Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Q & A with Sue Shifrin Cassidy

Q & A with Sue Shifrin-Cassidy

Sue Shifrin-Cassidy, wife of actor/singer David Cassidy, has authored The World's Greatest Email, a collection of funny, though provoking and inspiring Internet correspondences. In this most recent interview, she discusses how she researched the book, tackles Spam, Scams and Urban Legends and reveals how her famous hubby can't walk and chew gum at the same time.

Q: Sue, you're an accomplished songwriter, philanthropist, founder of KidsCharties.org and co-founder of EAT’M (Emerging Artists in Talent and Music) the famous entertainment convention. Now you're an author. How did you come up with the idea of writing The World's Greatest Email?

SSC: My mother passed away from a stroke and when I received an email about how to tell the signs of a stroke, I figured, well, I better have a hard copy of this so that if I am in the middle of having one I will be able to find this life saver instead of having to search through several thousands of emails. Then I got an email called “The Physics of Hell” which I thought was so incredibly smart that I needed to have a hard copy of it as well. That’s when the idea of a book dawned on me.

Q: Tell me how conducted your research and how long it took you to compile this information?

SSC: It took me two years to cull the contents of this book from literally thousands of emails that I received over many years. I worked every single day until I had narrowed it down to the final emails that appear in The World’s Greatest Email.

Q: One of the refreshing qualities of The World's Greatest Email is that it's not always politically correct. Was that a conscious decision on your part, and if so, why?

SSC: We are very tongue in cheek in our family about politics. We get into it all the time. I had received so many political emails, and with the 2008 election looming, I thought it would be neat to have this section where fun could be made of both parties.

Q: How did you decide on the categories for the book?

SSC: I wanted The World’s Greatest Email to be a mixed bag, so I really deliberated on how to categorize the emails I used. They just seemed to naturally break down into areas like “Men, Women and Sex”, “Thought Provoking” “Smart People/Stupid People” and “Politically Incorrect”. The chapters kind of named themselves.

Q: Do you have a favorite email?

SSC: My favorite is still “The Physics of Hell”. I also think “Cheese Scones” is pretty funny and some of the more risqué ones like “F#@* Austria are a hoot.

Q: What do you like best about your book?

SSC: That I finished it! Actually, I love that it is a book filled with all kinds of information, even some inspirational emails. It makes you laugh and it makes you think and it teaches you things you never knew. The chapter called “Scams, Spam and Urban Legends” is particularly informative. You would not believe how many things are circulating on the Internet that could kill you if you followed the advice. I debunk these myths and I feel that I am doing people an important service by doing so.

Q: Okay, allow me one David Cassidy question... what's a goofy thing he does that he probably wouldn't want the world to know?

SSC: Actually, David has a hard time walking and chewing gum at the same time. If the phone rings and the doorbell goes at the same time, it is really funny to watch him go into minor shock!

Q: How can people order The World's Greatest Email?

SSC: The World’s Greatest Email is available at www.amazon.com and at www.authorhouse.com. However, they can get autographed copies through my site, www.TheWorldsGreatestEmails.com.








Monday, December 3, 2007

Rick Sharp Country Q & A with Ken Mansfield

The Beatles, the Bands, the Biz: An Insider's Look at an Era
By Ken Mansfield
Ken Mansfield, the former U.S. manager of Apple Records and American Grammy winning music producer, and strategist behind The Beatles' Apple label, has written a book titled: The White Book: The Beatles, the Bands, the Biz: An Insider's Look at an Era.
Ken devotes a whole track (Chapter) to his time working with Waylon Jennings. Ken kindly granted me an interview to explain further his memories of working with Waylon and the Outlaws from 1973-1978.


Rick Sharp Country: Ken, I know you've worked with many artists and different genres of music. Could you explain the differences, if any, in working, let's say, between The Beatles and Waylon, or even Andy Williams?

Ken: The minute you ask someone to make a comparison with Waylon you are in a no man's land. The easiest way to explain the differences between his artistry and any one else's is that it was different. Waylon was up close and personal and far away and distant both with his music and his person - he could accomplish this feat within moments or even simultaneously. As I explain in my new book, The Beatles were a band and experienced an international fame that will never be seen again - their stage was the world and once they broke through the battle with the industry and its forces was finally over. Waylon had to fight for and fight to maintain every inch of ground he gained. Andy Williams was mom and apple pie - need I continue the comparison on that one?

Rick Sharp Country: If you could record any artists that you've previously worked with, who would you take to the studio again?

Ken: Waylon.

Rick Sharp Country: How did Waylon work in the studio and did he work differently than most artists?

Ken: Waylon and I clicked from the moment we met - on all levels. Once in a doctor's office he asked if he could put me down as his next of kin on the admittance form. Our backgrounds were very much alike and we both wanted to live outside the establishment bubble with our lives and our music. I was a giant fan of his going into the relationship. He was not yet established at that time so even though we both had had our personal measures of success we had the opportunity to create something new together and we sensed that. He brought "feel" into the studio and I brought LA/London rock and roll technology to the sessions. We had this thing where we knew great musicianship whether it would be on a technical or inspirational level. I can remember times where we would here a musician play only two or three simple notes on a piano or guitar and we would turn to each other and go - wow! He had this sign language when things like this would happen - he would look down at his arm and run his hand along the hairs as if to say they were standing on end. I started something with Waylon in the studio that I don't think he ever allowed with any other producer. When he was doing a guitar overdub I would sit in an opposing chair right in his face and close my eyes as he played. He would watch my reactions and play to what he thought I was getting off on.

Rick Sharp Country: At the time you worked with Waylon his music was changing direction. Did you notice the blues influence that had laced his early music and surfaced later with Waymore Blues?

Ken: Waylon could sing "Chitty, Chitty Bang, Bang" and the soul would come through the song. There was something deep down inside, a hurt, loneliness, a mission or whatever that put a feeling into his voice that no other artist has ever had. The closest for me would be Nina Simone and the way her soulful singing and piano playing melded together like Waylon's voice and guitar. Waylon was a street level student of off types of music. These influences, be they subtle or exaggerated at times, were the mixture that kept him from being pegged into one genre.

Rick Sharp Country: Was Ralph Mooney doing sessions with Waylon at the time, and if so do you have any stories about the legendary steel guitarist? If not, who did steel guitar for Waylon at the time?

Ken: "Moon" was the steel guitar player for Waylon for almost the entire five years I spent with him. One night at Roy Orbison's studio I was so blown away with something Moon played that I couldn't believe what I heard. Waylon grabbed me by the shoulder and said, "You just got 'Mooned', Hoss." He was truly a legend. Moon over indulged sometimes before going on stage and one night he was playing so badly that Waylon walked over during the show and unplugged his amp. Moon laid his hands on his steel guitar, put his head down and sat the whole set out knowing what was to come afterwards. He was going to end up in what we called "the barrel" (being in trouble with Waylon) for a while for that little episode.

Rick Sharp Country: How much time was spent deciding to cut "McArthur's Park"? I'm sure it must have seemed to be a strange selection for country music of the day.

Ken: I produced the second version of that song on the Are You Ready for the Country album - we called it "MacArthur's Park Revisited". Again, this was one of the things that we saw eye-to-eye on, this sense that no song or musical direction was out of our realm of possibility. It was almost a gentle defiance on our part. I know when Waylon recorded someone else's song, his rendition would become the definitive version. I produced another song like that with him, "Amanda", (I didn't get an album liner credit but did receive the gold record from RCA) and even though Don Williams already had a hit with the song, I think it is most identified with Waylon's interpretation. The night we cut "MacArthur's Park" for the second time, it just happened. I had learned in producing Waylon to always make sure the tape was running if he was standing close to a microphone with a guitar in his hand. That night we had just finished one of the planned songs for the album and Waylon didn't get up from his chair. He hesitated and started singing and playing the song. Ritchie and the band were so used to this kind of spontaneity that they joined in and we cut the song in total top to bottom in one take. I later added strings and took the tape up to Graham Nash's house in San Francisco because he agreed to sing some background on the song. I brought the tape back to Nashville and played it for Waylon late one night in his office at Tompall's building (Hillbilly Hotel). When Waylon heard Graham's vocals, he threw his hands in the air and basically fell on the floor because was so knocked out with what I had done.

Rick Sharp Country: What collaboration did you have with Jessi Colter?

Ken: I produced her first four albums and all of her major hits. Although Waylon had little to do with "I'm Not Lisa" and "What Happened to Blue Eyes", we pulled a Lennon/McCartney thing and listed ourselves as co-producers. After my initial recordings with her, we did actually share production duties - taking turns sitting in the producer's chair at the sessions when our individual talents were appropriate. Jessi, like Waylon, was an "on the natch" artist and you had to be on your toes because she did not like overdubbing her vocals. Most of her vocals on her albums were live. One of the most exciting nights I ever had in the studio was when Waylon and Roy Orbison decided to sing trio background with Jessi on her gospel album. It was another one of those moments that just happened. The Outlaw years were an amazing time because as a producer I was having number one records with these two all at the same time and it got real crazy.

Rick Sharp Country: Do you know if there was any personal contact between Waylon and Neil Young before recording Are You Ready For The Country?

Ken: No, that was entirely my doing. I brought the song to Waylon originally as something I thought would be perfect for him to sing at that time in history, and also as the song that would be the concept hook for the album. We brought in Cher's guitar player, Ike and Tina Turner's horn players, and some LA pickers for the sessions. We cut the album in Hollywood in order to get away from the Nashville establishment, which was very rigid at the time. Waylon had changed some of the lyrics to Neil's song and I was a little uncomfortable about how Neil would react if we didn't get some prior form of approval from him or his publisher. As luck would have it Neil walked into Graham's house the day I was there and I played him the version we had recorded. When I asked him if it was okay if we changed some of the lyrics he said, "Why not - who knows where I got them in the first place?"

Rick Sharp Country: Looking back, why do you think Waylon and the Outlaws connected with people on such a deep level?

Ken: I think people sensed freedom in the music and it was definitely something new, fresh and outside the formula Nashville sound. I also believe the fans were able to live vicariously through our personal and musical escapades and that the Outlaw thing gave them a needed escape when they listened to the music. Picture this: whenever we rolled down the highway in our tour bus, there'd be twenty or so Hell's Angels following us from gig to gig. We'd show up on time to a venue for sound check all ready to go and the concert promoter was surprised to see us show up on time and in relative working condition. We noticed a strange thing during the concerts as they grew in attendance - the front rows were filled with young people who were used to getting to festival seating events early. What was even more interesting was that not only had they been drawn by the new music we were doing but also they had obviously become fans. Kids who were seventeen years old were calling out for older Waylon songs.

Rick Sharp Country: What, in your opinion, ended it for the Outlaws?

Ken: Sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Rick Sharp Country: Before asking the last question, I'd like to thank Ken Mansfield for sharing his memories of our heroes like Waylon and The Beatles. In looking back and following the music business to where it is now, do you have any advice for struggling artists who are trying to find a place for themselves in music today?

Ken: If you are serious you have to make a 100 percent commitment to your career - anything less is guaranteed failure. You need to check to see if you honestly have the talent to go the whole way because once the decision to go for it is made, based on hometown success etc., you have to realize it is like moving from high school football to the NFL when it comes to the competition. You also need to live in the proper environment and that usually means moving to the centers of the kind of music you want to get into. Anything outside of LA, Nashville and New York City will usually prove out to be second best. Once there you need to sweep floors at the studios, act as a gofer, play in bars, etc. - whatever necessary to meld yourself into the community and pay your dues. The industry tends to bring each other along when someone starts to make it and those buddies that played the freebies with you are the ones that get chosen to join in on the ride.

To order The White Book, The Beatles, The Bands, the Biz: an Insiders Look at an Era, go to
www.amazon.com or www.fabwhitebook.com.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

David Cassidy: Could It Be Forever?

Could It Be Forever?

By David Cassidy


Details
:
Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Headline Book Publishing
ISBN-10: 0755315790
ISBN-13: 978-0755315796

Headline Paperback Royal (234x156mm)
ISBN 0755316754 (978-075-531675-5)

Includes 8 pages of black and white photos plus 8 pages of colour photos.

Synopsis:
In the seventies, when he was just 20 years old, David Cassidy achieved the sort of teen idol fame that is rarely seen. He was mobbed everywhere he went. His clothes were regularly ripped off by adoring fans. He sold records the world over. He was bigger than Elvis. And all thanks to a hit TV show called 'The Partridge Family'. Now, in his own words, this is a brutally frank account of those mindblowing days of stardom in which being David Cassidy played second fiddle to being Keith Partridge. Including stories of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll that explode the myth of Cassidy as squeaky clean, it's also the story of how to keep on living life and loving yourself when the fans fall away.


For more information, go to www.amazon.com or www.davidcassidy.com

David Cassidy: The Dark Side of a Teen Idol

The dark side of a teen idol

23rd February 2007

By DAVID CASSIDY

www.dailymail.co.uk

Cassidy in his younger days

Cassidy in his younger days

David Cassidy's wholesome image won obsessive devotion from his teenage fans. In this brutally frank autobiography, he reveals the secret life of drug abuse and reckless sex that drove him to breakdown:

Do you want to know my most vivid childhood memory? It's early 1956. I'm five, nearly six, and I'm playing with a couple of my friends out in the street in front of our house in West Orange, New Jersey. They begin to taunt me with that casual cruelty kids can have. 'Hey Wartie, your parents are divorced.'

The other boys call me Wartie because my grandparents' last name is Ward and my mother and I are living with them so she can leave me there when she goes on the road, performing.

'No, they aren't divorced,' I respond, unnerved. I have never heard the word 'divorce' before, but somehow I know what it means. 'Maybe in a play they are...but not in real life.'

My parents, Jack Cassidy and Evelyn Ward, are actors. They both spend a lot of time touring in plays and musicals, sometimes together, usually apart.

'They're divorced,' one of my friends assures me again, as if it's a well-known fact.

But nobody I know has parents who are divorced. That just doesn't exist in my world. I suddenly feel very uneasy. I run into the house for assurance.

Even though I'm sure my mother will say: 'Don't be silly,' I ask her hesitantly if she and my dad are divorced. She takes a long breath and says: 'Why don't you ask your father that? You're going to see him next weekend.'

And that's enough for me to feel whole again...at least until I see my dad. I haven't seen a lot of him lately. Those plays seem to keep him very busy - so busy, in fact, that even when he promises he's going to come and visit me, he isn't always able to keep his promise.

I am used to that, though. After all, this is Jack Cassidy we're talking about. The most charismatic man I've ever met, and also the most unreliable.

I remember waiting for him to appear that next weekend. He drove up to the house in grand style in a shiny new Cadillac. That was so Jack.

Even when he didn't have much money, he'd always look the part. My mother used to say: 'If he had $50, he'd spend $40 on a suit for himself and leave $10 for us to live on.'

When he arrived, I remember him bundling me into a bulky overcoat - it was winter - and saying exuberantly, with a wave of his hand: 'We're off to New York!'

He could make it sound as if he had just invented New York and was about to make a present of it to you. He had so much charm you couldn't help but love him.

The first time he'd taken me on a trip like this was when I was just three and a half and he was starring in a Broadway show called Wish You Were Here. I remember him in the back of a taxi, saying: 'You have to be quiet during the show.'

But when I saw him come out on stage I got excited and shouted: 'That's my daddy!' I knew when I saw him standing on the stage, with his arms spread out, singing, and everybody clapping for him, that I wanted to be just like him.

David Cassidy

As I grew older, maybe a part of me even believed that if I became a performer like he was, it would bring us the closeness we never had. A closeness that might wipe out what had happened as he drove me into New York City that winter's day when I was five. 'Are you and Mum divorced?' I knew he would say 'No' and then everything would be exactly the way it was before my friends started taunting me. But instead, he paused, drew his breath, and said: 'Yes.'

When I heard him say that, and learned that they had been divorced for more than two years, I could hardly keep myself together. It felt like every part of my body came unglued at once. I began to shake and convulse out of pain, fear and rejection.

I was stunned that he had decided to leave me and my mother - and even more stunned that he hadn't even bothered to tell me. Finding out that I'd been deceived by my own parents left me so devastated that I've never completely recovered.

From that day, I've had problems trusting people, problems with rejection, problems with finding lasting, loving relationships. During my teenage years and my time as a star, I led a lifestyle that would have shocked my fans and was a world away from my innocent, unthreatening image.

My relationship with my father was at the heart of all this. It took me years to rid myself of the darkness and pain I felt as the result of his selfishness - yet for all his flaws, I worshipped him. As a child, I always wanted to be like him.

I realise now that he was damaged goods. According to family lore, when his mother bore him at the age of 48, she was embarrassed by this unwanted change-of-life child - as if she believed a woman of her age shouldn't be having sex any more, much less children.

She handed him over to a woman a few houses away, who nursed and looked after him. He once told me he couldn't remember his mother ever kissing him. I'm sure that the various psychological problems he had, including an insatiable need for attention, had their origins right there.

He was narcissistic, grandiose and wildly self-indulgent. I once found he had 104 pairs of shoes in his cupboard. He was also a philanderer and an alcoholic.

When I was little, I remember him taking me to a restaurant and downing 17 scotch and sodas. He was tormented by not being recognised as an acting genius and when I eventually became a star he was incredibly competitive.

He resented my success and would say things like: 'You're just lucky.' Every kid wants his father to put his arm around him and say: 'Great going, son.' But I never got that. I think reality was so painful for my father that he preferred to create his own.

He would look at a white wall and tell you that it was black and you'd have to say: 'OK, you're right, Dad.' If you didn't, he would go insane, totally out of control, throwing tantrums and breaking furniture.

Later in life he would be diagnosed as manic depressive, and shortly before his death in 1976 he was briefly committed to a mental hospital.

When his business manager hired a small plane to fly him home, he tried to grab the controls from the pilot, screaming: 'I'm going to see my father.' He had to be wrestled away and strapped back in his seat.

The next day he was sighted watering the lawn in the middle of the afternoon stark naked, sharing himself with his supposedly admiring public.

Later his manager found him standing atop a coffee table, pounding on a Bible, saying: 'J.C. - don't you get it? Jack Cassidy, Jesus Christ. They're both J.C. Don't you see? I'm me, J.C.'

After his death, I also learned that he had been bisexual and had an extended affair with the songwriter Cole Porter. Nothing I heard about my father ever surprised me. He was a larger than life kind of guy.

Not long after I found out he'd left my mother, he married the actress Shirley Jones, who had starred in the film musicals Oklahoma! and Carousel and would later win an Oscar. When they moved to California in 1957 and started their own family, I saw even less of my dad.

I felt shunned, as if I'd done something wrong. I was a very sensitive child, scrawny and young-looking for my age, and other kids would laugh at me because I had deformed eye muscles that gave me a squint.

Eventually, I had an operation to fix it, but until then older boys were very physically abusive to me. I also had a learning disability that was never diagnosed and I struggled at school, always feeling different from my classmates.

My mother was great but she was a lax disciplinarian. I was full of anger towards my dad and grew increasingly wild and undisciplined. In 1961, worried that I was becoming a juvenile delinquent, Mum decided we should move to Los Angeles so that I could have more contact with my father.

Soon after we moved, she married Elliot Silverstein, a television director. He was incredibly good to me and tried hard to fill the void left by my dad, but it can't have been easy. By now, I had decided that school had nothing to offer me and that my interests lay in sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

I grew my hair long, dyed it blond, and started playing the guitar in bands with various friends. I began smoking cigarettes at 13 and had my first joint at 15. An older guy showed me how to do it - inhaling really deeply and holding it in. I got absolutely hammered.

Over the next few years I was to discover I was deeply sensitive to almost any kind of drug. I found myself experimenting with LSD, cocaine, heroin, mescaline, speed, THC, barbiturates and more.

When I was 16 and 17, I'd take speed once every couple of weeks and sometimes go on a binge for two or three days. Now that I have my own kids I shudder to think about what I got up to, but in those days I had an appetite for living on the edge.

One night, a friend and I broke into the local hospital and stole a big metal tank of nitrous oxide - laughing gas. We got high on that for a week, then we went back to the hospital, returned the empty tank from the room we'd taken it from and liberated another tank to party with.

And that wasn't all I got up to. Like most teenagers, I had raging hormones. I reached puberty early, at around 11 or 12, and I had an incredible appetite for sex. Sex, glorious sex. It was all I could think about.

Perhaps because of my physical appearance - my build was slight, my features were delicate, my hair was long and my manner was soft-spoken and gentle - there were some other kids who assumed I was homosexual. In fact, I was incredibly active with girls.

'I lost my virginity at 13'

My earliest experience was when I was nine and fumbled with a friend's older sister. By the time I was 12 I was making out with 15-year-olds, and I lost my virginity at 13.

It happened with a girl who lived down the street from a friend of mine and was a year or two older than us. One night, six of us went to see her. We crept up to a loft above her garage and asked her to take her clothes off - and she did.

I was in awe, but I didn't want to do anything more in front of everybody else. So I called her up one weekend and asked to see her by myself and that was the first time I ever had sex.

Once I started, I had a new girlfriend every month or two. I thought: 'Well, parents - adults - don't stay together. Why should we?'

We smoked pot, got high and went to drive-in movies because they were the one place you could get away from your parents and have sex. Back then, for teenagers, drive-in cinemas were like brothels. Eventually, I told my mother: 'Look, I'd like to bring a girl over. Would you mind? I'd like to take her up to my room.'

'OK, you can bring girls to your room, but I don't want you having intercourse,' she said.

'Oh, we would never do that,' I assured her. Well, of course, the girl and I would be going at it within five minutes of closing the door. I'm sure my mother knew what was going on, but this was the Sixties.

There wasn't much time left for studying, and I was kicked out of two schools for skipping classes. Although my stepfather had fantasies of me going to university, I knew I wasn't heading in that direction. I wanted to be a performer like my dad.

With the help of his agent, Ruth Aarons, I landed roles in a number of TV series, including Marcus Welby, M.D. and Bonanza. My acting was lame on the first couple of shows but it soon improved.

By mid-1970, I was still only one of a thousand faces on the small screen but I could take pride - and hoped my dad could also take pride - in the fact that I was becoming, like him, a reliable working actor.

I wanted to concentrate on serious drama so I wasn't too interested when Ruth Aarons suggested I should audition for a new situation comedy called The Partridge Family.

Extracted from COULD IT BE FOREVER? by David Cassidy, published by Headline on March 8 at £20. David Cassidy 2007. To order a copy for £18 (p&p free), call 0870 161 0870.

New David Cassidy book "Could It Be Forever?"

David Cassidy on the Web

Could it be forever?: David Cassidy

By Kerri Jackson
www.nzherald.co.nz

When David Cassidy made his debut on The Partridge Family in 1970, I was, well, not actually born yet, but even so, it's impossible not to see the effects of his early career today. He may have been preceded by Elvis hysteria and Beatlemania, but Cassidy was something new - the first true teenybopper idol, on television every week and with the peculiar, pretty, non-threatening appeal that makes 13-year-old girls squeal until they burst.

This, Cassidy's autobiography, is a fascinating insight into what it was like at the centre of that particular cyclone, and the answer - possibly an obvious one to our more jaded generation - is fairly horrible. While his entourage lived large off his success, Cassidy was often whisked secretly out of town after his live shows, to squalid hotels with just the clothes he was standing in, in an attempt to evade the mobs that would have more than likely ripped him limb from limb. And all those other pop star benefits, such as wads of cash, were never as large as they ought to have been, given how many albums and how much merchandise his pretty face shifted. As the first pop idol, he was too young, and his management too naive, to really reap the rewards. Possibly, this should be required reading for those queues and queues of would-be "idols" on fame-farming reality TV shows. The fact that Cassidy came out of it relatively well-adjusted (after years of therapy, mind you), sanguine and, indeed, alive, is remarkable.

The book covers Cassidy's life before and after the madness, and he devotes much time to his fraught relationship with his father, but it's the Partridge years that fascinate most.

What strikes the reader is how naive he seems, and you have to keep reminding yourself that it was a different time, and he really was the first. One of the strengths of this book as an autobiography are the comments, interspersed throughout, from others who were there - Shirley Jones, the rest of the Cassidy clan, magazine editors, friends, contemporaries. This gives a depth and credibility to what could otherwise be just another "fame is hard" cautionary celebrity tale.

* Hachette Livre, $45

Friday, January 12, 2007

Jackie Maravich breaks silence with "Maravich"

Pistol Pete’s widow writes about legend’s life

By GEORGE MORRIS
Advocate sportswriter
Published: Jan 3, 2007

  • P





    Advocate staff photo by RICHARD ALAN HANNON

    Jackie Maravich, widow of basketball great Pete Maravich, has collaborated on a biography of ‘Pistol Pete.’


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    age 1 of 2

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When Pete Maravich played basketball — and nobody ever played like him — it brought thrills to everyone except, it seemed, Maravich himself.

During a career that led him to the Basketball Hall of Fame, his wife, Jackie, said she waited long after games ended because he stayed in the locker room until the arena was as empty as he felt.

“Obviously, he knew what he could do with a basketball, but I think in a way he was uncomfortable,” she said. “He loved the game of basketball, but I think everything that went with it didn’t bring him happiness, the material things and whatever.”

That dramatically changed before his unexpected death in 1988 at age 40, which sparked renewed interest in his life. Books and movies were produced. None had Jackie’s input, though not for a lack of requests.

That changed six years ago when Wayne Federman and Marshall Terrill approached her. This time, she said yes.

“I could see where they were coming from, their sincerity and their love for Pete and the type of book they were going to write,” she said. “I thought it was time.”

The result is “Maravich,” a biography that received input from Jackie and her sons, Jaeson and Joshua, and gave her editing rights. The book covers Pistol Pete’s life, including his early years, his spectacular playing days and his off-court attempts to find meaning in life, a quest that led to his accepting Christ in 1982.

Jackie had a front-row seat to most of this after Maravich noticed her in 1968. By this time he’d already played one season for LSU and was the city’s biggest sports celebrity. Maravich didn’t approach Jackie Elliser right away.

“The friend I was with, he called me up and said, ‘Pete Maravich wants your phone number,’ and I said, ‘Who’s Pete Maravich?’ I was born and raised in Baton Rouge, but I didn’t follow sports. I said, ‘I don’t think so. I don’t really go out on blind dates.’”

Her friend persuaded Jackie to give him a chance, and he took her to the season’s first football game.

“He came to the door, and my dad said, ‘What are you doing with that tall, skinny guy?’” she said.

“The thing that really attracted me to Pete after that first date was his sense of humor. He was a real, real, real funny guy. That was it after that. We kept dating on and off, and the rest is history.”

That sense of humor remained. On Jan. 5, 1988, Maravich was playing basketball at a church in Pasadena, Calif. During a break in the game, Maravich told the church’s pastor, the Rev. James Dobson that he felt really good — then collapsed to the floor. Those present thought he was joking, but Maravich had suffered a massive heart attack resulting from an undiscovered congenital defect.

Doctors said it was miraculous that he lived through his teens, much less that he became major college basketball’s most prolific scorer, averaging 44.2 points per game — a fraction of what he might have scored had there been a three-point line to reward his long-range shots.

But points only began to describe Maravich’s skills. His ball-handling and passing skills were so extraordinary that many of his passes hit unprepared teammates in the face rather than the hands. Those skills had been honed over years of almost obsessive practice and through the instruction of his father, Press, his coach at LSU.

The National Basketball Association seemed perfect for Maravich, and the Atlanta Hawks rewarded him with the richest contract ever given to a college player of that time. But his teammates clearly resented him, Jackie said.

“I think it was a star thing — the salary and the attention,” she said.

Maravich scored 15,948 points (24.2 per game) in the NBA. His 68 points for the New Orleans Jazz against the New York Knicks in 1977 is the 12th-highest point game in NBA history. He scored more than 50 points in 28 games, a record.

Yet, he was unfulfilled, especially after retiring in 1980.

“He was searching and trying to learn what life really means,” Jackie said.

That search has been chronicled and often exaggerated. Though he was interested in the possibility of extraterrestrial life, Pete did not paint anything on the roof of his house inviting UFOs to come there, Jackie said. He did not dabble in Hinduism. He did not build a bomb shelter at their home. He did become extremely focused on nutrition.

“He also got into fasting,” she said. “He would cook us dinner. He would fast for, like, a week, and I never would get over the discipline he had cooking food for us and just drinking carrot juice and different type things.

“When he told me that he had accepted Christ into his life, I said, ‘Oh, well, maybe it’s another phase he’s going through.’ But I could see the happiness in him and just the zest for life and changes in him. I wanted what he had, so I was baptized in 1984. And when I was baptized, they said all he did was cry the whole time when I went up. I guess he wanted me to have what he had.”

Maravich approached Christianity with the same dedication he’d given to basketball. At Thanksgiving, Jackie said, he would fill his car with turkeys and drive around giving them to people he didn’t know. He spoke about Christ to any group or individual that would listen, she said.

Now, through this biography, he still speaks, Jackie said.

“I remember him always saying this to me: ‘When you die, people forget you.’ He will never be forgotten,” she said. “Here he is, more alive today than ever.”


Thursday, January 11, 2007

USA Today columnist hails "Maravich"

USA Today columnist hails "Maravich" USA Today columnist David DuPree has hailed "Maravich" as one of the best sports books of 2006.

In his Jan. 3, 2006 web column, DuPree recommended the 432-page biography to his readers, calling it one of the best sports books released in the past year.

The book, authored by Wayne Federman and Marshall Terrill, is considered by many sportswriters across the country as the definitive biography of "Pistol" Pete Maravich.

In addition to countless hours spent with Maravich's widow Jackie and her sons, Jaeson and Joshua, the authors also interviewed more than 300 teammates, opponents, journalists, coaches, detractors, fans and extended family to bring back the vivid life story of a transcendent athlete who thrilled millions.

The mop-topped, floppy-socked prodigy was a legend at LSU, averaging a staggering 44.2 points per game - the highest in NCAA history.

Then a brilliant career with the Hawks, Jazz and Celtics led to enshrinement in the Hall of Fame and selection as one of the top 50 players in NBA history.

For more information, go to www.maravichbook.com.