And Those Hollywood Nights! (cont.)

  KD: He was waiting in line for a higher management promotion, but in the interim they

  (TWA) had another position they put him in. When we first got over there we were in

  the Tokyo Hilton, which is funny because Pamela (Des Barres) would later tell me about

   Led Zepplin's antics at the Tokyo Hilton. (laughter)

  Well anyway, we had come back to The States, and had moved from Chicago to

  California in November of '72,  just in time for my sixteenth birthday. So again we had to

  make another set of friends. We were disheartened, and depressed, and rebellious. I got

  in a lot of trouble in school out here. 

  SGM: Did you go to Hollywood High?

  KD: Oh, no. We were in Anaheim. I just read about Hollywood. We lived right up the

  road a piece from Disneyland, maybe three miles away. We were living in what’s called

  behind the orange curtain, very straight-laced. And so I mean, I had to get out of there.

  Before we went to Japan I had been a big Partridge Family fan, and the Cowsills, and I

  was really into 16 Magazine, and Tiger Beat. Those magazines were the keys to my

  existence. So looking back on it, I probably had a groupie mentality before I ever acted on

  it.

  SGM: So you were miserable in Anaheim. What brought you to Hollywood?

  KD: I knew when I saw my first issue of Star Magazine (the April issue) I knew had to go

  to Hollywood! I’m not trying to be conceited or anything because I didn’t think I was that

  cute, but I saw Sable and Queenie in that June issue and I had seen some other pictures

  of them, and I said to myself, "I’m at least as cute as they are. If they can meet rock

  stars, so can I. I want to meet rock stars. (Laughing).

  My Dad’s brother married a woman who had two sons. And in the 60's the older son was

  hanging out on the strip. He was the audio engineer of choice. He worked on so many

  albums back in the late 60's and early 70's. I kind of craved that lifestyle just hearing

  about him working with all these rock stars. 

  SGM: So you were finally off to Hollywood.

  KD: Not quite. I wasn’t driving yet, but I was getting myself ready. When Rod Stewart

  and the Faces came to the Anaheim Convention Center, I got in line and stayed there

  overnight so I could get tickets, and I rushed the stage. I had gotten a garter from the

  Old West section of Knotts Berry Farm, and I rushed the stage in my Goody Two Shoes

  platforms, and my lame’ jacket. I gave Rod Stewart my garter, which he wore for the

  remainder of the tour. That was right after I had gotten into Star Magazine, but I

  couldn’t really go up to L.A. yet.

  SGM: When did that all change?

  KD: In January of '74. I finally got my license. I was seventeen. I was still a virgin. And I

  was probably the oldest virgin that had ever walked into the place. (laughing) The only

  reason I fit in was because I looked thirteen.

  SGM: So you were old at seventeen. (laughing)

  KD: Yes, I was over the hill. (laughing) But I really didn't start hanging out there on a

  regular basis until June.

  SGM: What were your first impressions?

  KD: Well I’m not sure I knew until I went to Hollywood just how young these girls were.

  I mean I figured they were young, but I thought they were at least seventeen or

  eighteen.

  SGM: How old were they?

  KD: Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. I was just flabbergasted. I was pretty

  sure legal drinking age was twenty-one! And what they were wearing! I was incredulous.

  They all wore scarves around their hips with mini skirts. I guess it’s like what Sable said in

  the article you have to be aggressive and dress like a tramp. Well I  wasn’t ready to dress

  like a tramp, but I did  take some fashion hints from them. I love  the lame' thing. That’s

  another reason I went there. I figured in that setting I could be somebody different. I

  could make up a whole new Karen. Nobody knew me from before, and so they wouldn’t

  say, "Oh, what happened to her?"

  SGM: What was the club itself like?

  KD:  In the beginning when I saw the Groupies cartoon (in Star) where Rodney’s saying,

  "Come on, Love. Let’s go to the studio." Well Rodney’s in the cartoon was this big

  sparkling club.

  SGM: Yes, it looks multi-level.

  KD: No. Basically what it was, was a big huge toilet! (laughing)

  SGM: Oh, wow! I had heard it was a dive.

  KD: Oh, it was! But it was our dive.

  SGM: What was Rodney like?

  KD: Well Rodney was in love with me because I modeled in Japan, and he loved all things

  Japanese. When I was in Japan I did these covers, and they made me look like the most

  innocent little thing. Rodney had put all of them up in the bathroom at the club, but they

  had to keep painting the bathrooms because they were so groped in.

  SGM: Eww...

  KD: Anyway, you've got to see Mayor of the Sunset Strip.

  SGM: I've seen portions of it. Rodney was portrayed as a rather tragic character.

  KD: Yes, he was. But there are other facets to his personality. He’s 5'3" and weighs 90

  pounds, but he has a temper. I remember one time I spent the night at his apartment

  because my mom didn’t have to work the next day, and we had her car up in Hollywood,

  and somebody had the nerve, I believe it was somebody in England calling, and it was I

  don’t know, maybe 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning, and he was shaking he was so upset. He

  was screaming at them on the phone that they woke him up. I had never seen him fly off

  the handle like that. He can be really moody. He could be very snobby in a lot of ways

  too. I mean if you  didn't buy your shoes at Fred Slatten's...

  SGM: What about the groupies? Did you ever meet Sable?

  KD: I saw Sable a couple of times but she was always doing her own thing which was

  trying to get into whoever’s pants-I’m not sure whose pants she was trying to get into

  when I saw her. I still can’t believe some of the things she said and did were the product

  of a fifteen year old. She had an older sister Corel who was maybe a year or two older

  than she was, but not so much older that she had all this experience to pass along. But to

  be honest with you, except for the photo shoot I was in one time with Sable, where David

  Bowie was supposed to show up and didn’t make it....that was the most time I ever spent

  with her. Creem Magazine was going to do a "Cars of the Stars" with Rodney and his tacky

  old Cadillac.

 SGM: What about Queenie? Nobody ever talks about her.

  KD: Queenie's real name is Lynn. I never met her, but I understand she's a telephone

  operator now. Remember, when I arrived on the scene the club had already been open

  about a year and a half.  I think some of those girls used to hang out more often in the

  early days.

  SGM: How about Laurie Mattix?

  KD: I saw Laurie Mattix come into Rodney’s club one time. I didn’t really know her. But I

  was so envious of the clothes she was wearing. She had some really, really gorgeous

  dress on, and I don’t know if she was still going out with Jimmy Page at that point, but it

  was more than likely something that he bought her. You know that whole thing ended

  very badly.

  SGM: Yes, I heard. I also heard that she never really got over him. I mean, maybe she

  has by now. I'm certainly not suggesting that in all these years she hasn't gotten over it.

  But it took years, from what I understand.

  KD: Yes it did, from what I heard as well. There were several celebrity softball teams that

  would get together during the summer. You didn’t have to pay to get in. You could just

  watch your favorite rock star play ball. And I saw Laurie there one time. She had on a pair

  of Goody Two Shoes Espadrilles I had to have. If I could find those shoes on Ebay today I

  would pay 500.00 for them! But some of the things...it was just horrifying the way those

  men thought nothing of using women and girls (She hesitates)... and that did end up

  happening to Laurie Mattix. (Referring to her very public falling out with Jimmy Page.)

  Bless her heart. I hated her back in the day because she was so skinny, and she had all

  the great platforms. And you know some people now are trying glorify that whole scene,

  but it’s really rather pathetic when you put it under a microscope.

  SGM: And by "some people" you're referring to Pamela (Des Barres), right?

  KD: Yes. And Sable is one who would not work with Pamela on her book, and she

  (Pamela)  bemoans that fact constantly, but I told her, "You know, some people just want

  to put all that stuff behind them."

  SGM: Well we'll get back to Pamela's book in a minute. I want to talk about it in more

  detail. But I saw a website, Sable Starr.com I believe, with Sable in the backseat of a

  convertible topless, and it read "Coming Soon: Sable Returns." Is she planning some kind

  of a comeback?

  KD: Well I'll ask Rodney, definitely. If anybody would know, he would.

  SGM: Okay. Let's talk about the men.

  KD: Well, I wasn't interested in anybody until I was able to meet Rod Stewart. I was in

  love with Rod Stewart. My husband even kind of looks like him in a lot of ways. He's got

  the small beady eyes like Rod Stewart (laughter), and he's about the same size and

  everything.

  SGM: So they would fit the same description.

  KD: Yes, exactly. So I was in love with Rod Stewart, and I knew Rodney knew Rod

  because Rodney used to work at Mercury Records. And he was assigned to do PR for

  Rod Stewart for a while. So when I read about the English Disco in the June issue

  Star Magazine...you know the first thing they say is that you can hear the strains of

  Maggie May, and that was my favorite song. And I thought "Oh my God, oh my God,

  oh my God, my destiny!!!" (laughter) So in January of ‘75, even though I was broken up

  with Rodney at the time, when Rod Stewart and the Faces played the Forum I told

  Rodney, I said "Look, you’ve got to find somebody who can take me to that concert."  

 SGM: Wait a minute. You dated Rodney?!!

  KD: Yes, but that's a whole other story... (laughter) Anyway, I said, "I’m going to kill

  myself if I don’t meet Rod Stewart. Don’t you know anybody who needs a date?" Well

  there was a photographer named Julian Wasser. And Julian didn’t have a date, so we

  went, and we went to the party afterwards, and we went backstage, and I still have my

  backstage pass to this day. So Rodney was with Shannon and I was with Julian and it was

  right before the party after the tour. It was at the Green, what was the name, I think it

  was the Green Room on Wilshire Boulevard. But he (Rod Stewart) was at the Beverly Hills

  Hotel (before the party). He was meeting Paul McCartney and Linda there. So we were

  waiting in the bar for him to come down, because Rodney had already told him that he had

  some people who wanted to meet him. And so Rod Stewart was with Britt Ekland, oh God,

  what a bitch. Linda McCartney was there wearing feathers, which later on you would have

  never caught her wearing because, after that she got into saving the animals. She was

  very nice.

  SGM: Yes, everyone who knew her says she as a really sweet person.

  KD: I remember what she was wearing, an ice blue satin dress with a little white marabou

  feather jacket . She and Paul were heading over to the party. But anyway, Rodney

  brought Shannon and me over (To Rod Stewart). I was standing there dying. I was

  wearing my red moire blazer and my black satin overalls, with my eight inch Fred Slatten

  bedroom slippers with black marabou feathers, and an ostrich feather boa.. Rodney said

  to Rod Stewart, he was making all these hand gestures, he said, "This is your number one

  fan in the whole world, and I mean the whole world. She loves you!" And Britt Ekland was

  not thrilled. Here I was young, and skinny, and cute, and I had on an outfit that he

  probably would have proudly worn on stage. And he was very nice to me. I don’t mean

  like, "Yea, let’s go ditch Britt Ekland", I mean very cordial. I told him that I was the one

  who gave him the garter at that concert, and I smiled and said that that had been a good

  idea, or something like that. He kind of remembered the incident. When I gave it to him he

  put it right on his arm. I kept seeing all these pictures everywhere of him with this garter.

  It was red satin with black lace.

  So then we got to go to the party, and Laurie Mattix was outside, and she had nobody to

  get her in. She was begging Julian to get her in and he said, "Can't you see I'm with

  someone else?"

  SGM: Ouch!!  

  KD: Yea, for once I was getting into a party, and Laurie Mattix couldn't get in! And this

  was right around the time I suppose Jimmy Page was treating her pretty crappy with

  Bebe Buell (his new love interest). Bebe Buell is the biggest bitch in the world. Laurie

  totally trashes her in Pamela's book.

  SGM: Wow. Tell me about Shaun Cassidy.

  KD: Well the fact that I slept with Shaun was the only reason Pamela Des Barres wanted

  to use me in her book.

  SGM: I understand that she has a bit of a history with him as well..

  KD: Yes she does. But I'll let her tell that one (laughter). But Shaun came in Rodney's

  one time in a tux and tails, and a top hat. And I was just panting over this guy. I couldn't

  believe it. I told Rodney I said, "I have to have him!"

  SGM: Rodney to the rescue again...

  KD: Yes, Rodney set me up. My friend and I went with Shaun and David Jolliffe (Bernie

  on the 70's TV show Room 222 ) to David Jolliffe's apartment. We all sat around and drank

  wine. it was around March of '75. I remember because he told me his brother David had

  turned twenty-five the week before. My feet were cold, and Shaun massaged them. He

  did my peds so they'd get warm and I thought, "This kid's only sixteen and he knows how

  to do this stuff!" (laughter) He was way more experienced  than I was, I'll tell you that!

  And obviously I wasn't experienced enough for him, because I never talked to him again

  after that. And he did end up marrying a girl who was in Star Magazine, and then she was

  a Playboy Playmate. Her name is Ann Pennington. They stayed married ten or fifteen

  years. I think he's on his third or forth wife now. And now that I think about it so is David

  Cassidy. And I think...you know I don't know that I would have wanted to be involved in

  all that. Because as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, if I had really

  have gotten together with any of those guys it wouldn't have lasted.

  SGM: You think?

  KD: Oh, I know. That's just how it is in Hollywood. Everybody wants to sleep with

  everybody. Nobody cares if you have a boyfriend or a husband. It's like, "So what."

  Well look at Rod Stewart. I was so in love with him. What's he on now, his forth or fifth

  wife? And they're getting progressively younger.  I can't help thinking about his song (Los

  Paraguayos) "Darling I hate to tell you but I think I'm catching a cold. Put another chair on

  the fire bring the bottle over here, I feel I'm getting old." (laughter)

  Don't get me wrong, I had envisioned myself with him, coming together in slow motion in a

  meadow with outstretched arms. (more laughter). That's how innocent I was.

  SGM: So let's get back to Pamela Des Barres' new book. What is the name of the book?
 
  KD: It's called Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and

  Supergroupies. I worked for her last year transcribing groupie interviews.

  SGM: Well from what you've seen and heard, would you say that these women have

  grown up?

  KD: No, no, absolutely not. There are a couple of good stories in the book. There's a

  good one about a girl named Michelle Overman. Her story, and that of the B movie

  actress Tura  Satana were my favorites. Tura Satana is half Japanese and half Native

  American, and she was engaged to Elvis for a while. In fact when you see pictures of

  Priscilla when she had all the eyeliner and all the hair, you could see that Elvis was

  trying to make her into this woman. She had a really substantive story, because during

  World War II she was in one of those determent camps up in California. She had her

  own life. I mean she gave her story gladly, but that wasn't everything she was about.

  She had some substantial history. Not just, "I screwed so-and-so, and I screwed

  so-and-so." But the rest of the stories are just pathetic. There's this girl in the book who

  has written some books of her own. She made her mark around Hollywood, and she

  cashed in on the Punk thing too. But here she is, thirty years after the fact gloating,

  and pleased as punch with herself, that she set some other girl's hair on fire for trying to

  get near Billy Idol. Now is that something to be proud of? Then she talks about how she

  screwed him, but they were both messed up and she can't remember if he was a good lay.

  Well she lived with Iggy Pop for a brief time, and everybody knows Iggy is huge.

  SGM: Did you ever voice your concerns about the tone of the book to Pamela?

  KD: You can't tell Pamela anything. She only wants a critique if it's positive. My sister is a

  wonderfully gifted writer, and she did a critique of the book. She puts everything Pamela

  is trying to glamorize into the perspective that it should be put into, rather than the

  delusional spin of these over-the-hill women. She (Pamela) stated that she wants to

  "redeem" the word groupie, and the image that the general public has of these women.

  That's not going to happen as a result of this publication. (Pause) I think she can’t handle

  the fact that she’s not the young nubie that invaded Hollywood in ‘64 or ‘65. She hasn't

  gotten over that.

  If I had been in that book, I would have been the only one who actually left. And although

  our lives didn't turn out perfectly, we didn’t have our 2.2 kids or whatever, but we didn’t

  make Hollywood our whole life. We ( she and her husband) broke up for a while because

  of something that happened to us there, and he left me for two months and ran off to San

  Francisco. But when we got back together I said to him, "We can’t stay here. We’ve got to

  go back to Orange County. That was in 1980.

  SGM: So wait, you're not going to be in the book?

  KD: No. I've asked Pamela not to use my story. I think that's best.

  SGM: Alright, let's go back to where it all began. There've been so many stories. What

  happened to Rodney's English Disco?

  KD: I was in the club the last night Rodney had anything to do with it-the night he walked

  out.

  SGM: He walked out?

  KD: Yes. He walked out. It was a difficult thing for Rodney...well for us all to accept.

  But Glitter Rock was gone, and disco was coming in. Actually, by the time I started

  hanging out at Rodney's club on a regular  basis in June in '74, Glitter Rock was on the

  decline. By the time Chuck E. Star first played disco at Rodney's club, it was over!

  SGM: Who is Chuck E. Star?

  KD: Chuck E. Star was the male groupie with the thirteen inch platforms. He was one of

  the DJs who was friends with Rodney's co-owner's son Billy Ayres. Well Chuck E. had

  started playing disco at the club. And of course he played the Village People and the Hues

  Corporation (Don't Rock the Boat Baby), and all the stuff Rodney loathed! Chuck E. tried

  to explain to Rodney. He said, "This is the music people want to hear now." But Rodney

  just couldn't accept it. I was there with his girlfriend Shannon that night. He told Tom

  Ayres (the club's co-owner) that they were not to use his name anymore, and he walked

  out. When he left, we both went with him. We all ended up at the Rainbow Bar and Grill.

  Rodney looked at us and said (half jokingly), "Now what?" And that was the end of

  Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco.

  SGM: What a story! And all that was spawned from a copy of Star Magazine.

  KD: Yes, it was (laughter). Someday I hope to get up the nerve to call the woman who

  inherited Richard Creamer’s (the chief photographer for Star Magazine, now deceased)

  estate. Richard was one of the only people who got a copy of the July issue of Star that

  never hit the newsstands. I call it the lost issue. There were a few prototypes that were

  done, but none of them went into mass production. Rodney wants me to call her (about

  possibly acquiring the issue). He gave  me her number, but I wasn’t going to do it at the

  time, so I threw it away.

  SGM: You should call her. You never know.

  KD: Yea, maybe (laughter). I'll have to get the number from him again.

 SGM: Well good luck with that. And thank you very much, Karen Danell!

 Karen Danell can be contacted at karen@stargroupiemagazine.net.         

 Next:  Karen discusses her relationship with Rodney.

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