Always the music lover, when she moved to Los Angeles, Cassandra easily fell back into the rock scene. "Musicians are children in disguise-they just don't grow up. Their lives are so insane; they're big kids and so much more fun to be around than normal guys with a job." Cassandra quickly landed her own job in the music biz as an A&R scout for Don Kirshner's Rock Concert TV show. "I was a production assistant and checked out all the new groups in town. It was during New Wave, and for years I spent every single night at the Roxy, the Rainbow, or the Whisky. I saw every freaking band that existed."
Cassandra didn't know it, but her carefree groupie days were about to come to a halt. "I was checking out this new act, Johnny Cougar (later John Cougar Mellencamp), trying to get backstage-of course-to jump on him. What else is new? He was really cute then, small, but cute. Mark Pierson was guarding the door; he was the guy not letting people backstage. But the band invited me to a party and I wound up with Mark instead of John Cougar, and we were together twenty-four years. My ten-year-old daughter Sadie says, `Thank God you didn't marry John Cougar, Mom, or I might have been a dwarf!"
During her stint as an A&R babe, Cassandra continued to pursue a career in show biz. "I segued from dancing to singing to acting and was doing stupid parts on Fantasy Island and Happy Days." While she was on her honeymoon, she heard about a director looking for someone to introduce local TV horror movies. "He wanted somebody funny but sexy; kind of like the '50s character Vampira. When I got back, they still hadn't found anyone, but playing a late-night local horror movie host sounded kind of dorky to me. And it only paid, like, three hundred bucks a week, but I thought it would be some money coming in while I looked for other acting work. I auditioned as myself and got the part, and had to come up with a look. My best friend from Mama's Boys drew a picture of me with a Ronettes hairdo-it was called the `knowledge bump.' He got my makeup from a Japanese Kabuki book, and drew the black dress as sexy and tight as possible. I put that all together and started doing the show."
The timing was wickedly auspicious. Cassandra had been honing her comedic timing as a member of the fledgling comedy troupe the Groundlings, performing madcap improvisational skits with the likes of Saturday Night Live's Phil Hartman and Paul "Pee Wee Herman" Reubens. "I was working on a character, this really stupid valley girl actress. She was basically the Elvira character without the drag. Even though I thought `This does not work together,' the spoofy juxtaposition that didn't work created this bizarre creature. And I'm still doing it. I'm still humpin' that bra for all it's worth."
Every October it's impossible to get in touch with Cassandra, so entrenched is she in her saucy alter ego. The only way to see her is to attend one of her annual Halloween extravaganzas, and for several years I took my son Nick to Knott's Berry Farm (Knott's Scary Farm in October). We were dazzled by her high kicks and high jinks, peppered with sly double entendres and titillating tunes. Cassandra's career highlights would take up several pages; this doll is a self-made whiz. Along with her two hysterical movies, Elvira: Mistress of the Dark and Elvira's Haunted Hills, she's done countless TV appearances and has written a series of humor/mystery/horror novels. She launched her own perfume, "Evil," as well as lines of greeting cards, candy, comic books, bobble head dolls, action figures, and slot machines. Then there are the bestselling video and computer games and Rhino Records music compilations. She has her own Elvira pinball machine, Revell "Macabre Mobile" model car, and, of course, the endless array of award-winning Halloween costumes and witchy paraphernalia. For many years she's been a strong animal rights activist and in 1990 won PETA's Humanitarian Award. Cassandra makes umpteen personal appearances every year, but still manages to include rock and roll on her busy dizzy schedule. "As Elvira I opened for Motley Crue a couple of times, and told a few jokes, and I opened for Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper. I also introduced U2 on their Zoo tour from Knott's Scary Farm." Being around all those rockers, was she ever tempted to explore her former wanton ways? "I was married twenty-four years, but still flirted unmercifully with bands," she admits. "It's sad because I had a lot of opportunities. I could have had flings as Elvira. I could have had anybody, but I was out of the playing field. It's so ironic," she laughs, "because now I'm too old." Right. I'm sure the leather-clad devil gazing at her over his glass of squeezed greens would beg to differ.
"I had a blast recently with REO Speedwagon at a Harley Davidson gathering in the desert," Cassandra says as we down the last drops of our cafe lattes with soy milk. "I picked out the clothes they wore, we danced on stage and laughed together; it was hysterical. Most of 'em were married and divorced and married and divorced. They're still on the road three hundred days a year! Two women came backstage and immediately took off their blouses, `Look, here's our tits!' The band was messing around with their guitars, and said, `Yeah, that's interesting.' They couldn't have cared less."
She may have romped with one too many rockers, but Cassandra doesn't have any regrets. "Come on, it was exciting. Sex is the best exercise; it's good for your brain and your blood! The weird thing about having a lot of partners is that it's still OK for a guy to say he's had a million partners. But it's not OK for women. When I was starting to come out, so did the birth control pill. Those little round dial packs changed everything. For most people my age, that solved the whole problem. I didn't even think about disease. I felt very free; women were supposed to have as much sex as guys did and enjoy it too. But I wouldn't advocate that lifestyle now."
It still annoys her that groupies were harshly judged for doing the same thing everybody else was doing. "So we were bad for screwing a bunch of guys in bands? My girlfriends were also screwing everybody, but the guys weren't famous. It doesn't make it better, but it certainly doesn't make it worse."
As we get up to leave, "All You Need Is Love" pours out of the speakers, and Cassandra's Beatlemania springs to life. "God, the Beatles were brilliant beyond magical," she sighs. "They changed the whole world with their spiritualism, introducing the Eastern religion to the West." When I tell her I finally met my fave Beatle, Paul McCartney, last year, she raves about his latest live show in L.A. "Oh, Jesus. Unbelievable. The entire audience was singing and swaying. Talk about being in the now, it was like being somewhere else. I had tears pouring down my face. Seeing and hearing that kind of greatness is like meditating. You are so focused on getting energy from the music; you are here now and there's not enough room for any other energy to exist. It's like mountain climbing or any of those dangerous sports people play. You have to be focused a hundred percent."
"There's a line by the poet Neruda," Cassandra says as we open the double glass doors to the West Hollywood heat. "`We have only to convey to others who we are.' That's what creativity is. That's what these artists are saying to us: `This is me, this is who I am; I'm unique.' And you can relate; you get a connection going because you realize, `Yeah, I'm like that too."'
Absolute Beginners
y the time the brand-new batch of budding groupies appeared on the Hollywood scene, I had almost had my fill of rock royalty. I was twenty-three years old, and although I still had my fave-raves, I'd found other fantasies to pursue. Thanks to Keith Moon's smashing largesse, I had been able to join the Screen Actors Guild and had appeared in a couple of brilliant B features: the groundbreaking Massage Parlor and the unforgettable masterpiece Carhops. I was seriously studying acting and thought I was ripe and ready for my close-up. I would always love the men who made rock and roll but desperately wanted to stir up my own creative potential.
Whenever I went to the Whisky, I steered clear of the skinny prepubescents littering the Sunset Strip in their itty-bitty minishorts and towering platforms. I considered them more of a nuisance than a threat-even though one of them dared to call me .an old bag" in front of Elton John one rude night. They teetered around in a pack, just like I had with the GTO's, but these brazen junior high schoolers were competitive and just plain backstab- bingly mean, especially their acne-scarred platinum boss-baby Sable Starr
. There was Queenie, Corel, Lynn, and Sable's closest confidant, a dusky, gangly child with layers of thick black curls who called herself Lori Lightning.
Despite my grand thespian plans, whenever Led Zeppelin barreled into town, I found myself back at the Continental Riot House, nestled in the slim white arms of the Dark Lord, Jimmy Page. We had broken up two years earlier when he met a redhead named Charlotte on his birthday, and supposedly fell in forever love. I was crushed almost beyond recognition, but had since recovered enough to join him in the sack for long nights of irresistible revelry while his London ladylove pined back home. (C'mon, what did she expect?)
On a particularly memorable evening, Jimmy had called from the previous city on the Zep tour, asking me to meet him at the Whisky for a round of merriment, which I assumed would last for the rest of the night. Unbeknownst to me, Jimmy had also looked up little Lori Lightning after seeing her precious pouty mug in the short-lived teen bible, Star magazine. For most of the night, I occupied the middle red booth in my usual hallowed spot between Jimmy and Robert Plant, and when Jimmy called for the limo I gathered myself and innocently followed him out the front door. The sleek black car was idling at the corner, and as Bonzo, Robert, John Paul, and roadie Richard Cole climbed in, Lori suddenly appeared and Jimmy grabbed her, tossed her into the limo, slid in next to her, and they were gone in a flash. Stunned, I stood there with my face on fire and a fluorescent spotlight pointing directly at my mortified heart.
I consider that night to be the lowest point in my metier as a groupie. Jimmy's churlish behavior put a black spot on an otherwise joyous seven-year rock romp. I wanted to blame Lori, but she was only thirteen years old. I had barely put away my Barbie dolls at her age, and here she was, cavorting with a whipwielding heavy metal icon pushing thirty.
How had Lori Mattix found her way to the Sunset Strip at such a tender age? Where was her mother when she left the house wearing five-inch heels, skimpy Lurex tube tops, and nonexistent short shorts on her way to certain bacchanalia?
Lori, Sable, and their lip-glossy mob reigned over the scene for another few years, especially when the "Mayor of the Sunset Strip," Rodney Bingenheimer, opened his integral glitter-palaces, the E Club and Rodney's English Disco. You could see them draped all over musicians of the moment, haughtily perched on velvet-clad laps within the coveted, roped-off center of the room. I heard that Jimmy eventually trampled Lori's girlish heart as well, but that didn't stop her from careening from one rock god to the next, next, next.
We often came across each other at rock events, and Lori and I have gradually made peace. We've frequently been interviewed for the same TV shows and documentaries, and all these years later, we find our tempestuous rock and rollicking history mutually amusing. Robert Plant has come to town and once again we are a few seats apart in the fifth row. During Robert's latest stellar version of "Black Dog," Lori and I look over at each other. But when he looks skyward and calls out "Miss Pamela" from the stage, tossing his curls, I get a jolt of age-old groupie pride. Even though we're misty eyed with nostalgia and still can't seem to get the Led out, we laugh at the absurdity of it all.
No longer the lissome waif, Lori is a bosomy, boisterous force of nature. She has a palpable zest for life, and you always know when she's in the room. At Robert's aftershow bash, I watch with amusement as she happily bosses her current boyfriend around while he obviously enjoys catering to her every whim.
I've always been curious about the real story behind her illegal relationship with Mr. Page, and since we're in the wayward throes of Zeppelin nostalgia, it's a perfect time to hark back to her promiscuous past. On a rare day off from her high-powered managerial job at the chic Theodore boutique, Lori joins me for a few cups of English breakfast tea and empathy.
"I knew nothing about you, that you and Jimmy had been an item; I had no idea that you were gonna be with him at the Whisky that night," Lori says emphatically. She has told me this before, of course, and I assure her I harbor no groupie grudges. "Sable had already told me that she'd kill me if I went near him! She wanted him and I thought they were gonna be together. When I saw you with Jimmy, it freaked me out and he said, `I told you I'm gonna be with you,' and that's the night he kidnapped me." When I ask how Jimmy knew about her in the first place, Lori's answer is a shocker. "Sable was fucking Michael Des Barres, so we were always hanging out with Silverhead. He took photos of Sable and me on the Hyatt House balcony, wearing little red boas. When he went back to London, he showed the pictures to Jimmy and said, `You gotta meet this girl. She's thirteen, she's this big, and she's got hair just like you.' Then Star magazine came out and he saw how young I was. Jimmy loved young girls-babies-and that's how it happened." I've always known that Michael had a fling with Sable, but I never knew that before we even met, my future husband unwittingly set me up for such an ignominious fall.
So, how did such a baby girl find herself half-naked in front of the Whisky a Go Go? "I got there by accident," Lori insists. "Lynn and I went to school together, and she was friends with Sable. They were working with Star magazine. That's how I got dragged in-Peterson Publishing discovered me." Lori wasn't even aware of the risky lure of rock and roll when she became a pinup doll for lascivious musicians. "I didn't know anything. I was still a virgin, I knew nothing when they started putting makeup on me and dressing me up for magazine covers. The whole glitter rock scene was decadence; that's when we really captured our style and got bold. Platforms got bigger and skirts got shorter, hair got wilder."
It was 1973, and since many Brit bands had been on the road for years, hotels and venues started looking too much alike. Even though they had a chick (or three) in every city, rockers were getting bored and seemed to require ever-increasing and varied stimulation. Keith Moon was driving town cars into swimming pools, while Mitch Mitchell spent all evening gluing his hotel room furniture to the ceiling. Star magazine, featuring the likes of Lori and Sable, arrived on the scene just in time to stave off the predictable tedium of touring. The underage glam-babies were a spanking new treat for jaded eyes.
How did Lori's mother cope with the sudden change in her young daughter? "It was very difficult because she was a single mother. I had three sisters; she was raising us alone. She was a waitress and working every night, so we would sneak out and back again before she got home. Sometimes she wouldn't know, but she finally got wind of it and went down to the Strip and asked Mario, the owner of the Whisky, `Where's my daughter?' He reassured her, `Val, don't worry, we're looking after her. She's fine."'
There was only so much the fatherly figure at the Whisky could do, however, and Lori soon found that her innocence was a highly prized asset. "Rock stars started pursuing me. One night at the E Club, Mick Ronson arrived with David Bowie, and that was my first encounter with him. He said, `I want to be with you. I'm going to be with you,' but I was terrified and ran into Rodney's arms yelling, `No, I can't go with you!' It was ridiculous!" It was six months before Bowie came back to town and the songs Rodney played at the E Club sent Lori reeling. "I found my music: Slade, the Sweet, Silverhead, T. Rex-and Bowie. On the next trip he played the Long Beach Arena, and his bodyguard, Stuie, came up to me. `David wants you to come have dinner with us tomorrow night.' Sable was with me and was freaking out because she wanted to fuck Bowie. She was a year older, and I was still a virgin and terrified, so I said, `You have to come with me. I can't go alone!' The next night I waited in front of my house with my mother, and a limo came and got me, then picked up Sable and took us to the Beverly Hilton where Bowie was staying. After dinner, we ended up at the Rainbow, and that was the night David got attacked-some guy called him a faggot and jumped him. There was this big fight, so we ran back to the car and that song was playing, `Even though we ain't got money, I'm so in love with you, honey. . .' Sable was wearing her Hollywood underwear, singing, `Even though we ain't got honey, I'm so in love with your money.' It was classic."
Back at the Hilton, the youngsters joined Stuie and David in their snazz
y adjoining suites. "There was a big living room with fluffy white shag carpet, and Stuie rolled this humongous hash joint-one of those huge spliffs. I had smoked pot before, but it wasn't like this. I got so fucked up. David went into the bedroom and said, `I'm going to take a bath.' All of a sudden, the door opens and Bowie is standing there with that gorgeous white skin and carrot-red hair, no eyebrows, wearing a kimono. It was in his early Ziggy Stardust era, and that was the first time I thought, Oh, I want him! Sable was like, `I'll kill you if you go with him because I want him and you can't have him.' He came out and said, `Lori, could come over here?' and I said, `Alone?' I was so paranoid-stoned and paranoid, and he said, `Yes, please, just you.' I go in and he's about to close the door, and I'm looking at Sable and she's in tears. I was so nervous. I had boyfriends in junior high; all the smooching, but I'd never had intercourse. So he escorts me into the bathroom and takes off his kimono, gets into the bathtub, and sits there staring at me with those different-colored eyes. You have to understand-he's so gorgeous, his skin is so white and flawless. So he says, `Can you wash my back?' and that was just the beginning. He knew it was my first time, and he was so gentle with me. We started to fuck in every position possible. Then I told him I felt so bad about Sable, and he said, `Well, do you think we should go and get her?' I said yes, and we walked into the living room and she was fogging up the windows, writing, `I want to fuck David!' So he called her into the bedroom and we all spent the night together. David Bowie was the one who devirginized me."
Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies Page 18
