Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies (29 page)

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 snazzy 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."

Lori says that for the next few months she went through a "little guilt period," and attempted to walk a semistraight line by spending more time at home and at school. But during this interim, Michael Des Barres showed Jimmy Page her photos, and the rock and roll tom-toms were loudly pounding out the message that Zeppelin's guitar god wanted to meet Lori Lightning. Much to Sable's chagrin, Lori once again beat her to the pop star punch. Lori turned up at the Whisky that fateful night and was whisked back to the Hyatt House with the rock and roll master of romance. "I met him that night; he had called from Texas and told me he had to meet me and I hung up on him. I think he was obsessed with me because he loved that I looked kinda like him: eighty pounds, hair down to here, skinny as can be." Yeah, and I remind her that it might have helped that Jimmy also knew she was an infant. "Yeah, well, I didn't know that then!" Lori laughs loudly. "The obvious factor! That night turned out to be so beautiful though, because I fell in love with him," she sighs. "He was the first man I ever loved, in the sense that he was on this huge pedestal. I loved the way he moved. He was so gentle in bed, and that face. He was like this whimsical celluloid creature-I don't know how to explain it. In my whole life I've never met anybody like him."

Their torrid affair went on for more than two years. Except for those rare occasions when he was with Charlotte in London, Lori actually believed that her knight in shining satin was being true to her. "I was so naive. I had no concept of it being any other way. I was a baby! He was this god to me-it was like being in love with Elvis Presley. I mean, I'd go to the Forum and there were thirty thousand people, all there for him, and he was with me. He was twenty-nine when I was thirteen," Lori adds. "And you know how old his wife is now? Twenty-nine!"

How did it feel to be caught up in that particular web? "It was like being with the pope. You don't get concerts like that anymore, massive stadium concerts with a hundred thousand people. And you don't see that kind of magic anymore, that great rock era-three nights at the Forum, thirty thousand people with candles shining. .

To prove that she was the one he loved, Jimmy encouraged Lori to listen in on phone conversations he had with Charlotte. "He told me it was over with Charlotte and that it had been for years. He'd call her and let me listen so I wouldn't worry. He'd go, `Charlotte, can you go get a number upstairs for me?' and instead of picking up the phone by the bed, she'd go all the way upstairs and take twenty-five minutes, and come all the way down and go, `I can't find the number,' and he'd say, `Why the fuck didn't you pick up the phone up there? Are you stupid?"

In between Zeppelin jaunts, Lori continued her in-demand teen model career. "I made a few hundred dollars on a job and that would buy my little outfits-I needed money for platforms after all! I didn't even know what money was when I was dating Jimmy. Once he sent me out to buy a dress and gave me $300. I said, `I can't spend that much money!' Once I wanted this beautiful scarab necklace and he got it for me. He liked me in long, flowy skirts. He wanted me to look like a gypsy all the time; an innocent gypsy." With so much time together, what did they talk about? "Love," Lori gushes. "I didn't have much else to talk about at that age! We fucked all the time, you know? I'm kidding; we talked about everything! He was so romantic and wonderful. I never thought of him as crazy-he was so possessive and protective over me. He wouldn't let me drink, and one time I was smoking cigarettes and he went crazy. He made me smoke a whole pack of Salems until I was gagging. I never smoked again. He was like a dad sometimes." For a few moments we marvel over the many sides of James Patrick Page. "And then, one day I found a picture of this transsexual she-male and I'm like, `What's this?' and he said, `I wonder how that got there. I don't know where that came from."'