by Sean Smith
Not everyone in Vegas was as easygoing as Elvis. Tom finally got to know Jerry Lee Lewis better. It turned out he was unable to match Tom’s drinking power, even though he tried. The rock ’n’ roll veteran wanted to discuss an idea for a TV special called, amusingly, Tom & Jerry. As the evening wore on and the champagne flowed, he became more belligerent, waving a bottle of Dom Pérignon at Tom and calling him a ‘motherfucker’. Coincidentally, he had suggested a similar show to Elvis, which would instead be called The King and The Killer. Elvis was unimpressed, and later told his bodyguards that Jerry Lee had a lot of talent, but should be locked up in a cage when he wasn’t performing.
The only time Elvis and Tom fell out was one evening when Elvis gave an impromptu concert in his suite. He wouldn’t stop singing his then current favourite, the Roberta Flack classic ‘Killing Me Softly with His Song’. He enlisted his backing group to accompany him each time. After half a dozen encores, everyone was getting a little tired of it, but singing came to an abrupt end when Chris Ellis, anxious for Tom to get some rest, pulled away the piano player’s stool and they both tumbled on to the floor. It was meant to be a joke, but Elvis didn’t see it that way, and aimed several karate kicks at Chris. The atmosphere between the two camps was fraught for a few days.
Although this incident had nothing to do with it, Chris Ellis’s time with Tom was coming to an end. Once again, Tom avoided any confrontation with the man who had been a close member of his team. He had been best man at Chris’s 1973 wedding in Las Vegas to his Swedish bride, Eva; Linda was a bridesmaid. But Tom had Mark by his side now and didn’t need Chris. He wanted Mark to be more closely involved, in effect to serve an apprenticeship.
Tom and Chris saw each other for the last time in March 1975, when they went out drinking while Tom was rehearsing near Paris. According to Chris, Tom was in a sombre mood, worried about the hit records drying up and wondering what the future might hold. He was unusually quiet and had tears in his eyes. A few weeks later, Chris discovered that Mark had been given his job and he and Tom never spoke again.
This was a period of momentous change in Tom’s life. In 1973, he was earning $160,000 a week at Caesars Palace. He was performing all over the world for ten months a year and earning an estimated £5 million, but was incensed that he was paying so much tax to the British government. He was hardly ever at home in the UK, so it seemed ridiculous. He calculated that over the years he had already paid the Inland Revenue more than £7 million. The income tax was an eye-watering 98 per cent on unearned income, 84 per cent on earned income. Tom is pretty easygoing about most things, but not this.
The only sensible course of action was to apply for an American Green Card. This would allow him to work in the US and pay his taxes there, which was much more cost effective. His application would take two years to process, and turned him into a stateless person. He couldn’t go back to the UK and could only spend a limited number of days in the US, so as not to risk heavy penalties from the Internal Revenue Service there. When he wasn’t performing, he would slip out of the country, often to sail around the Caribbean. Tom felt that he didn’t have a proper home at this time.
Eventually, the Green Card came through, and he was able to move to the US permanently. He and Linda found a sumptuous sixteen-room mansion in Bel Air that had belonged to Dean Martin. Unusually in this part of Los Angeles, where every home seemed to be a white Spanish-style villa, this house was red brick, which gave it a more British feel. It would be ludicrous to suggest it reminded Tom of home, but once a pair of Welsh dragons had been added to the electronic gates, there was something of Tor Point about it.
The house was already on various tours of movie stars’ homes, so Tom had to have a large wall built to ensure some degree of privacy. His collection of gold and silver discs, his antique weaponry and most of the Tor Point furniture were shipped across, which made it seem more homely to Linda. Pride of place went to the old red phone box that had stood in Laura Street all those years ago. The bright red antique was installed next to the impressive 25ft by 45ft swimming pool – perfect for ringing the house for another chilled bottle of champagne.
The move took Linda even further away from her friends and family, but, in reality, she had been trapped in Tor Point. At least if she were permanently in the States, she might see more of her son. Tom senior and Freda made the move as well, settling into a house less than five minutes away by car, with magnificent views over Los Angeles. Sheila, who was now divorced from Ken, came too, so Tom had all his immediate family close to him. He observed, ‘I like having my family around me, because some people don’t spend enough time with their families and then it’s too late.’
At least he could feel more settled now. Elvis, however, seemed progressively less happy. Tom didn’t see him for the last eighteen months of his life, although he tried calling him in Memphis. Elvis became more reclusive before his shocking death, in August 1977, at the age of forty-two. His weight had ballooned dangerously and he was clearly suffering the effects of long-standing drug abuse, although the exact cause of his death continues to be a source of suspicion and conspiracy theories.
Tom said afterwards that he wished Elvis had been able to reach out to his friends. The debate about who was the better singer is one for late night bar-stool arguments. Elvis wasn’t the singer he once was by the time he reached his thirties. He released versions of ‘Green, Green Grass of Home’ and ‘I’ll Never Fall in Love Again’, but they are pale renditions of Tom’s definitive performances.
Les Reed sums it up, ‘Having worked with both men, I would say that the main singing talent lies with Tom, but Elvis has a drawing power for his millions of fans that cannot be questioned.’
16
The Slump
Gordon Mills was obsessed with the idea of Tom becoming a big film star. He nearly pulled it off, but it probably represents their biggest professional failure. Tom himself dreamed of playing James Bond and, at one time, was being seriously considered for the role. He let it be known that he would be happy to step into Sean Connery’s shoes, drinking shaken martinis and unzipping the dresses of beautiful women. Cubby Broccoli, the famous producer of the Bond films, vetoed the idea. Tom said, regretfully, ‘He said I was too well known for people to believe it.’
As long ago as 1965, Tom revealed his movie ambitions in a naive way: ‘Now that I am fairly established as a singer, I would like to go into films. I think for a singer to keep in the public eye, you should try and widen the scope a little bit, because I think you can make so many records that people start to get used to your voice and your sound. I would like to try and act in some straight roles, if possible – if I can act at all. First of all, I would like to get a small part to try and learn about the film industry and then go on to something bigger.’
These words reflect Gordon’s intentions more than those of the boy from Treforest, who just wanted to sing. But if Gordon thought it was the right step, then Tom was happy to go along with it. Gordon had wanted him to follow the path set, not just by Elvis, but also Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, who were both very accomplished actors. Elvis was in many forgettable films, but Frank had won an Oscar for From Here to Eternity and been nominated for his portrayal of a heroin addict in The Man with the Golden Arm.
One thing Tom was always sure about: he didn’t want to make a movie with dancing girls. He’d had enough conversations with Elvis to realise how much his friend hated these shallow cashing-in exercises.
A promising project, called The Gospel Singer, had first been talked about in 1971. Tom and Gordon had acquired the rights to the book by the cult writer Harry Crews, which told the story of a singer/Messiah who can’t handle the adulation and is ultimately lynched by his disillusioned followers. It was not a cheery tale.
Armed with this project, Gordon negotiated a three-picture deal with United Artists that was announced in August of that year, but the film was never made. Crews, who died in 2012, believed Tom got cold feet about his cha
racter dying. Tom said at the time, ‘We may change the ending of the book.’ This would have fundamentally altered the sense of the story.
The years dragged on and still nothing happened, even though Tom and Gordon would sit up late in his Las Vegas hotel suite, working on the script, the casting and the production. Tom even took lessons from Elvis on how to speak with a Southern accent. A starting date of May 1975 was mooted, and Charlene Tilton from Dallas was rumoured to be the co-star. Tom, approaching his thirty-fifth birthday, was already too old for the role and eventually the project was permanently postponed.
A year later, he was offered the male lead in The Stud, written by Jackie Collins and starring her sister Joan. Ostensibly, this was perfect for Tom, but he told the author that there were too many F-words. This may seem rich coming from a man whose conversation is littered with them, but Tom observes miners’ rules when it comes to swearing: ‘fuck’ is fine when used liberally by men at the bar with a pint in their hands, but is not acceptable if a woman walks in.
While the film is quite tame by today’s standards, it did feature scenes of drug-taking and bisexuality. Tom observed, ‘I wouldn’t like my mum and dad to see that sort of film. It’s just short of being pornographic.’
Jackie responded, ‘It’s certainly not porny and I’m flabbergasted that Tom should have any scruples about playing a super lover.’
Such comments provided welcome publicity for the movie, which, even without Tom Jones, ended up making more than $20 million at the box office.
Tom started filming his next project in August 1976 – a thriller curiously titled Yockowald, in which he was cast as a hit-man hired by the CIA to hunt a foreign agent in Los Angeles. He liked the role, because he was an anti-hero, but one who still used a gun and chased bad guys. He wasn’t a Tom Jones character who breaks into a chorus of ‘It’s Not Unusual’ when he kisses his girlfriend goodbye. He commented, ‘This film is going to be a real challenge.’ Shooting scenes in downtown LA attracted the attention of the seedier side of the neighbourhood, and Tom was spotted cheerfully signing an autograph for a 230-pound streetwalker between takes.
The production ran out of money after just three weeks, leaving everyone disappointed. Gordon tried to take over the financing, but it proved too problematic. He was getting progressively more anxious about finding his man a movie. It was almost the case that anything would do.
Then along came Pleasure Cove, which Tom filmed in July 1978 in California. It was hard to believe that after all the aspirations, his first proper role was in this froth. Filming was relatively quick, so Tom only had to clear his diary for a month. Even for a novice, this was unexacting material. The worst thing about it was sitting around soaking wet for a scene in which he wore the briefest pair of budgie smugglers. When it looked as if he might be drying out, a member of the on-set team would throw a bucket of water over him.
At least, after his experience in television, Tom was used to hanging around, but he didn’t enjoy it: ‘When I come offstage I feel great. I feel I’ve really done something. This isn’t the same at all. All the hanging about is just wearying.’
Tom played a charming crook called Raymond Gordon and had little to do except smile winningly and show off an impressively hairy chest. He sounded most convincing when he told an attractive undercover cop at the nudist beach, ‘I wish you’d take your clothes off.’ The idea of the film was that it would lead to a TV series in the Love Boat tradition, although Tom wouldn’t have been involved in that. After a couple of network showings, it sank without trace and is of interest today only because of Tom’s involvement.
In a way, Tom seemed as if he was doing what he said he would do all those years before in the sixties: starting with a small role and then moving upwards. It never happened, sadly. Perhaps he was weighed down by a fear of failure. He was widely acknowledged as one of the best, if not the best, singers in the world, but he really knew nothing about acting, having never even taken part in the school play at the Central School in Treforest. ‘I don’t want people to say, “He’s not such a good actor,”’ he admitted honestly.
Gordon had seen the movies as a way of revitalising Tom’s flagging recording career. Elvis, for instance, was able to shift millions of records on the back of limp movies like Blue Hawaii and Viva Las Vegas. Even he might have avoided Pleasure Cove, which did nothing to improve things.
Tom’s last top ten hit record in the UK had been in 1972. The song was called ‘The Young New Mexican Puppeteer’ and was a pale shadow of the passionate and powerful songs of the Peter Sullivan and Les Reed era. Tom barely seemed to get out of second gear. His days with Decca were numbered when a succession of singles disappointed, despite reasonable reviews. Inevitably, a greatest hits collection in 1975 heralded a parting of the ways, but, as a consolation, it was his first number one album since Delilah in 1968. It also neatly coincided with the tenth anniversary of ‘It’s Not Unusual’. At least ‘The Young New Mexican Puppeteer’ wasn’t on it; the track had absolutely zero sex appeal. All of Tom’s great songs had a sort of stripped-back masculinity, even when he sang of a breaking heart.
Gordon and Tom had already marked their tenth anniversary together. Gordon had called Chris Hutchins into his office in London and told him, ‘Remind Tom it’s our tenth anniversary coming up.’ Chris imagined he wanted to make dinner reservations, but Gordon bluntly told him, ‘I want a present.’ The PR and his wife trawled around Bond Street until they found a superb pewter mug, which they had engraved ‘Ten fabulous years, Tom’. He duly presented it to his manager, who gave him nothing in return. Chris explains, ‘That was their role. Gordon thought that Tom owed everything to him.’
Not long afterwards, Chris left the Jones camp, deciding that he needed a fresh challenge away from the easy but soulless life in Los Angeles. Looking after Tom had become too repetitive and he missed writing. In his new role, he wrote an exposé of ‘The Family’, as he called them, which made Gordon, Tom, Engelbert and Gilbert O’Sullivan, the singer-songwriter discovered by Gordon, seem like some sort of pop mafia.
It was strictly business for Chris, although Tom didn’t see it that way. He hated the revelations, especially the ones about his sex life, which Linda would loathe if she read them. He said, ‘I’d trusted this man. When he left, he wrote me a letter saying how much he treasured my friendship. I kept the letter. Then this happened. At first I thought I’d strangle him if I ever caught up with him. But there’s nothing you can do. Just sit it out.’
Both Tom and Gordon hated not being in control of the situation. Ironically, that rested with the man who had so expertly ‘controlled’ their publicity for the previous ten years. The stories made Chris a hate figure among Tom’s fans. That hasn’t changed to this day, although privately Chris is very complimentary about Tom Jones, whom he admires enormously: ‘He was honest; he was straightforward; he had a great sense of humour and there was no ego.’
The bedrock of Tom’s organisation was beginning to crumble. Chris Hutchins, Chris Ellis and Dai Perry were all back in the UK. His acclaimed guitarist, Big Jim Sullivan, left in the mid-seventies after more than five years touring the US with him. Their version of ‘Guitar Man’ was a highlight of Tom’s stage performances during these years. Big Jim was one of the best session guitarists of all time and played on more than a thousand hits over the years, including ‘The Young New Mexican Puppeteer’, although that wasn’t a career highlight – ‘Green, Green Grass of Home’ was.
He and Tom had intuitive banter on stage. He wrote to the fan site Tom Jones International before he died in 2012: ‘I think I had more experience of life in the five years working with Tom than I did in all the rest of my life put together. The problem was that none of it was to do with music!’
Tom’s popular music director, Johnny Spence, died from a heart attack while finishing the score of the Spiderman movie in August 1977, the day before Elvis was found dead at Graceland. Gordon, in particular, was devastated by Johnny’s death. Th
e pair would go on safari to Africa together, something Tom wasn’t bothered about doing. Both Tom and Gordon acted as pall-bearers at his funeral. The three men had moved to LA at the same time. Gordon admired Johnny because, while he played hard and enjoyed a drink, he also worked tirelessly to keep Tom at the top, labouring often late into the night to write out all the parts for each musician individually.
Tom was still one of the biggest stars in the world, as Gordon never tired of telling everyone. The problem was that the UK had no idea of his status, because he was never in the country. He no longer had a proper fan club in Britain. Instead, he continued to lead a life of unimaginable luxury, flying around the US in his Boeing 707 plane, which ferried the tour party from city to city. Occasionally, he had to slum it in a chauffeur-driven limousine.
Tom still liked his routine while on tour. He would sleep until after lunch, then start his day with a trip to the hotel spa and gym, have a steak, chicken or prawn dinner, arrive to do his show no more than twenty minutes before he was due on stage and then socialise from midnight until the alarm clocks were going off for most normal people. Tom has never knowingly left a bar or a party until the cleaners switched the lights on. Then it would be time for sex and sleep. If they were flying on the next day, the plane wouldn’t take off until the afternoon.
Sex, according to one of his entourage, was very much just letting off steam for Tom. He once declared that he didn’t get an erection singing, but that sex was very much part of his performance. He needed a release, and the women who went to be part of the sexually charged show were happy to oblige him afterwards with very little effort on his part.
