Mae Fang Li Pang will turn 72 in October, but was only a teenager when she boldly entered Apple’s New York office, lied about being able to type, and secured a job at the Beatles multimedia company. She will soon be known for her close relationship with the group, as her 18-month public relationship with John Lennon in the mid-70s is still a big attraction for her fans after 50 years.
“Music was my passion,” says the Spanish-born Harlem-born author and subject of an upcoming documentary, “The Last Weekend: A Love Story,” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 10 for a sell-out show. Something i love I had no real ability, “he admits, making his debut at Apple,” but it was easy to answer the phone. My mother used to say, ‘You have a mouth. You speak english Go for it. ‘”
She is still going for it with her involvement in a new documentary, which depicts the tumultuous relationship between 22-year-old Pang and John Lennon that began when Yoko Ono tried to establish them during their marital turmoil. The couple traveled to Los Angeles with their friends Alice Cooper, Harry Nielsen, Ringo Starr, Keith Moon and Mickey Dolens to collectively become known as “The Last Weekend” for the intoxicated part of the former Beatles known as the Hollywood Vampire. Rainbow at Sunset Blvd and up on the grill. Next to Roxy.
Pyongyang, whom Ono himself fired from Apple’s job to serve as his and Lennon’s personal assistant, insisted that the phrase “lost weekend” did not do justice to the couple’s one-and-a-half-year relationship before Lennon ran away.
“Yeah, Yoko contacted me, and I thought it was crazy,” she says of Lennon’s boyfriend. “I told him I had no interest. They had problems with their marriage; they weren’t really talking to each other. But John decided to go to LA easily and asked me to go with him. After we left, Yoko didn’t even know we were gone.”
Although Mele has written a couple of books about her relationship with Lennon – including 1983’s “Loving Zone: The Untold Story” and 2008’s “Instructive Karma: Photographs by John Lennon” – she was reluctant to participate in the documentary, eventually agreeing. Work with three producer-directors on Eve Brandstein (known as the casting director for “This Is Spinal Tap”), Richard Kaufman (“Real Life: The Musical”) and Stuart Samuels (documents in the Bob Marley and Midnight movies). .
“People are taking my story and talking about my life as if they know everything about me, and they don’t know,” she says. “I decided it was time to reclaim my own history. This is my version. I thought, if there is to be a movie about my life, I have to get involved. Who could tell a story better than me? I lived it. These are my memories. No one has ever experienced me like this. Why should I let anyone else talk to John about my time? He understands best. Be aware that people are going to talk about you and they are going to lie about it. ‘
Pang was born to a hardworking mother who opened her own business, OK Laundry, on the corner of 124th Street and Amsterdam, not far from where she lived, before being forced to leave her tenement housing for the newly constructed George Washington projects on 97th Street. Third Eve. His mother sent him to a nearby Catholic school in St. Francis, where James Cagney once served as an altar boy. The film shows him and Lennon decades later attending the AFI Life Achievement Awards ceremony in honor of Cagney in Los Angeles, where the one-time Beetle and Mick Jugger were mixed between the likes of Hollywood icons John Wayne, Steve McQueen, May West, Carrie Grant. Kirk Douglas, then-Governor Ronald Reagan and George Burns.
“At one point, George turned to me and said, ‘May, this is the third party we’ve been to this week … people are starting to talk about us.’ He was such a lovely man. John loved film stars. He grew up in American films.
Rejected by her strict father, who still imagined herself to be the “king of the bass” in China, Mele considered herself subject to the ancient cultural tradition of sons being superior to daughters. But at the urging of his mother, who originally supported the family in his cleaning business, Pang found himself working for the Beatles.
“I was definitely innocent,” says Pang, who looks wider and a little more naive in the footage. “It simply came to our notice then. This happened while I was working with a famous rockstar. But I was eager to learn the music business. It was music that took me where I was. I studied liner notes to learn about songwriters and producers. The song moved me. I once told Dick Clark that ‘American Bandstand’ had helped me as a child in a Chinese family, which was not particularly welcome. Music took me to the next level. ”
Like the rest of her Boomer generation, Pang fell in love with the Beatles on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” but initially her favorite was Ringo, not Fab Zone. “Her blue eyes,” she laughs. As a grown-up fan of the Philadelphia Sound – he cites singers like Bobby Rydell and Fabian – as well as the middle boys, she says the shock of seeing these British moptops gave way to pure affection.
“I was surprised when they started singing ‘She loves you,'” says Pang.
The romance between the two began shortly before they left for Los Angeles in 1972.
May says, “Yoko started pushing, but I waited for John to take the first step.” That was not what I wanted. Later, I say to him, ‘Where is it going?’ And he said, ‘I don’t know. I’m tired of being pushed around. And who knows? I’m just going for it. ‘ She was unhappy with her marriage, and it made life difficult for everyone around her. “
Mele defended herself when asked by reporters in the past if she had abused her short relationship with Lenin, and admitted that she was not proud to be another woman.
She says, “I felt bad, and I told Jon.” Yoko called 10-15 times a day to find out what was going on. I knew little, he betrayed her all at once. .
“I wanted to treat her like a regular person. I don’t want to be her mother, but I worked as her secretary, her personal assistant. I answer her calls. Once we were together, I worked for her. But I told her daily. I wanted to help with the stuff. I wanted it to be just me and him. “
The story of the film is told, in part, through animation and a period soundtrack – put together by veteran music supervisor Howard Parr – including images made of Lennon’s own artistic squiggles, appearing in a number of handwritten notes from him until May. In the movie
“I thought the animation was fantastic, very clever,” says Pang. “I was also surprised to see some footage. When people asked for my autograph, I would tell them, ‘You don’t want me … you want me. His. ‘ One star is enough for any family.
Pang emphasized the notorious Trobadour incidents – where John was thrown out of a prestigious Hollywood club for healing the Smooders Brothers and then wearing a sanitary napkin over his head – were inconsistent with Lennon’s stay in Los Angeles, where he was relentlessly beaten by a sidekick. Harry Nielsen in particular.
“John had been drinking, but looking back he was overwhelmed,” says Pang. “The press keeps repeating the same stories over and over again.”
May finally admits to falling for Lennon. When asked if he’s a good lover, Cheshire cat smiles. “What do you think?”
The couple was forced to return to New York in February 1974 to meet with Lenin’s lawyers about their immigration status in the United States.
Yoko told Jon that he wanted to divorce her and ordered her to sign the documents in his lawyer’s office. When Jon came home, he claimed, “I will be a free man in six months.”
Ono said Lennon knew how to stop smoking through hypnosis. Pang recalls that he went to see her, promising to return to her E. 52nd Street apartment and take her to dinner. He and Lennon were planning to meet Paul and Linda McCartney in New Orleans, where the couple was recording a new album.
“I had a strange feeling, a premonition that something was not going in the right direction,” she said. Lennon never returned that night, instead returning to his Dakota apartment with Ono to raise a five-year-old son and his son Sean until his assassination in December 1980.
“I knew, in that moment, if John and I had gone to see Paul and Linda, there would have been new music. She asked me if I thought it would be a good idea for her to rewrite with Paul. What do you think I said?”
After separating from Lennon, Pang married David Bowie producer Tony Visconti from 1989 to 2000, with whom the two children are now in their early 30s. Daughter Lana Nest is the design director of fragrances and candles, while son Sebastian is the consultant.
With a flick of purple hair, May Pang looks like she did then, and looking back, she remembers the “lost weekend” but looks lost. John is proud to be reunited with his son Julian – who speaks brilliantly of Mayo in his on-camera interviews – and his ex-wife Cynthia, who died in 2015. She also remembers the good times for Lennon’s career. Her first solo single was “Hatever Gets You Through the Night” in collaboration with Elton John; She recalls that John was inspired by the discourse of the wonderful TV preacher Reverend Ike. That hit single inspired Lennon’s chart-topping album “Walls and Bridges” and Lennon appeared at the first live concert in years to present a new song with his friends and co-authors.
“Let’s put it this way. My time with John may have been shorter, but everything was memorable at the time,” she says. “I was there when he jammed with Paul for the last time … I played mane with Mal Evans. We saw the UFO together.”
Looking back on Lennon’s death 42 years ago, Mele believes Lennon, now 81, would have continued to write songs if she had survived. He couldn’t stop. He was such an excellent writer. Only at that level did it flow out of him. He would be very vocal about what was happening in the world. He was told everything, ‘Burmese … what happened to everyone?’ I miss those conversations. ”
And what is she doing with all those memories, doodles, drawings and pictures that Lennon left behind?
“They are all in the safety deposit box and are very valuable to me,” says Pang. “Maybe not to anyone else. Maybe I’ll hand them over to my kids, but I appreciate it all. The first boy I ever had was John Lennon … Imagine that.
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