The Last Days of John Lennon Read online

  Playboy magazine: Robert Rosen, Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon (New York: Soft Skull Press, 2000), 180.

  They’re coming together: Jack Jones, Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, the Man Who Killed John Lennon (New York: Villard Books, 1992), 18.

  Chapter 44

  “I wanna come home”: Dave Marsh, “John Sinclair: Free John and Yoko,” Creem, March 1972.

  years behind bars: Agis Salpukas, “15,000 Attend Michigan U. Rally to Protest Jailing of Radical Poet,” New York Times, December 12, 1971.

  “High Priest of Heavy”: Marsh, “John Sinclair.”

  “matching black leather jackets, unzipped to reveal ‘Free John Now’ T-shirts”: Jon Wiener, Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999), 121.

  Sinclair is known as a poet and a music reviewer: Sean O’Hagan, “John Sinclair: ‘We Wanted to Kick Ass—and Raise Consciousness,’” The Guardian, March 3, 2014.

  “old, retired, and forgotten by the time they’re thirty”: Mike Gormley, “New Political Rock Group: The Up Begins Where MC5 Left Off,” Detroit Free Press, July 3, 1970.

  “Apathy won’t get us anywhere”: Marsh, “John Sinclair.”

  “It became journalism and not poetry”: Anthony Fawcett, John Lennon: One Day at a Time (New York: Grove Press, 1976), 124.

  “they were awful. The music was boring. And it was four a.m.”: Marsh, “John Sinclair.”

  FBI agents compile reports based on informants’ findings: Wiener, Gimme Some Truth, 113.

  “an interesting piece, but lacking Lennon’s usual standards”: Wiener, Gimme Some Truth, 121.

  “composed by Lennon especially for this event”: Wiener, Gimme Some Truth, 113.

  “Lennon had to read the lyrics from a music stand as he sang”: Wiener, Gimme Some Truth, 121.

  “I wrote a ditty about John Sinclair”: Alan Glenn, “The Day a Beatle Came to Town,” the Ann Arbor Chronicle, December 27, 2009.

  “It was a beautiful thing to do”: O’Hagan, “John Sinclair.”

  “two and a half years of agitating and organizing”: Karen Dalton-Beninato, “John Sinclair Recalls the Song John Lennon Wrote to Free Him,” HuffPost, December 6, 2017.

  —

  green dress: Jack Jones, Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, the Man Who Killed John Lennon (New York: Villard Books, 1992), 16.

  “A real man doesn’t have to take from a woman. He can give”: James R. Gaines, “In the Shadows, A Killer Waited,” People, March 2, 1987.

  a world he doesn’t understand: Jones, Let Me Take You Down, 16–17.

  questioned something he did: Gaines, “In the Shadows, A Killer Waited.”

  Chapter 45

  “use the available political machinery to screw our political enemies”: Jon Wiener, Come Together: John Lennon in His Time (New York: Random House, 1984), 226.

  “I think it would be well for it to be considered at the highest level”: Elizabeth Mitchell, “New York Stories: How This Hastily Shot Image of John Lennon Became an Enduring Symbol of Freedom,” Daily News (New York), June 11, 2016.

  “strong advocates of the program to ‘dump Nixon’”: Robert A. Martin, “Thurmond Led Move to Deport Lennon,” UPI, June 29, 1984.

  “If Lennon’s visa is terminated, it would be a strategy countermeasure”: Martin, “Thurmond Led Move to Deport Lennon.”

  hasn’t been able to reunite with her daughter: Keith Badman, The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After the Break-Up, 1970–2001 (London: Omnibus Press, 2001), 68.

  “It was a kidnapping and a very difficult situation”: Chrissy Iley, “Yoko Ono: ‘John’s Affair Wasn’t Hurtful to Me. I Needed a Rest. I Needed Space,’” The Telegraph, March 27, 2012.

  “the Immigration and Naturalization Service has served notice on him”: Jon Wiener, Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999), 5.

  “never heard of John Lennon, much less Yoko Ono”: Hendrik Hertzberg, “Poetic Larks Bid Bald Eagle Welcome Swan of Liverpool,” The New Yorker, December 2, 1972.

  “out to get John and Yoko from the first moment I got into the case”: Steve Marinucci, “The Story of the Man Who Saved John Lennon & Yoko Ono from Being Deported,” Billboard, August 4, 2016.

  “All extremists should be considered dangerous”: Wiener, Gimme Some Truth, 129.

  “Lennon and his wife are passé about United States politics”: Wiener, Gimme Some Truth, 178.

  “I suggest you tell them to get the hell out”: Marinucci, “The Story of the Man Who Saved John Lennon & Yoko Ono from Being Deported.”

  FBI report mangled their home address: Wiener, Gimme Some Truth, 150.

  “an agent behind every mail box”: Patrick Cockburn, “FBI Admits Men in Dark Glasses Did Harass Lennon,” The Independent, September 9, 1994.

  “I thought he was being paranoid”: Ray Connolly, Being John Lennon: A Restless Life (New York: Pegasus Books, 2018), 353.

  “two guys interminably fixing a bike”: Marinucci, “The Story of the Man Who Saved John Lennon & Yoko Ono from Being Deported.”

  “I felt followed everywhere by government agents”: Connolly, Being John Lennon, 353–54.

  “what was being done to him was wrong”: Dave Swanson, “When John Lennon Was Ordered to Leave U.S. by Immigration Authorities,” UltimateClassicRock.com, March 23, 2016.

  “the Nixon administration [making] life intolerable”: “Richard Nixon’s Secret Battle to Deport John Lennon: President Feared the Beatle’s Anti-Vietnam Campaigning Would Swing the 1972 Election,” Daily Mail, September 4, 2016.

  “so determined to remove anyone from the United States”: “Richard Nixon’s Secret Battle to Deport John Lennon.”

  “New York is the center of the earth and also because we want to find Yoko’s daughter”: Badman, The Beatles Diary, 69.

  “But we love to be here”: Badman, The Beatles Diary, 71.

  Willowbrook parents filed a class-action lawsuit: Kristin F. Dalton, “The Horrors of Willowbrook State School,” SILive.com, January 19, 2017.

  “the work I was doing on behalf of the developmentally disabled”: Geraldo Rivera, interview by the authors, 2019.

  JOHN & YOKO WAIT & WAIT: Wiener, Gimme Some Truth, 266.

  fruitlessly scour San Francisco: Badman, The Beatles Diary, 79–80.

  “I know the whereabouts of Kyoko Cox”: Wiener, Gimme Some Truth, 278.

  “very distressed by what was happening to them”: Geraldo Rivera, interview by the authors, 2019.

  treatment from a Chinese acupuncturist: “Postscript,” New York Times, October 7, 2010.

  kept secret by referring to John “as J. L.”: Scott James, “Family Opened Up the Door to John and Yoko,” New York Times, October 7, 2010.

  the One to One concert: Badman, The Beatles Diary, 81.

  two Madison Square Garden performances, a movie, and a record: Don Heckman, “Lennon Concert Slated Aug. 30 in All‐Day Fete to Aid Retarded,” New York Times, August 17, 1972.

  “We raised about a quarter of a million dollars”: Philip Recchia and Lindsay Powers, “Looking Back on John Lennon’s NYC Love Affair 35 Years After His Death,” New York Post, December 8, 2005.

  “Now more than ever, baby, Nixon now!”: Michael Beschloss, “If Party Conventions Seem More Like Infomercials, Blame Nixon,” New York Times, July 1, 2016.

  “Hate to get personal about it”: Tim Findley, “Outside the Convention: Cops and Confusion,” Rolling Stone, September 28, 1972.

  “I don’t think the youth vote is in anybody’s pocket”: Beschloss, “If Party Conventions Seem More Like Infomercials, Blame Nixon.”

  “zippies, Yippies, hippies, crazies”: Findley, “Outside the Convention.”

  “People who want to have bloody hands go over to the tent”: Findley, “Outside the Convention.”

  “a member of the former musical group known as �
�The Beatles’”: Wiener, Gimme Some Truth, 4.

  a publicity still of David Peel: William Grimes, “David Peel, Downtown Singer and Marijuana Evangelist, Dies at 74,” New York Times, April 9, 2017.

  “rock’s greatest flattery”: Paul DeRienzo, “David Peel, 74, the King of Pot, Punk and Protest,” AMNY.com, April 13, 2017.

  “I just really trust him, you know?”: Findley, “Outside the Convention.”

  “captioned case is being closed in the NY Division”: Wiener, Gimme Some Truth, 304.

  Chapter 46

  “something weird at the door”: Francis Schoenberger, “He Said, She Said: An Interview with John Lennon,” Spin, October 9, 2019 (reprint of 1975 interview).

  “As he didn’t lead the revolution, I decided to quit answering the phone”: Schoenberger, “He Said, She Said.”

  “I can’t believe this is fuckin’ IT”: Jon Wiener, “John Lennon and George McGovern: Another Side of the 1972 Campaign,” The Nation, October 22, 2012.

  “out of his head with drugs and pills and drink”: Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life (New York: Ecco, 2008), 704.

  “She didn’t come on to him at all”: Norman, John Lennon, 704.

  “coats in the next room, where John and this girl are making out, so nobody can go home”: Norman, John Lennon, 705.

  “It was very embarrassing”: Ray Connolly, Being John Lennon: A Restless Life (New York: Pegasus Books, 2018), 356.

  the Dakota: Carrie Hojnicki, “Inside New York’s Most Famous Apartment Building,” Architectural Digest, April 24, 2017.

  twelve rooms and sweeping views of Central Park: Keith Badman, The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After the Break-Up, 1970–2001 (London: Omnibus Press, 2001), 94.

  “chockablock full of famous people”: Christine Haughney, “Sharing the Dakota with John Lennon,” New York Times, December 6, 2010.

  “It is a big apartment, and it’s beautiful, but it doesn’t have grounds”: Schoenberger, “He Said, She Said.”

  “That situation really woke me up”: Norman, John Lennon, 705.

  “John and I are not getting along. We’ve been arguing. We’re growing apart”: Albert Goldman, “John and Yoko’s Troubled Road Part II,” People, August 22, 1988.

  “They had a loving relationship and it broke down because of all that pressure”: Steve Marinucci, “The Story of the Man Who Saved John Lennon & Yoko Ono from Being Deported,” Billboard, August 4, 2016.

  travel together to Washington, DC, to witness testimony: Daniel Bush, “The Complete Watergate Timeline (It Took Longer Than You Realize),” PBS NewsHour, May 30, 2017.

  Elvin Bell, an adviser to Nixon: Elvin C. Bell, “A Chance Meeting with John Dean, John Lennon and Yoko Ono,” Fresno Bee, September 14, 2018.

  Chapter 47

  “I needed a rest. I needed space”: Chrissy Iley, “Yoko Ono: ‘John’s Affair Wasn’t Hurtful to Me. I Needed a Rest. I Needed Space,’” The Telegraph, March 27, 2012.

  “I was hated and John was hated because of me”: Iley, “Yoko Ono.”

  “I started to notice that he became a little restless”: Iley, “Yoko Ono.”

  “So then I suggested L.A., and he just lit up”: Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life (New York: Ecco, 2008), 712.

  “May Pang was a very intelligent, attractive woman and extremely efficient”: Iley, “Yoko Ono.”

  “John will probably start going out with other people”: Ray Connolly, Being John Lennon: A Restless Life (New York: Pegasus Books, 2018), 358.

  May Pang—a young Chinese American woman, a Catholic, from Spanish Harlem: Albert Goldman, “John and Yoko’s Troubled Road Part II,” People, August 22, 1988.

  “I just looked at her and said, ‘Not me. I’m not interested’”: Steve Marinucci, “The Abbeyrd Interview with May Pang,” Abbeyrd.net, March 28, 2008.

  “I had hoped her idea would pass”: Marinucci, “The Abbeyrd Interview With May Pang.”

  Capitol Records fronts the expense of the trip: Norman, John Lennon, 714.

  “not about me or them but the state of the world”: Steve Marinucci, “Life with the Lennons: ’Imagine’ Reissues Bring Back John and Yoko Memories for Elliot Mintz,” Variety, October 8, 2018.

  “when or even if they’d be getting back together”: Norman, John Lennon, 714.

  his signature French cigarettes: Harry Cockburn, “France Considers Banning Gitanes and Gauloises Cigarettes for Being ‘Too Cool,’” The Independent, July 21, 2016.

  “to sit on Capitol, to do the artwork and to see to things like radio promotion”: Chris Charlesworth, “John Lennon: Lennon Today,” Melody Maker, November 3, 1973.

  “It was a big blow when they [the Beatles] split up, of course”: Barney Hoskyns, 75 Years of Capitol Records (Cologne: Taschen, 2016).

  “Someone told me it was like Imagine with balls, which I like a lot”: Charlesworth, “John Lennon.”

  “He reached artistic heights and healed a lot of his personal relationships”: Minnie Wright, “John Lennon: May Pang Sets Record Straight on Her AFFAIR with the Beatles Star,” Express, January 18, 2020.

  “he wasn’t miserable for 18 months”: Wright, “John Lennon.”

  “happiest times of my life”: May Pang, Instamatic Karma: Photographs of John Lennon (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008), xi.

  “It wasn’t by any means a lost weekend”: Norman, John Lennon, 713.

  “I’ve got to be honest, I never saw that in him at all”: Elton John, Me (New York: Henry Holt, 2019), 115.

  “a short tier below the BeatleStones on the mass pop scale”: Wayne Robins, “Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” Creem, January 1974.

  “Elton’s notorious for being a very fast writer”: Mark Savage, “Elton John on the Yellow Brick Road,” BBC News, March 24, 2014.

  “I took to him straightaway”: John, Me, 115.

  “dancing around with a man dragged up as the Queen, for fuck’s sake”: John, Me, 115.

  “Fred Astaire and Ginger Beer”: Norman, John Lennon, 718.

  “You can’t choose your drag name”: Alexis Petridis, “‘This Is a Very Good Question, Bob Dylan’: Elton John, Interviewed by Famous Fans,” The Guardian, October 12, 2019.

  “It was thanks to my mum that we started having conversations again”: Joshua David Stein, “‘He Didn’t Even Pretend to Let Us Win’…Growing Up with the World’s Biggest Stars, by Their Children,” The Guardian, March 29, 2020.

  making its final crossing from Southampton to New York: John, Me, 117.

  Elton John and Tony King will be aboard for the same voyage: John, Me, 117.

  ten-year-old Julian immediately embraces his father: Norman, John Lennon, 722.

  “charming, funny, and warm”: Stein, “‘He Didn’t Even Pretend to Let Us Win.’”

  “shocked to see ‘a little man’ and not the small child he remembered”: Pang, Instamatic Karma, xv.

  “a lot of time getting reacquainted as father and son”: Pang, Instamatic Karma, xv.

  “if he had his time over, he’d be different to Julian”: Norman, John Lennon, 724.

  “May was wonderful, even though she was young and inexperienced”: Pang, Instamatic Karma, back cover.

  Chapter 48

  cedes total control to Spector: Ray Connolly, Being John Lennon: A Restless Life (New York: Pegasus Books, 2018), 360.

  “The guys were all drinking—and John was being one of the guys”: Frank Mastropolo, “John Lennon’s Infamous ‘Lost Weekend’ Revisited,” UltimateClassicRock.com, April 2, 2014.

  “somebody had to be, you know, sane”: Mastropolo, “John Lennon’s Infamous ‘Lost Weekend’ Revisited.”

  “the Vampire”: Connolly, Being John Lennon, 360.

  “Spector pulled out a large gun and started chasing John through the hallways”: Larry Kane, “The John Lennon We Did Not Know,” Today.com, June 27, 2007.

  “Listen, Phil, if you’re gonna kill me, kill me”: Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life (New York: Ecco, 2008), 721.
r />   “The original Hollywood Vampires was a drinking club”: Barry Nicolson, “Inside John Lennon, Keith Moon and Alice Cooper’s Legendary Hollywood Drinking Club,” NME.com, September 8, 2015.

  “drinking the blood of the vine”: Nicolson, “Inside John Lennon, Keith Moon and Alice Cooper’s Legendary Hollywood Drinking Club.”

  Hollywood rockers such as Cooper: Kory Grow, “Alice Cooper and Joe Perry on Hollywood Vampires’ Drunk History,” Rolling Stone, September 3, 2015.

  covered the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night”: “Billion Dollar Babies Tour 1973,” AliceCoopereChive.com.

  “religion and everything else that causes fights”: Grow, “Alice Cooper and Joe Perry on Hollywood Vampires’ Drunk History.”

  “It was funny because neither one was a fighter”: Nicolson, “Inside John Lennon, Keith Moon and Alice Cooper’s Legendary Drinking Club.”

  “The difference between the two was that Harry loved to drink and was good at it”: Norman, John Lennon, 727–28.

  John and Harry show up at the Troubadour: Keith Badman, The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After the Break-Up, 1970–2001 (London: Omnibus Press, 2001), 120.

  “They taste like milk shakes”: Kane, “The John Lennon We Did Not Know.”

  “Harry would keep feeding John drinks until it was too late”: Kane, “The John Lennon We Did Not Know.”

  “I think we almost screwed up the act”: Kane, “The John Lennon We Did Not Know.”

  “It was horrendous”: Mastropolo, “John Lennon’s Infamous ‘Lost Weekend’ Revisited.”

  “I’m Ed Sullivan!”: Badman, The Beatles Diary, 120.

  “With Love & Tears!”: Badman, The Beatles Diary, 120.

  “No comment!”: Badman, The Beatles Diary, 120.

  the district attorney investigates the events: Kane, “The John Lennon We Did Not Know.”

  “I had to pay her off”: Badman, The Beatles Diary, 120.

  “doing a lot of screaming the night before”: Norman, John Lennon, 731.