A Mama Remembers the Mamas and the Papas (Jan. 21, 1998)

8/7/2019 A Mama Remembers the Mamas and the Papas (Jan. 21, 1998)

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THE SALINA JOURNAL APPLAUSE WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1998 3

A Mama Remembers the Mamas and the PapasEllen Futterman

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

.. Mama Michelle called theda y before she was to leave tobe inducted into the Rock an dRoll Hall of Fame. She said shewa s "getting caught up in theexcitement" of the honor,though the hugeness of it alldidn't hit her until that day. "At

first ,it had this unreal qualityabout it," she explained.M a m a M ichel le is, o f

course, M ichelle Phillips, one-fourth of the quartet known asThe Mamas and The Papas,which racked up three gold al-bums and a Grammy Award fora string of hits produced be-tween late 1965 and 1968.

Among them: "CaliforniaDreamin'," "Monday, Monday,"'"Words of Love," "Creeque Al-l e y " and "Dream a Little Dreamof Me."

The group wa s honoredMonday in a ceremony in NewYork City, along with other in-ductees: The Eagles, Fleet-wood Mac, Lloyd Price, San-tana, Gene Vincent, Jelly RollMorton and Allen Toussaint.

The Mam as and The Papassplit up in late 1968, the sameyear Michelle Phillips gavebirth to a daughter, Chynna,and separated from her hus-l>and and group Papa, JohnPhillips. Theother Papa, Cana-dian Denny Doherty, retreatedinto semi-retirement, althoughrecently he sold out a two-week run of a one-man musicalin Canada that tells the story of•The Mam as and The Papas.

And Mama Cass Elliot diedin London in 1974. "She did not

die choking on a ham sand-wich," said Michelle Phillips," b u t a massive coronary.

"It was such a shock to losesomeone I was so close to andsomeone so close to your

world. It was like losing alimb."

Flash back to 35years ago,when John Phillips met a 17-

year-old blonde California wildchild named Holly M ichelleGilliam while he was touringwith The Journeymen. The twomarried .(it was his secondmarriage, her first) and stakedroots in New York, where theybecame members of the NewJourneymen, writing songs in aLower East Side crash pad.

Meanwhile, Doherty an d

Elliot (Ellen Naomi Cohen)were both singing with differ-ent bands but had worked to-gether in The Mugwum ps withZal Yanovsky and John Sebast-ian, who later started theLovin' Spoonful.

Fleeing Ne w York for theVirgin Islands, John, Michelle,Denny and Cass joined forces,subsisting in the Caribbean onhandouts and a borrowedAmerican Express card,per-forming where they could andhoning their style. They lived ahippie existence and dressedthe part as well,, eventuallybringing their act back to Cali-fornia in Au gust 1965 to find arecording deal.

After an audition, producerLou Adler signed them on thespot, overcome by their amaz-ing harmonies. Inspired bytheir minstrel philosophy of afreer lifestyle, The Mamas andThe Papas became just that —musical parents to the newcounterculture, which prideditself on freewheeling values ofpeace and love as well as sex,drugs and rock 'n' roll.

But within its inner sanc-t u m , Michelle Phillips says the

intensity of churning out song

after song in a 2-1/2-year periodgave way to burno ut. Yes, therewere drugs involved — "theywere actually a lot of f u n , " shesays — but it was the work thatdid them in.

"This was the time of mylife where I worked the hardestto achieve the most," she said."It was a very insulated period

"They lived a hippie exis-

tence an d dressed th epartas well, eventually bringing

their ac t back to California

in Augus t 1965 to in d arecording deal"

of our lives. We were a familyof four or five, including LouAdler, and we did nothing butwrite songs, rehearse them, gointo the studio, record them, goon the road, perform them andthen do it all over again."

It also was a very incestu-ous time. John and Denny werebest friends, as were Michelleand Cass. John and Michellewere having marital problems.Cass was in love with Denny;Denny and Michelle had an af-fair. In 1967 an unwed MamaCass gave birth to a daughter,Owen Vanessa. By the timeMichelle gave birth to Chynna,a year later, neither Mama ha dmuch interest in parenting any-one other than their own girls.

" O u r creativity was ex-haus ted ," said Michel lePhillips. "We had had enough."

When she learned of CassElliot's death on July 29, 1974,Phillips had just starred in her

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first movie, "Dillinger.""We were closer than we

ever had been," said Phillips,now 53. "She left behind a 7-year-old and I was 5 when mymother died, so it brought upall sorts of feelings aroundthat.

" S h e was my closest friendand the funniest woman I hadever know n. She still is the f u n -

niest w o m a n I have everknown."hi a way, her death wasn't

surprising. She was so over-weight, she didn't take care ofherself. She'd lose a hundredpounds and gain it back again."

Phillips said she neveronce thought about a musicalcareer after she left the band.Instead, she concentrated onmaking a home for C hynna andearning a living as an actress.Her ex-husband (and Chynna'sfather) was no longer a playerin their lives; it wasn't long af-ter the group's break-up thatJohn Phillips descended intodrug hell.

(He later chronicled thathell in a book called "PapaJohn," which discussed his

$l,000-a-day drug habit an d

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days as a drug trafficker. Heserved jail time in 1980 beforeentering a drug rehab program.In 1982, John Phillips broughtback Doherty and recruited hisoldest daughter, Mack enzie,and Elaine "Spanky" McFar-lane, lead singer for Spanky &Ou r Gang, as the new Mamasand Papas. But the group had ashort-lived career.)

"I had to find work anddeal with the difficult transi-tion of going from singer to ac-tress and the fact that somepeople have a problem withthat," M ichelle Phillips said. Aturning point came when pro-ducer Aaron Spelling took herunder his wing, casting her inepisodes of "Fantasy Island,"" T h e Love Boat" and "MattHouston."

Spelling, she said, is "theone responsible for me havinga career. He put me in a movieof th e w e e k and I neverstopped working from then on.That was 1974.

"I had just come off of do-ing eight episodes of 'Hotel'

when David Jacobs asked meto m e e t him about doing'Knot's Landing.'" She got that

part an d appeared on the showas a regular for four seasons.

Today Phillips lives in LosAngeles with her 15-year-oldson, Austin, and adopted 16-year-old son, Aron, and her fi-ance of 10 years, musician Ge-off Tozer. She says the twoplan to marry on the first dayof the year 2000. Her daughter,Chynna, who was part of the

trio Wilson-Phillips,is

marriedto actor William Baldwin.Reflecting on the induction

ceremonies, Michelle Phillipsexpected them to be bitter-sweet; exciting on the onehand but sad at rememberingthe passing of her best friend,Cass Elliot.

"When I look back on it all,I consider myself extremelylucky to be working and tohave been loved and in somecases, adored," said Phillips. "Iam having a great time in mylife. I don't care that I'm not ahuge megastar now.

"What's important to me isthat I'm working and that I'veworked consistently. I appreci-ate having time with my kidsand being able to travel. Over-a l l , life's bee n good."

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