Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Nov 10, 2023 11:09:11 GMT
On January 24, 1968, Jim Morrison, Pamela Courson, and her sister Judy attended a performance of Michael McClure’s play The Beard at the Warner Playhouse in Los Angeles.
"The Doors began recording their second album with Paul Rothschild and engineer Bruce Botnick at Sunset Sound in May 1967... Poet Michael McClure, deeply impressed by the visionary poetics of the Doors' album, visited during the sessions and exchanged phone numbers with Jim. The Doors then went back on the road, only returning to the studio later in the summer after it had upgraded to eight tracks from four.
Jim and Pamela went to see the L.A. production of McClure's play The Beard, in which Dennis Hopper, as Billy the Kid, tore off 'Jean Harlow's' panties and pretended to pleasure her with his mouth... Unlike in San Francisco, the local vice squad didn't intervene."
##By January the band had completed Strange Days which was already released##
"The way I got to know Jim was this. I had read a magazine piece about him that interested me. He was discussing the concept of evil in a way that made me feel we shared some insights.
So Mitchell Hamilburg, the literary agent, got us together while my play The Beard was playing in New York. Jim was, of course, interested in the theater, and Mitchell knew Jim because he knew Pam, so he introduced us at some bar in the Village and we started talking...
Later, we met in L.A. pretty often to talk and drink together... Jim and I talked poetry and drank in L.A. while The Beard was running there. He was interested in writing a play himself, and he liked mine. Then, a while later, I got a call from Elliott Kastner, a film producer based in London. His idea, which turned out to be unworkable, was to film The Beard with Jim playing the part of Billy the Kid. Jim was already in London, so I flew over. On the plane, I imagined that I saw Blake and Shelley floating through the air above the airport, and never having been to London before, it seemed only natural that they float in the air above the airport, so I landed and told Jim about that and we went out and started going to the Soho clubs, and it was quite a night. The bobbies busted us a couple of times for being drunk and disorderly..."
The film of The Beard with Jim Morrison never got made. The Warhol film version, starring Gerard Malanga and Mary Woronov, never got released. McClure recalls, "Attorney Melvin Belli sent an injunctive letter to Warhol warning him never to show his film of The Beard or toy with my property again."
"... we went to Los Angeles, where we lost Billie Dixon from the cast and worked with a young woman named Alexandra Hay, as Harlow. We had Dennis Hopper in it but there was a lot of hassle keeping Dennis because of his confrontations with the producer.
At last, we got Richie Bright again as The Kid, and had Alexandra Hay, a young starlet, as Harlow. But in the meantime The Beard had been done without my permission in [Fullerton] Orange County.
There must have been twenty newspapers in Orange County at that time, all extremely right wing, [which] ran banner headlines against the ‘filthy’ play that had been produced at Fullerton State College. The students had done an unauthorized production without my permission or knowledge.
Then the LA Times took it up, running two editorials against the play, while it was in rehearsal, while we were preparing for opening - two editorials against the play and other actions and threats from the FLO, the Forces of Law and Order. We knew we were going to have major trouble, and when the play opened it was arrested 14 performances in a row. The police would come in at the end of the play, walk backstage, arrest Jean Harlow and Billy the Kid, after they’d had a standing ovation from the audience, lead them out back onstage to the police car again, and the audience gave them a second standing ovation before they went off overnight to the jail, where we were being bailed out by a liberal, moneyed person. Then the theater was burned down by vandalism and we went to another theater. Eventually the play was found not guilty of obscenity..."
Although Jim Morrison did attend the L.A. production, McClure had actually met Morrison in New York originally. At one point during their friendship, a film version of the play starring Morrison was considered.
"The Doors began recording their second album with Paul Rothschild and engineer Bruce Botnick at Sunset Sound in May 1967... Poet Michael McClure, deeply impressed by the visionary poetics of the Doors' album, visited during the sessions and exchanged phone numbers with Jim. The Doors then went back on the road, only returning to the studio later in the summer after it had upgraded to eight tracks from four.
Jim and Pamela went to see the L.A. production of McClure's play The Beard, in which Dennis Hopper, as Billy the Kid, tore off 'Jean Harlow's' panties and pretended to pleasure her with his mouth... Unlike in San Francisco, the local vice squad didn't intervene."
##By January the band had completed Strange Days which was already released##
"The way I got to know Jim was this. I had read a magazine piece about him that interested me. He was discussing the concept of evil in a way that made me feel we shared some insights.
So Mitchell Hamilburg, the literary agent, got us together while my play The Beard was playing in New York. Jim was, of course, interested in the theater, and Mitchell knew Jim because he knew Pam, so he introduced us at some bar in the Village and we started talking...
Later, we met in L.A. pretty often to talk and drink together... Jim and I talked poetry and drank in L.A. while The Beard was running there. He was interested in writing a play himself, and he liked mine. Then, a while later, I got a call from Elliott Kastner, a film producer based in London. His idea, which turned out to be unworkable, was to film The Beard with Jim playing the part of Billy the Kid. Jim was already in London, so I flew over. On the plane, I imagined that I saw Blake and Shelley floating through the air above the airport, and never having been to London before, it seemed only natural that they float in the air above the airport, so I landed and told Jim about that and we went out and started going to the Soho clubs, and it was quite a night. The bobbies busted us a couple of times for being drunk and disorderly..."
The film of The Beard with Jim Morrison never got made. The Warhol film version, starring Gerard Malanga and Mary Woronov, never got released. McClure recalls, "Attorney Melvin Belli sent an injunctive letter to Warhol warning him never to show his film of The Beard or toy with my property again."
"... we went to Los Angeles, where we lost Billie Dixon from the cast and worked with a young woman named Alexandra Hay, as Harlow. We had Dennis Hopper in it but there was a lot of hassle keeping Dennis because of his confrontations with the producer.
At last, we got Richie Bright again as The Kid, and had Alexandra Hay, a young starlet, as Harlow. But in the meantime The Beard had been done without my permission in [Fullerton] Orange County.
There must have been twenty newspapers in Orange County at that time, all extremely right wing, [which] ran banner headlines against the ‘filthy’ play that had been produced at Fullerton State College. The students had done an unauthorized production without my permission or knowledge.
Then the LA Times took it up, running two editorials against the play, while it was in rehearsal, while we were preparing for opening - two editorials against the play and other actions and threats from the FLO, the Forces of Law and Order. We knew we were going to have major trouble, and when the play opened it was arrested 14 performances in a row. The police would come in at the end of the play, walk backstage, arrest Jean Harlow and Billy the Kid, after they’d had a standing ovation from the audience, lead them out back onstage to the police car again, and the audience gave them a second standing ovation before they went off overnight to the jail, where we were being bailed out by a liberal, moneyed person. Then the theater was burned down by vandalism and we went to another theater. Eventually the play was found not guilty of obscenity..."
Although Jim Morrison did attend the L.A. production, McClure had actually met Morrison in New York originally. At one point during their friendship, a film version of the play starring Morrison was considered.