Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies (28 page)

Following advice from the King, Cassandra continued singing and fronted a band called Mama's Boys with seven gay men. They were traveling the frenetic disco circuit, performing in Provincetown, Massachusetts, when she was hit with tragic news. "I can remember the exact second I heard that Elvis had died. It was very heavy for me, just horrible. I put a Joan Baez song in the show, `Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer,' and dedicated it to Elvis every night. I couldn't get through the song because I'd start sobbing. Of course I had wanted to see him again, but you could have probably reached the pope easier than Elvis."

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?)