home, showing us all the memorabilia he's accumulated over the years, including Elvis Presley's driver's permit. Hickenlooper asks him, marveling, how he got it, and Bingenheimer replies, straight-faced, "He gave it to me." Now somewhere in his 50s, Bingenheimer dresses as if somewhere in the late '70s he found the uniform that worked for him and decided to stick with it: He favors narrow dark trousers and a boxy black jacket that all but swallows his trim, slight frame. His stride is a bit tentative, but there's always a bounce in his step -- he's like a wooden puppet with hidden springs in his joints.

While Hickenlooper never takes the cheap route of making Bingenheimer a figure of pity, he manages to capture the halo of sadness that hovers around the man. Bingenheimer has a close friend named Camille, a tall brunette with an intense, but not unkind, demeanor. It's obvious the two care for each other, but bit by bit we catch glimpses of the nature of their relationship. It becomes clear that Bingenheimer has romantic feelings for Camille, whereas she announces, almost flatly, that she "has a boyfriend, and Rodney's just a friend."

There are plenty of other moments in "Mayor of the Sunset Strip" that aren't easy to shake, as when Rodney visits his father and stepmother's house and they explain that Rodney's picture isn't among the family photographs they have displayed prominently in their living room. "They're in the other room," the stepmother explains. Rodney heads for that other room and digs through some carelessly stacked pictures to pull out a snapshot of himself, age 4 or so, with the Easter Bunny. His stepmother looks on, musing idly, "Dad'll have to put that in a frame."

Yet "Mayor of Sunset Strip" isn't a downer. Bingenheimer admits, only at Hickenlooper's prodding, that he could use more money, a comment that's particularly wrenching considering that Bingenheimer has helped his share of down-and-out dreamers over the years (one of whom, a 50ish transplanted Texan who wants desperately to be a rock star, is interviewed in the movie). It's possible that some of the acts Bingenheimer has brought to prominence over the years have helped him out financially; if they haven't, they need to seriously consider it. (Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis, to name just two, can surely afford it.)

But what comes through most vibrantly in "Mayor of Sunset Strip," shining through Bingenheimer's low-key, laid-back, almost monotone manner of speaking, is how much the music has meant to him, even if it never exactly lined his pockets. One of the movie's most beautiful sequences is a bit of footage filmed during one of Bingenheimer's fairly recent radio shows, in which he plays for his guest, Brian Wilson, Ronnie Spector's 1999 recording of the song Wilson wrote for her, "Don't Worry Baby." (Phil Spector refused to let her record it when it was written.) Wilson's expression melts into pure ecstasy at the sound of that voice, at last performing his song. Bingenheimer looks on, clearly filled with a kind of impish pleasure at being the agent of such unadulterated happiness.

At one point Hickenlooper, from behind the camera, asks Bingenheimer what he likes about pop music. Bingenheimer shrugs impatiently, as if he were annoyed by the question, and you can't blame him. How would anyone answer that? Bingenheimer thinks for a second and then says, "It makes you happy. It makes you wanna do more things." And, he might have added, like the best friend you've got, it sticks with you for a long, long time.

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