By Ivor Levene

Elliot Mintz recently published a book detailing his time spent with John and Yoko (Ono) Lennon, and quite frankly, it is the most honest book detailing the couple’s life in the too-short post-Beatle era, from 1971 until John’s untimely death in 1980. If you want an unadulterated view into John and Yoko’s life, this book is the book we’ve waited almost half a century to read, and the wait was well worth it.

The book, We All Shine On, is easily the truest account of John and Yoko that’s ever been written. There are no dirty secrets, no salacious remarks, just the truth. Reading the book will immediately draw you into this tight circle, you will feel what Mintz felt as this warm, crazy and unpredictable journey with the Lennons started in 1971.

You will be right there along with Mintz, through the ups, the downs, the never-ending all-night telephone conversations that took place right up until the early 1980s (although there are very few downs). The story is told very lovingly, exactly as you would expect. This is exactly the book that we should have always had, but thankfully it’s here now. It’s not a dictionary of Lennon, it’s not an attempt to judge or classify, and it lets the reader form their own opinion. It’s not a 500-page book that takes days or weeks to read; it is hard to put it down, and it is easily devoured in one reading. In short, it’s a must-have for any fan of John Lennon.

Since that horrible day in December of 1980, where John Lennon was taken from us by the act of a madman, there have been numerous books written about him. John as a Beatle, John post-Beatles… All these books share one thing in common; they were written by people who had either no or little interactions with John Lennon, and in some cases these books were downright salacious attempts to capitalize on the outpouring of grief that followed John’s assassination. I believe that all these books were a blatant money grab, but there is a different opinion given by Elliot Mintz, who actually lends credence to some of them.

Who is Elliot Mintz? This is a question with many answers depending on when you first heard his name. Most people associate him with the Lennon family, right after December 1980, but Elliot Mintz is so much more than that, and to just label him as an associate or friend of the Lennons would be a minimization of who this man is, and how important his role in music has been. Mintz was a pioneer in radio, following the path blazed by Wolfman Jack, in creating one of the most far-reaching radio programs in music history, which preceded Lennon’s death by many years. It didn’t matter whether you were in Los Angeles, Alaska or north of the border in some frozen corner of Canada, you could hear Mintz’s voice no matter how far it traveled thanks to his radio show being syndicated.

According to Mintz, “I was representing a man named Norman Pattiz, who was the founder of Westwood One Radio, and the man who was ascribed as the first person to create syndicated radio. Norm would eventually be able to create a network of three or four-hundred radio stations, eventually around the world, eventually, of different music.”

It was that syndication of his show that first brought his baritone voice to my ears, it played an important part in my musical upbringing, and Mintz’s importance in the growth of music cannot be understated, and if you only think of him post-Lennon, then you’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg, and like that proverbial iceberg, the majority of his storied life is under the water, unseen by so many. His story is staggering, and I challenge you, the reader, to find his equal.

In addition to having been as close as a person could have gotten to the Lennon family, they certainly weren’t the only hard-to-get interviews. Bob Dylan, who famously almost never gives anyone an interview, was another close confidant and friend to Elliot Mintz, and that speaks volumes about who this man is. He has met or spoken to almost every artist you can think of, and he continues along this path to this day, being a close confidant, friend, media-consultant and protector to current-day celebrities such as Britney Spears, Paris Jackson and the Kardashian family. Why would all these people trust him to their most vital asset, their privacy?

That was precisely what was on my mind before I interviewed him. Not knowing him, after reading his book, I wondered what it was that either drew him to celebrities, or they to him, but by the time the interview ended, it was obvious that it was his ability to connect with people on a very deep, personal level that has made him what he is. What started out as an interview ended up as a deeply introspective conversation on both sides, and I felt that connection, probably the same sense of attraction that so many others have felt. Every once in a while, and if you’re lucky, you get an interview like this that really stands out. This was one of them.

 

GOLDMINE: I want to start with the obvious question. Why did you wait so long to write this book? It’s been so long since the journey with the Lennon’s took place.

Elliot Mintz: Two major factors. I was visiting with Yoko on her birthday two years ago. She was born February 18th. I’m born February 16th. So, it was a little dual birthday that Sean Lennon hosted. During the course of that weekend that I spent with them Sean once again said, “Look, you knew the family as well as anybody did. Why don’t you write a book as to what they were all about and what they were like, you know, from your first-person vantage point.” Sean had mentioned this once or twice before to me, but I had never written a book. It seemed like an arduous procedure, but I thought about it and said, well, maybe. And then something else happened. On that occasion, I turned 78 and I thought to myself, “Well, if not now, when, and if I didn’t do it now, you and I would be having this conversation via a Ouija board.” So those are primarily the two reasons why I took keyboard in hand and embarked upon this.

GM: OK. That kind of answers my next question, which was going to be: Did you speak to Yoko prior to starting this? But you’ve just answered that. Did she ask to see a rough draft of it before it was published?

EM: No, neither did Sean.

GM: So, there were no edits asked for? Nothing like that?

EM: Sean gave me one admonition when I gave it a thumbs up, and he said, “I just want you to be truthful, period.” Now, he since said and my book again is, without the endorsement of the estate, no permission was asked or given. In all my years with him, I never signed a do not disclose form. Everything was done on trust. And Sean, again, not endorsing the book, that’s an official thing. He wrote something very, very nice, which has been published around the web about “Elliot was our closest friend, and it was wonderful!” You’ll find his quote floating around if you wanna float it in.

GM: What about Julian? He was older and knew more in some ways. I know that the relationship between himself and John was estranged, but he was at least older and could understand what went down during that time.

EM: Jules and I have had a very … I call it a loving relationship. When he’s in L.A. I see him frequently. We were texting just a day or two ago because of the release of his brand new photography book, just sold out in the first printing as we speak. It’s number one on Amazon orders. Julian is in the book. I write about him. I write about things we did together, especially when he arrived in New York on December 9th. In terms of Julian asking, “What are you gonna write about me in the book?” I didn’t request an interview or anything, none of that. And as of this moment, I received a good luck message from him. But I don’t know how he felt about the book.

GM: Interesting. And you did this whole book from memory, or did you have any notes scrolled, anything like that?

EM: No. This is where that credibility issue has popped up during the course of many of these interviews.

GM: Credibility?

EM: Yes. For this reason, I kept no notes. I kept no journals, no diaries. I never tape recorded a telephone call unless we were doing it on radio. All of it comes from my memory. So among my critics, they said, “Well, wait a second. Here’s a guy about to turn 80 who is recalling in detail conversations that took place more than 50 years ago. How do we know he is just not sitting up there on Mulholland Drive making it up?”

GM: That is very insulting. And that was not what I was implying that any part of this book was made up. Because everybody knows as we get older, you can remember what you did 50 years ago, but you can’t remember what you had for lunch yesterday. That’s a known fact. Everybody gets like that. I think it’s ignorant that anybody would even ask you a question like that.

EM: Again, it has been asked of me in more subtle terms, you know, the trust issue. I also maintain that there are certain events that take place in our lives. Conversations you had 20, 30 years ago with somebody, a loved somebody who you had proposed to or broken up with, married, divorced, the passing of a loved one, where if you just closed your eyes for a second, you could evoke exactly what was exchanged between you verbatim.

GM: Exactly, we all have those moments.

EM: Well, that’s how it is for me.

GM: That’s how it is for most people. I used to have a grandfather. He was 98 years old, and he used to tell these stories. There was one that stood out in particular where he came to the United States from England on a steamer ship. And he would recount the story. He would say, “It was a Tuesday and it was the 3rd of March, and it was 8:30 in the morning, and it was raining.” Like he could remember everything about the day. My father used to joke, “Well, who can question him? Nobody was around at that time who could question the story.” But it was obvious that he remembered all these things. I’m the same way. I’m a little bit younger than you, but I remember things from 40 years ago, like it was yesterday. But I couldn’t tell you what went on yesterday. Everybody has long term memory.

EM: But you can recall your grandfather giving you the descriptions that he gave almost verbatim.

GM: Absolutely.

EM: That’s how it was for me.

GM: I don’t doubt it. I’m shocked that anybody would question the honesty of that book. It seemed very honest to me. It seems like yesterday to me when John was murdered. When you went through John’s personal items, that part in the book where you flew to New York and Yoko wanted you to start cataloging everything, what stood out the most besides the letter that you have not opened?

EM: The eyeglasses.

GM: The shattered ones?

EM: No, not that one. Thank goodness. The shattered one, and the blood-soaked clothing that he wore, that was returned from Roosevelt Hospital, which I signed the receipt for in the vestibule area. Right behind the gates at the Dakota that were heavily stapled on top. And I knew what was in the bag. I brought the bag up to the room where I was doing the inventory. But I never had it in me to open that bag. I knew what was in it, and I just couldn’t look at that.

It’s since been opened and the glasses have been removed. In fact, on one occasion, Yoko took a Polaroid photo of the glasses, which she used on an album cover. Yeah. Because she wanted people to see the horror of the experience. The shattered glasses could only mean that John’s face fell directly onto cement. There were, I think, 26 or 27 pairs of John’s glasses. And I wanted to, you know, acknowledge each one for the inventory. The inventory was videotaped and audiotaped. So I would hold an item up to a video camera, that’d be a time thing running on the bottom of it, I would describe what it is. I would take x number of items, place them in a carton that would be visible. I would seal the carton, put my initial on it, acknowledge at what time it was put into inventory. I wanted this to be an absolute record of everything I was able to retrieve and preserve when I first put on, I didn’t put them on, I held one of his eyeglasses, like at the brim of my nose, just to see if they were prescription glasses, clear glasses, theatrical glasses, glasses that people might recognize from an appearance that he did. And the very first time I put on one of his glasses, it was … it’s a little bit like psychedelia for me. John could barely see.

GM: That’s pretty well known.

EM: I finally got myself to a point where I wore each one of the glasses for a second. Some were just clear lenses. He liked the effect of it or the tint of it. And that was very personal, very touching. His clothing that I found around the Dakota, holding the clothing in my hand was difficult. Now with respect to handwritten songs, love letters, and just the myriad of things. I think that doing the inventory eventually when it was transcribed, filled two, four-hundred-page volumes. It took something like 21 hours of recorded video, twice that amount, going through all the Dakota Apartments to take the items into the room where I was doing it. It seems that it was better with inanimate objects like sketches, Polaroid pictures, things like that. The stuff that was physically closest to him was switching from channel A to channel B. I had to suspend emotionalism and perform this act on Yoko’s behalf. So these things wouldn’t just somehow disappear.

GM: You mentioned in the book that people were starting to basically rob the grave. Things were disappearing. Walking out.

EM: Walking out. Well, it, it became apparent to me, the first thing that I noticed is that John had a kind of rinky-dinky stereo system on his side of the bed closest to the window. It was an old Scott amp. It was a cassette-to-cassette recording device that we had purchased in Japan. One for me, one for John, where he would make little recordings for me that he called “mind movies” and mail them to me instead of a letter, let’s say. And these were produced things with him doing all kinds of imitations and funny voices. And then rolling in part of an Alan Watts lecture, and then something that was on television. And the music from the Ten Commandments. They were all very creative. That was there and a few other, you know, small items. And I was doing the inventory and looked in his night table, the stereo system was gone. And more and more items were gone, including his personal journals, which he kept under the bed. I don’t have to go through the long history of an individual who would eventually be investigated by the District Attorney of New York, charged in the taking of all of these items without permission, with the intent of exploiting them, who pled guilty to the charges, and would later write his own book explaining away why he did what he did.

GM: Yeah. I think I know what you’re talking about. You actually wrote one of the court documents, I think you mentioned in the book, that you wrote something, something around that case, like his confession or something, something to that effect.

EM: I wrote his confession speech. It was time for him to address the court or whatever it might be. I wrote it. His attorney received it. This was done with the approval, of course, of Yoko and her lawyers. And he was remorseful. He offered his apologies, and he offered some explanation that John had once said to him that if anything happens to him, he wanted Julian to receive the journals. You know, whatever it was, he’s found guilty. He did it. And I only wish him well, he’s currently employed in in the New York area. And I don’t want to cast any more shade upon him.

GM: Fair enough. Did Yoko have you take any of these belongings to keep? Did she insist you take any of these things?

EM: Did she ask me to take them or to inventory them?

GM: To take them. Any of them, knowing how close you were to John?

EM: Oh, definitely not, definitely not. I mean, during the course of the inventory, each and every single item that belonged to John was being placed in self safekeeping. You know she never said, “Look, if you come across a pair of eyeglasses that you like, or a guitar … you know these were very valuable and these had great historical importance. The only thing that I can share with you is that it was weeks after the inventory, and one day a messenger arrived at my house, and he had a box filled with about 20 shirts that belonged to John. And she included a little note that said, I’m paraphrasing, I have the note — to a man of many seasons, shirts, for so many reasons, love Yoko. And as I open the box and look through them, I recognize the shirts as being shirts that were identifiable, A shirt that he wore during the recording of Double Fantasy, a shirt that he liked to wear when we were in Japan. A shirt that had some linkage to me. Only one person would’ve known which shirts to send to me, many of them Hawaiian shirts. And that would be Yoko. She would’ve had to have found these things and wanted me to have them. I don’t know if it’s a Japanese ritual or something of that nature. The shirts remain in a bank vault. And of course, I never tried one on.

GM: That’s very heartfelt. Do you still have these marathon conversations with Yoko as you detailed in the book?

EM: No, Not at all.

GM: I think I saw something that you were at the Grammys with her. Was that recent?

EM: Oh, no, those pictures of us at the Grammy Awards and red carpets and all of that, those go back 40 years. Yoko doesn’t make public appearances anymore. She’s going to be, I believe in February, 93 years old. I don’t know of many 93-year-olds that do interviews. Sean handles all of that.

GM: Does Sean now represent John’s shares of Apple?

EM: A few years ago, Yoko said to Sean, “I want you to be my voice.” It’s Sean who attends the various Apple meetings that are held routinely. He represents 25 percent of Apple, of course, and makes the decisions about the licensing of material movies, TV shows, the recent box set, all of that. Sean does the talking, and he does it brilliantly. Sean has devoted the overwhelming majority of his life looking after the legacy of his dad. And I might add being an ever present son for meals and company with his mother. He is, without doubt, the best son a mother could ask for.

GM: That’s great.

EM: And a brilliant businessman.

GM: Has anybody told you, and this is kind of a joke, that you have a great radio voice?

EM: Yes, I’ve heard that it’s one of the reasons for the lozenges, because I’ve done more than a hundred interviews in the past month. And some go on for an hour, an hour and a half. I’ll go on the phone at 1:30 this morning to do one with the U.K. because they’re just waking up. So, I’m a little self-conscious of my voice, because I used to talk more like I did when I was on the radio, and I had more of a baritone voice.

GM: There’s the voice I remember. I’m sure a lot of people know you or know of you from your involvement with the Lennons. I knew you a long time before that, from listening to the radio. I have a lot of questions around Westwood One Radio Network. How did it start?

EM: I did an in-depth Zoom with Stephen Peeples, he was the producer of the Lost Lennon Tapes, and nothing got on the air without Stephen’s scrutiny. When I was at the Dakota inventory-ing all these things, I came across these cartons of tape. John and Yoko had a bedroom, and in the bedroom, there was a ladder that you climbed up and there were shoji screens. And when you moved the screens, you could use that area for storage purposes. And I, of course, crawled up the ladder and looked around, and I saw all these boxes of cassette tapes, and I just started pulling them out. One would say, “Spoken word interview – John,” “John and Yoko, demo tape,” “rehearsal tape, John at piano alone.” And I knew immediately that these were previously unreleased. Some were just bits and pieces of songs. Some were very lengthy. And I noted that at the time, I was representing a man named Norman Pattiz, who was the founder of Westwood One Radio, and the man who was ascribed as the first person to create syndicated radio.

And syndicated radio, although your listeners probably know all this in the old days, if let’s say Stevie Wonder had a new album out, rather than get on a bus and go to 18 smaller markets to talk about his new record and play it, he would record an interview that had donuts in it, empty spaces. So, the local disc jockey could say, “Our guest this morning is Stevie Wonder with his brand-new album. And the first question I asked Stevie was, and this is what he told me.” And there’s Stevie speaking. So, Norm would eventually be able to create a network of three or four hundred radio stations, eventually around the world, eventually, of different music genres. He was just brilliant, and I loved him dearly. He and his lovely wife, Mary Turner, who used to be a broadcaster on KLOS and KMET Radio, they both passed a few years ago.

I had mentioned to Norm that I came across this material that Yoko had, and Norm said, “Wow, that would be fantastic to create a radio show around it.” I told him, “Well, Yoko’s gonna be in town in the next day or two. Maybe I can set up a dinner.” I explained to Yoko what Norm did, and Yoko thought, “Well, it’s not exactly that. These are tapes that people can dance to.” We had the dinner, they talked about it for a couple of hours, and they said, let’s do it. And the next day, the attorneys filled out all the papers, and that’s how “The Lost Lennon Tapes” was born.

GM: But before that, you were programming music, and you were syndicated, weren’t you? I seem to remember you from before The Lost Lennon Tapes, I remember you being on the radio, the Westwood One Radio Hour.

EM: I was the youngest talk show host in America at age 20 on a station called KPFK. I would go on to various radio stations. I would also start doing syndicated broadcasting for K-Earth News Radio. The Jim Ladd interview did lots of it until I began the Lost Lennon Tapes. So, I spent 15 years of my life interviewing more than two thousand people. You probably came across my voice or my interviews, either on the tube or when they were broadcast on the radio.

GM: On the radio, absolutely.

EM: And television afterwards.

GM: I didn’t see that, but I do distinctly remember hearing you on the radio a couple of years before the murder of John Lennon.

EM: When I was doing a talk show for KABC radio or KLOS radio, I was asked to be the entertainment correspondent for Eyewitness News Television in Los Angeles. And you would see me on the golf course with Alice Cooper doing the interviews.

GM: I’ve seen a couple of those.

EM: I had a run with them. I had a small television show of my own called Headshop. I mean, my life was just filled with interviewing people and being on air, doing these endless broadcasts. I spoke to more than two thousand people on the radio.

GM: Who stood out for you?

EM: Well, obviously, you know John and Yoko became regulars on my radio stations. Of course we had developed that kind of rapport where I could call them, sometimes waking them, and saying, “Something’s broken concerning your immigration case. Do you want to talk about it? We can go live in an hour.” But after John and Yoko, my conversations with a man named Baba Ramdas were very meaningful to me. I interviewed lots of spiritual figures, Timothy Leary, and Allen Ginsberg. I loved the interviews I did with Jack Nicholson, where he was just so acerbic, and at the time I thought, America’s greatest living actor. There are those that stand out in your mind, like a Groucho Marx, John Wayne. It’s very difficult to pick favorites. And there were very few that I regretted doing.

GM: I know exactly what you mean. I’ve interviewed a ton of people, and if you asked me that question, I’d have a hard time answering it.

EM: I wanna ask you that question, Ivor. Of all the people that you’ve interviewed, what’s the first one that comes to your mind as being absolutely memorable?

GM: Paul Rodgers from Bad Company.

EM: Why?

GM: Because a couple of years ago, I did an interview that touched him so much that he sent me a Christmas card with a beautiful note on it, saying it was one of the most memorable interviews that he had ever done. And then I received a second card saying that they had donated to a pig sanctuary, not even knowing that I loved pigs. I’m a big pig lover. I’m an animal lover. He just loved the story so much, and it meant so much to him. For me to get this card mailed to me by this big “rock star,” it touched me. So we’re both equally touched by this thing.

EM: And if I was to ask you for two or three more names, who would be the first two or three more that would come to your mind?

GM: The interviews that ended up with an actual friendship, those were the best. Ernie Cefalu, who’s a storied creator of album cover art is at the top of that list. It’s funny, I wanted to become a famous photographer, but instead I ended up writing. Sometimes it almost seems like a dream.

EM: Yes, it is. Broadcasting is a dream job, It gives you a front row seat at a Laker game to watch history run past you. If I wasn’t on the air, none of these people would’ve paid a great deal of attention to me. And there’s just one more follow up question. Well, I had a question about the pig, but first you talked about receiving that handwritten letter of thanks. Of the people that you ever interviewed. How many other people sent you a thank you note after the interview?

GM: None. He was the only one.

EM: I recall in my book that after my first interview with Yoko, the next day, she called me on my private line at home and just said she wanted to thank me for the interview that I did with her, and the fact that I didn’t spend the time just asking questions about The Beatles or her husband, or how she deals with the issue of the woman who broke up The Beatles, which she didn’t, and all of that. And she was so thankful. Nobody had ever done that. I got off the phone with her. We only spoke briefly. I thought about it for that evening. And the next day, I called her, and I said, “Look, I don’t mean to intrude upon your private time or anything, but in the history of me doing this, nobody ever called to say thank you. They do these interviews and they’re on to the next jock or the next talk show host. And that meant so much to me.” We spoke for two and a half hours, and that’s how this odyssey began, with the simple act of a thank you. People should take that with them and really understand the value of expressing that to somebody who does something nice with you, like Paul Rodgers did with you.

GM: In this interview with Paul Rodgers, he started telling me this story about how he almost died five times. He had all these strokes and off camera, I can hear his wife. She’s obviously managing both his personal life and his career. And through the interview, I start to think to myself, without his wife Cynthia, there would’ve been no Paul Rodgers, he would’ve just been another dead rock star. I stopped the interview and I said, “OK, Cynthia, you’ve got to get into the camera, because you’re gonna be a part of this interview. It’s not gonna be the typical, ‘let’s talk to Paul Rogers about being in Bad Company, playing guitar and all that kind of stuff.’ This is much more important, like the journey you went through, how she saved your life and all of this.” That meant so much to them, to both of them, because it turned into a very personal thing. The title that I gave the article was Midnight Rose and The Dynamic Duo. Midnight Rose was the name of his album, and I dubbed them the dynamic duo.

EM: It almost has a John and Yoko-esque vibe to it.

GM: I’ll take that as a huge compliment, thank you. Getting back to your radio work, what do you think about your radio legacy?

EM: They were the best years of my life. I’ve had a number of incarnations since then from radio to media consultant, and now author. It was not just the radio, it was the times that I was broadcasting in, living in Laurel Canyon. It was all just very magical. I didn’t miss the party.

GM: You mentioned interviewing Timothy Leary, how did you come across him?

EM: Timothy Leary was a neighbor of mine. We became really good pals. He asked me to collaborate with him on an autobiography. And he said, “It’s really simple, I’ll come over to your house, you come over to mine, you turn the tape recorder on. You ask the penetrating questions that you do, and I’ll give my answers. And then we edit it, and we’ll have an autobiography.” I said, “That sounds fine.” I had interviewed him while he was on the run from the law. I had a direct line to him in Algeria and Switzerland when he was on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. I posted a few of those conversations online so people could hear them. It was one of the things I asked for, that I have the right to broadcast some of the material before publication. He said, sure. But occasionally he brought over something kind of to inspire us. That’s the word. The autobiography was never completed.

GM: I completely understand this.

EM: Some great evenings together. (laughs)

GM: I know you’ve worked with The Rolling Stones. Tell me about that.

EM: I did some nice interviews with Mick [Jagger]. He was very kind when they had that terrible earthquake in Brazil. He and his wife Bianca went there in search of her mother. He came back to Los Angeles, clearly moved, and wanted to throw a benefit concert. I did some promotion work on the radio, the concert did very well, raised a lot of money. And the night after the concert, he called me live on the air to just talk for 20 minutes. His voice was strained, still tired from the concert. Bianca found her mother alive and well, and I run into him from time to time. He’s one of the good guys, and he’s very intelligent. He either got his degree or he studied business when he went to school.

GM: Yep. London School of Economics.

EM: That’s the title. Yeah, he knows about money.

GM: So, I’ve heard. You’ve worked as a media consultant/publicist for a lot of famous people, why?

EM: When I was a media consultant and a publicist for some very famous people, I made it a point that every single invitation that came in for a client of mine to do an interview, to appear somewhere, even though I knew that there was no shot of the person saying yes, would be delivered to the person. You know, I represented Bob Dylan for 10 years?

GM: I didn’t know that

EM: I’ve known Dylan longer than I’ve known Lennon.

GM: That’s impressive.

EM: And you might know that Bob is not particularly media friendly.

GM: He’s not even audience friendly. (laughs)

EM: He has his style. You can count the amount of in interviews he’s done in his lifetime.

GM: So, what do you think it is in you that all of these famous people that won’t talk to anybody will talk to Elliot Mintz? What is it that that attracts all of these people to you?

EM: Trust. To my knowledge, I’ve never burned anyone. I know how to keep my mouth shut. I know how to keep the secrets. I live alone most of the time, so I’m available to them, when they call somebody else is not going to pick up the phone, and there’s a far lesser chance for gossip, for things to get out.

GM: Was writing the book an arduous process for you?

EM: You can’t put a nine-year relationship with John Lennon in 302 pages and say, you’ve told the story. But I have this marvelous editor in New York with Penguin Random House named Jill Schwartzman. And I would of course submit to chapters to her as I went along. And she would offer her very learned advice. And one of the things that I learned through her was that if it doesn’t advance the story if it’s tangential or even sounds in the least bit self-serving; that can go.

GM: So, she essentially taught you how to write?

EM: There are people who submit nine thousand pages of material to cover everything, especially when they’re writing their own autobiographies. I kept that in mind and kept it moving. So, there were little nuances, things that I did with John, or things that we discussed that were very, very meaningful to me, but it didn’t advance the story, so there were eliminated. I hope what remains is enough for people to just get a sense of what he was like beyond fandom.

GM: Absolutely. I think this is the first book that I’ve ever read about John Lennon that was that personal. Other people have written books about John Lennon, but they’re all, pardon my French, just mostly bullshit money-grabs.

EM: Still good books that have been written about John, studies of him.

GM: Studies of him? He’s not something that I think people should study. They should just enjoy him for what he was, and that’s it. He was a beautiful guy that made beautiful music and there shouldn’t be that much analysis of him. However, I do feel that there are parts that you are leaving out, perhaps because they were too personal?

EM: Yes, that’s true. There are some things that are nobody else’s business. However, I respectfully disagree with you about the fact that there are writers, like Mark Lewisohn, Ray Coleman and Scott Cardinal, who have written about John, spent years and years researching the material meticulously and for historical purposes published. And I’m grateful that they did. There’s nothing about my book that’s historical in nature. It’s personal in nature. It’s a different type of book.

I have great respect for the book David Sheff is about to release; the definitive authorized book on Yoko Ono. He’s been working on this for years. He’s interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people who have known Yoko from the very beginning. That’s an important tome. It’s an important part of the history. I’m personally just glad that there are a few of those out there. And I do agree with you, there are literally hundreds of books about John Lennon, and John and Yoko, written by people who never met them and are doing cut and paste jobs, and they’re rubbish. Scandal books, Albert Goldman type of books. The world probably could have lived without those. I try to stay in my lane. I did my best.

GM: Well, your best was wonderful. Knowing who you are and knowing what your history with the Lennon’s was, I expected nothing less when I got the book. I can tell you put your heart into this book.

EM: You’re a kind man.

GM: Thank you, Elliot. Going back to your work with modern-day celebrities, I’m guessing that this was all done by word of mouth? I saw something on Facebook with Britney Spears. It was her birthday, and you were detailing how you worked with her through all the trauma and everything., which just speaks to who you are as a confidant.

EM: I represented Paris Hilton as a media consultant probably close to a dozen years ago. And while I was representing Paris, who endorsed the book by the way. And her sister Nicky and Kathy Hilton have just endorsed the book as well with beautiful Instagram posts with them holding the book, et cetera. When I represented Paris and this was her party girl period, we would be out every night at one of the clubs. And part of her posse was Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears and Kim Kardashian who just came out with us every night. So I was exposed to these people on a hundred occasions. I was either the designated driver or the person who tried to keep the cameras off of their attention when they were behaving badly. And it was in that context that I got to know Britney. So I do these Facebook birthday recollections for [a few] reasons. You can do a fact check on this, but Britney Spears, who published her autobiography a year or so ago called The Woman In Me, is the second or third bestselling non-fiction author ever — her book sold more than two million copies worldwide. An unheard of number

So, the interest in her was obvious, but I also used these posts to make greater points to personalize it in a way that the reader would understand. You know, she was a girl in Louisiana, who came outta nowhere, bought the lottery ticket that put her in Hollywood. She was just a kid when all the fame and the fortune rolled all over her. And it’s a statement to all of us about how we handle any form of fame, not necessarily in show business. So yeah, in the past month or so, more people have wanted to speak with me. And you see my face on more things than you used to. I pay little attention to it. I have no ego attachment to it. I’ve always been in the business of promoting the stuff of others. I’m glad people like the book. I’m glad people buy the book. But a month or two months from now, there’ll be a crop of new books that will come up in America. There are six hundred books published every day. And as Bob Dylan once wrote, the first one now will later be last.

GM: Especially with the attention span that America has today, people forget things just so rapidly. It’s not like it used to be. Do you have a collection of memorabilia from working with all these artists?

EM: My Lennon memorabilia, my John and Yoko memorabilia, that stuff has to stay in a vault for obvious reasons. I have a vast collection of things that they gave me, and it’s a bit of a problem as to how to handle that while I’m still alive, because it doesn’t do me a great deal of good being in a bank vault, but that’s where it is.

GM: Yeah, that’s a hard question to answer. What do you do with that? You didn’t marry and have kids, there’s nobody to pass it on to. I don’t know your personal life. Maybe there is, maybe there are people, maybe Sean, maybe you wanna open a museum. Who knows?

EM: The plan is for all of it to go into my estate and somehow be used, I don’t know.

GM: Let’s not go there. Let’s not think about that.

EM: No, I’m still very healthy and I feel good. Just could use a little rest. As you can see from the blurriness in my eyes.

GM: Any last comments?

EM: Just tell the truth.

GM: Thank you so much for your time, Elliot!

 

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