Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Michelle Phillips (Part 1)

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

In the first part of a 2-part episode, singer, actress and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Michelle Phillips looks back on her seven decades in the entertainment business and regales Gilbert and Frank with tales of the wild days and crazy nights of The Mamas and the Papas, one of the most successful, influential (and short-lived) groups in pop music history. Also in this episode: Cass Elliot beats the rap, Marshall Brickman co-writes "Annie Hall," Michelle dates Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson and The Mamas and the Papas meet the Fab Four. PLUS: "Shampoo"! The genius of Lou Adler! The Halifax Three! Reginald Van Gleason! And Michelle discusses the stories behind "Creeque Alley," "Go Where You Wanna Go" and "I Saw Her Again"! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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With Circle K's Summer Road Trip game, you can win over a million delicious instant prizes and a grand prize of $25,000. Play at games.circlek.com or at participating Circle K stores. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. Our guest this week is a songwriter, TV and film actor, a Grammy-winning vocalist, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and a founding member of one of the most successful and influential and volatile groups in the history of popular music from the years 1965 to 1968, she and her famous mates, John Phillips, Cass Elliott, and Denny Doherty, recorded hit after hit, including Monday Monday, Words of Love, I Saw Her Again, 1230, Go Where You Wanna Go, and one of the most defining anthems of the folk rock era, California Dreaming, a song that she also co-wrote. As an actress, she's appeared in feature films like Valentino, Dillinger, Savage Harvest, Let It Ride, Bloodline, and notable TV series like The Love Boat, Murder, She Wrote, Hotel, Star Trek, The Next Generation,

Spin City, Seventh Heaven, and the scheming Anne Matheson Sumner on the hit drama Knot's Landing, which scored her an award as Best Villainous from Soap Opera Digest. In 1998, she was inducted along with her surviving bandmates into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for their numerous contributions to the music industry. the 1960s music revolution, 2018's Echo in the Canyon, and 2020's two-part docu-series, Laurel Canyon. She's also the author of a terrific memoir, and one you can still find, 1986's California Dreamin', the true story of the Mamas and the Papas. Frank and I are excited and flattered that she agreed to sit and chat with us. So please welcome to the show a pop culture icon and a woman who once won 17 straight passes

at a San Juan casino craps table, paying for the group's flight home to New York when they were down to their last dollar. The great Michelle Phillips. Yay. Thank you. I'm so impressed. I love to have it condensed like that. You know, it's like, yes. Now, my first question, and I don't know if this is urban legend, did any of the mamas and the papas ever use drugs? Oh, no. No. Heaven forbid. You mean things like LSD and pot and psilocybin and amphetamines?

No. And we have to count the whiskey in the studio. That was in the contract, actually. Yeah, right. actually yeah right that we didn't have to show up at the studio unless there was a case of crown royal and a case of marlboro reds you know we we all smoked like you know little chimneys and uh and we drank copiously. And we all liked, you know, the great thing was we all liked Marlboros, and we all liked Crown Royal. That's nice, so you could share. Yeah, we could share.

It kept it simple. Now, do you feel that the drinking and drugs, on special occasions, of course, do you feel the drinking and drugs helped your music any? I think that when we behaved badly, we had much more to write about. By the time we, you know, stopped, you know, sleeping with each other, there was nothing more to write about. It became a problem, you know, trying to write about things you didn't know. So, you know, my affairs always,

always contributed a lot to, you know, our material. Well, two of the biggest hits. Go Where You Want to Go and I Saw Her Again. Right. I saw her. I saw her again. And now that it's true, I know. Just bring her along.

It's just not right. I know that I won't let it. I've been way over my head. About you. Yeah. And it seems like the mamas and the papas, it was like a French bedroom farce with who is sleeping with who and who wants to sleep with who. Well, Cass was, I'm going to blame this all on Cass. She was mad for Denny. And that's the only reason that she was even hanging out with us. Because Denny and John and I were in a folk group together, the New Journeymen

and I remember it was January 9th 1965 when we knew that this girl existed because she had been in the mugwumps with Denny

before but we'd never met her. So she was coming over to our apartment in the East Village that night, and so about an hour before she arrived, there was this dealer. A dealer. A dealer. Okay. And he was going to come over and bring us some pot, which he did.

And then he kind of held out his hand, and he had these little sugar cubes in his hand, and he said, want to try something new? It's called LSD25 and it's really great. And John, without giving it a second thought, just picked up a cube and threw it in his mouth.

And he says, here Mitch, have one. So I took it and Denny took his and I went around. I went to the pharmacy I came back I was going up and down the stairs and and we were waiting for Cass and I I I heard the doorbell ring and I thought well there she is yeah so as I passed, I said, I don't know about you guys, but this drug does nothing for me.

At which point I opened the door and it was like a kaleidoscope. There was Cass Elliott in a pink Angora sweater, a white pleated skirt, white go-go boots, lashes out to here, and her hair in a flip.

And I said, you know, don't complain yet, guys. I think I've got it. and uh i just said uh cass we just took this drug lsd 25 we have an extra cube you want one she said sure wow so uh that was such an interesting evening i mean the first time you ever took LSD and you met Cass Elliott. And I mean, I just thought she was so fabulous. You described it as an instant romance in the book, an instant connection. Yeah, I just adored her. And she told me that she was madly in love with Denny. And that was actually the first time I ever looked at him like that. And I looked at him and I thought, yeah, he's cute. Don't you say, Michelle, that it's inevitable with a band, especially a band with men and women being so closely knit,

spending all their time together. Obviously, we saw it in Fleetwood Mac and Jefferson Airplane. And Jefferson Airplane. Yeah, and you said it has to happen in a way. Yeah. It's unavoidable. There's something about singing together and creating together. together and creating together.

And you have to look at that person straight in the eye when you're singing so that you make sure that you're blending together and you're both singing the same lyric. And it's inevitable. I mean, you, you, you get into somebody's heart and soul when, when, uh, you're creating. And then when you hear it back, you know, when they play it back, it's, it's like you fall in love with what you're creating. And at the same time, you fall in love with the people who are creating it with you. That's interesting.

Unfortunately, it was my husband. Yes. There was a story that the mamas and the papas said, let's go someplace. And I think you had like a globe or something. It was, it was actually a map that was on the, uh,

uh, wall, a great big map of the world. And they, they put, this was the, the same night that the LSD night. And they put,

uh, uh, a scarf around my eyes and they turned me around and I had a dart. And they put me in front of the map and they said, just throw the dart. And that's where we're going.

And so the dart kind of landed right in the middle of the Atlantic. And Denny kind of looked at it and he went over and he picked out the dart kind of landed right in the middle of the Atlantic. And Denny kind of looked at it. And he went over and he picked out the dart. And he hopped it over, dot, dot, dot, dot, over to the Virgin Islands. And he says, well, that's where we're going, the Virgin Islands. And that's where we were headed for in less than two weeks.

And how much acid did you bring to the Virgin Islands? Well, didn't Cass Elliott show up with the giant? She showed up with a huge bottle of liquid LSD. Right. And, you know, we were camping out on St. John. And we were just, John and, well, there was John and me and then my sister and her boy from Peter Palafian and the doctor, Eric Hord, with his girlfriend, Nadine. And we had been there for a few weeks just drinking. You know, this guy would come by he had a uh

uh a cooler that was you know full of ice and cold coconuts and he would take his machete and he would chop the top off the coconut and then he'd take a bottle of rum and pour like half a glass of rum in it. And so that was breakfast. Breakfast was rum out of a coconut. These were good times. It was really an amazing time. You know, we would scuba dive, and, you know, you just, there's a beautiful reef there, and you would just swim with the fishes, and, you know, yellow and green and blue,

and then one day we're just all lying around, and we see this little pink dot at the end of the beach and we're all kind of staring at it and saying, what's that? And it's coming towards us and all of a sudden Denny jumps up and he says, oh my God, it's Cass! He goes running down the beach and he tackles her the sand and and uh uh she she came with this huge bottle of LSD so that took care of that problem and uh And we stayed there at the camp for a couple of months. And then we had to go to Charlotte Amelie because, well, we'd just run out of money. And then came the American Express card.

Well, we were using the American Express card on St. John. There was a little grocer. And how this little grocer had an American Express card machine, I don't know. But he did. I don't know, but he did. And so then we went to Duffy's, and he had like a little tiny hotel. The hotel had about eight rooms in it. And we just invaded Duffy's and he he adored us and and and Cass would not you know she she would not sing with us I mean he had a little stage built for us and so John

and Denny and I would get up and sing on stage and Peter Palafian was playing the drums and Eric Hord was playing lead guitar and John was playing his guitar and I was playing tambourine and

Cass was effectively a singing waitress yeah because she wouldn't get up and sing with us because she told John that she would never let anybody make that distinction between us. And she would just not do that. So she would sing the fourth part from the floor. Sounded great. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's

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please go to ConnixOntario.ca. How did you... You were stuck in the Virgin Islands. So how did you get home? Well, the first plane that left Charlotte Amelie for San Juan took our bad check. But once we got to San Juan, they would not, I think it was TWA or Pan Am, would not take our bad check to get to New York. bad check to get to New York. So John just said, well, we had a little powwow

and he said, how much money do we have? And I said, John, we only have $27.18. He said, well, there's only one thing to do with it. I said, what? What do we do with it? He says, we're going to go to the casino.

Unbelievable. It just made perfect sense. Which would be like the dumbest thing you could do at that point. I mean, I wanted to have a little dinner, at least a hamburger or something, you know. Why were you the one chosen to throw the dice michelle of of of the four of you and you that you had not played craps to that point i'm assuming never right i i didn't know how to play the game right but i knew how to throw dice you just love this so you're down to your last 27 bucks you hit the craps table and then and what happened and we alluded to in the intro and then

i just keep winning over and over and over again and finally i threw 17 straight passes and we we were soaked in money and we went back to the airport and and still made the flight that we had originally wanted to make and uh it was just you know beginner's luck and um uh you know we i believe we all went back first class that's a great story yeah. I had another experience like that many, many years later when I was taught how to play Chimamanda Fair. And I started with $100. And three days later, I left the casino at $25,000. Wow.

Yeah. And I hardly knew what I was doing. That's impressive Michelle yeah that's impressive I think that the reason I was the second time it happened was whenever I got tired

I would go back to the suite and take a nap. And then I would curl my hair a little bit and put on a fresh little cocktail dress and go down the stairs. And all my friends would be sweating over the table, you know, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I say, oh, the shoe's mine? Right. Okay. And the same thing happened. I mean, three days later, they came to get me at the table,

and they said, come on, the plane's ready. We're all ready to go. And I had exactly $25,000. Wow, you got a winning touch. Yeah. I had exactly $25,000. Wow, you got a winning touch. Yeah, but I can only say, don't gamble when you're tired. Gilbert, do you know how to throw dice? Yeah, I don't know how to win. And I don't really have the strength to throw dice.

And I don't really have the strength to throw dice. Michelle, talk about how Cass was an influence, not only on your singing, but you said in your memoir that you'd never had a friend like that. You'd never known a woman that strong-willed and that independent in a way. Well, you know, I was pretty young, too. And I had turned 17 two weeks before I met John. And so I just took that as a sign that I was old enough to break up his marriage and, you know, take off with her husband. and, you know, take off with her husband.

You're very frank about that in the book, too. You say, had I been a person who was naturally monogamous and not such a free spirit, none of this trouble would have happened, but I was a troublemaker. Yeah, I was. But, you know, John contributed to the trouble as well. I'm sure. John was nine years older than me.

So, than I. Was some of it rebelliousness? Was some of it rebelliousness against him trying to control you? Or was it just that you were that age and you felt the need to explore and be free? Well, you know, these situations kept coming up. I mean, I did have an affair with uh lovely rusts you know i i was you know kind of boy crazy i think when i was still 17 18 19 i was just a kid and and um and these guys that I met were all talented and beautiful and headed for success. And I remember when Russ played me a demo and he said, I want you to hear this song.

We're producing it. And he played me Anyone Who Had a Heart. Oh, wow. And I thought, wow, this guy's pretty smart. And he was very handsome and very flirtatious. handsome and very flirtatious and you know and and Danny when Danny and I were in the Virgin Islands I mean nothing could start an affair faster than you know sitting under the coconut tree you know drinking you know drinking coconut and rum and

doing the little dab of LSD every now and then. And singing together. And we were just singing all the time. And we, you know, like the campfires.

It was heaven on earth. It sounds it. You said in some interview that you felt when you were poor, when the whole band was poor and struggling, that you were your most creative. Yes, I think so. Because once the money started pouring in, we weren't living together anymore. When we were poor, we were together, and so a lot could happen.

once we got rich, everyone had their own house, and we would get together for rehearsal. So you stopped working collaboratively. Yeah. When the success came in and everybody was on their own. Yeah. And then at that point, and especially after, you know, it became clear that Denny and I had some interest in each other, Cass just was heartbroken. and and she felt like i had really stabbed her in the back and that denny had stabbed her in the back because she really thought that she was gonna you know she used to say you know i'm on a diet and when i lose the weight he's mine he's all mine And they had the funniest relationship.

They were like an old married couple who would sit around, you know, drinking, you know, having a cocktail and sitting on the couch together and they'd have their, you know, arms around each other and they would laugh and tell jokes and it uh they were really um they were very suited for each other in many ways you know but uh that was not to be yeah yeah it was part of the problem too that that, too, that you didn't have time.

The record company didn't give John time to write, to come up with new material. All they wanted— A lot of the interns. More, more material. More and more. More and more material. And as we all agreed at one point, that if they had been really smart, they would have put us right back on a plane to the Virgin Islands and said, you know, go make some more trouble between yourselves. Right.

Come back with 10 new songs. And there was a time Mama Cass was arrested. Oh, that was in England. Yeah, that was as we were getting off the QE2. But the whole thing was ridiculous because they arrested her for stealing a key, a hotel key, and a blanket. Now, you know that that's not why they were arresting Cass Elliott. Yeah, everybody steals. I mean, I should be in prison now.

You'd be getting the electric chair, Gilbert. If stealing from a hotel was a crime. Yeah. Well, they were actually looking for a guy named Pick. I won't give you his last name because we can, you know. But he was money laundering and dealing, and they were looking for him, and knew that that uh he was a boyfriend of cass's so they thought that they could find you know if they got her in jail they can uh you know that they would find him but um we had to go to her hearing the following day because she spent the night in jail. And when the judge heard what the charges were, he just, what? And he says, you know, this is ridiculous.

He says, Miss Elliott, you leave this court with no stain on your character. And he dismissed the charges and that was that. But it ruined our, we were going to play Albert Hall and then we were going to go to Paris and play the Olympia. Is that what it's called? I think so. So there were cancellations because... Yeah, and so it was all canceled. That's what the writing was on the wall by this point, though, for the end of the group.

Yeah. Wouldn't you say? Yeah, it was. for the end of the group. Yeah. Wouldn't you say? Yeah, it was. But before we left New York,

we got all this pot before we got on the ship. And once we were on the ship... It's a growling dog. Is that Michelle's dog? Yeah, that's Lulu. Okay. Lulu, quiet. Lulu. Okay. Lulu. Quiet. There you go.

Lulu wants to be part of the show. Yeah. How did Cass make you a better singer, Michelle? Because we pointed, you didn't have any designs on being a professional singer. You were a model when John asked you to join the trio. Yeah. Can we just stop this for a minute while I kill

the dog? Go ahead. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast, but first, a word from our sponsor. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor. Now, getting back to doing drugs, the mamas and the papas did... Funny you should mention it.

I'm having a nice glass of red wine right now. So is Gilbert. I have a red wine in my coffee cup. You know. I'm like Jackie Gleason. Once you start this thing, it never ends. Yeah.

Oh, that's good coffee. Yeah. Nice. He's Reggie Van Gleason now. Now, the mamas and the papas would get stoned with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. At various times. They went to London when they threw me out of the group. They went to London and they met the Beatles without me.

In 66. In 66. In 66. Right. I have never cried so hard in my life that they would hate me so much that they would get on a plane and fly to London and meet the Beatles without me. So I did not get to meet, I did not ever get to meet John. I met Paul for about two minutes. I like George a lot, and I have met Ringo just kind of fleetingly. But that was really mean, you know, because that was something that we dreamed about doing. You reprinted the letter of your dismissal in the book. Yeah, it's pretty brutal.

It is brutal. And, you know, your reaction to it was also very interesting. And yet the Jill Gibson experiment, the Jill Gibson replacement, did not work out. And you came back. Well, also, it didn't help that they were trying to pass her off as me. Yes. And were fans yelling, where's Michelle?

Yes. Yeah. It was embarrassing. Uncomfortable. It was very embarrassing for the group, but it was very embarrassing for Jill. Yeah. I mean, they could have said, you know, we want to introduce you to Mama Jill. And Mama Michelle could not make it.

You know, they could have slid into it a little bit. And she looked a lot like me, too. In the book, there's the picture of they superimposed her on the picture. They superimposed her over me. And that was going to be the album. I mean, it was pretty cruel. You know, they did a lot of cruel things. But then again, I was pretty cruel. You know, they did a lot of cruel things. But then again, I was no angel. And why did they fire you?

Because John and I had separated. And he and Denny were living up in Laurel Canyon on Woods Drive. And John, but we were still working together. So I was living in Laurel Canyon on Lookout Mountain. And Denny was living on Appian Way. And Cass was living on Stanley Hills. So we were all within, I don't know, three or four blocks of each other. So we were still working together.

We would do concerts and I'd go my way and John would go his way. And John started seeing Ann Marshall, a beautiful model. The daughter of a famous actor. Herbert Marshall. Herbert Marshall. Right. And I started a little quiet affair with Gene Clark. From the birds.

Yeah. Right. And he, oh, I loved Gene. He was great. He lived on Stanley Hills too, right down the street from Cass. So it was all kind of very close, incestuous in a way, you know.

And Gene told me one day that he had never seen us in concert. He knew we were going to do Melody Land. And he said, you think you can get me a couple of tickets to go? And I said, sure. So I called the office and I said, you know, hold two tickets for Gene Clark. I didn't give it another thought until reality hit. We came out and I did not realize that it was theater in the round. did not realize that it was theater in the round and i did not realize that gene clark was going to be sitting in the front row in a red leather jacket and a grin from here to here and

and cass saw it first and to save my life she grabbed my hand and she said, come with me. And she went, she went right in front of Gene so that the boys could not see him. And, uh, and we got pretty comfortable, you know, singing because pretty soon we were, pretty comfortable you know singing because pretty soon we were Cass and I were both singing to Jean and can I can I use a bad word here of course okay who shows this all of a sudden we're singing we're in the middle of a sudden, we're singing, we're in the middle of a song, and we hear John say, get the fuck over here! And he had turned around and had seen what was going on. Right. It was very hard to miss Gene Clark.

Very, very hard. And he had kind of heard that I was seeing Gene, but nothing was more insulting than me bringing Gene to the concert. He thought you were flaunting it, flaunting the affair. Yeah. Embarrassing him. Right. And Marshall was there, too, in the front row in her little Rudy Gernreich. Well, that that leads to an awkward.

I want to tell you, Michelle, feel free to use as many dirty words as you can. OK. You asked for it. That's the kind of show it is. OK. This is an awkward question, Michelle, that I've always wanted to ask you. know Denny was in the affair too and why why was the what then maybe this is the old double standard or the patriarchy why was the woman you in this case the one punished well you see I didn't really get rid of Denny. I see.

Denny was the tenor. And, you know. I mean, but it looks to the outside world like they just went off and wrote a song about it. Well, they did that day. That day. They, you know, and I remember John. And after John found out about it, he actually said to me, he said, you know, you can do a lot of things to be Mitch, but you don't fuck my tenor. That's a great line.

I know. You don't make this kind of stuff up, really. And I just looked at him like, you don't fuck my tenor? I mean, so he was willing, in a way, to forgive that. And he could go off and have his affairs, but he really did feel that I was flaunting Gene Clark. And Gene Clark was a big star. And that was like a real slap in the face to him.

So it was my birthday. It was my 23rd birthday. I mean, I came off that stage and ran to my car because I had driven out to Anaheim. And I got into the car and I was just about ready to get out of there when John came running up and he opened the door and he looked at me and he said, you're fired. You're fired. You understand that? And I said, John, I don't really think you have the authority to do that. He said, really? You want to bet? And I kept thinking in the back of my mind, he can't do that. He can't really fire me. But a couple of days went by and I got a call from Abe Semmer, our attorney. And he said something like, if you're wondering about the silence, they've all left.

They're in London. And that's when I started to realize that I was screwed. I was totally screwed. And then Denny called me a couple of nights later, and he said, you know, he was drunk out of his mind. And he said, Mitch, I've tried to talk to them, but there's nothing I can do, you know. We're here with Jill, and she's rehearsing with us.

He says, I said, you're there with Jill? Lou's Jill? Yeah. And so there they were. Lou Adler's girlfriend. For our listeners who don't know that. Yeah. Yeah.

And I, you know, there was this plaintive wail in Laurel Canyon. And then I got, then the messenger arrived with the letter a couple of days after that. And it pretty much said, you know, thanks a lot. You're fired. We don't want to sing with you anymore. Don't call yourself mama. Whatever. They didn't say that.

But basically. That had to hurt. I didn't have a friend. Yeah. It hurt. And I didn't have a friend in the world. It hurt. And I didn't have a friend in the world.

I mean, my best friend, my lover, my husband, my agent, my label, my lawyer, you know, they were all gone. And then when I got this letter, it was signed by John and Cass and Denny. But I will say that Abe, when I went to see him, I said, Abe, what do I do? And he said, Michelle, I'm the attorney for the Mamas and the Papas,

and you are no longer in the Mamas and the Papas. So I can't really, you know, tell you what you can do. He said, but I will tell you this, that letter you got, it's not a legal document. Don't worry. That's interesting. He said, go get a lawyer and take that letter with you. And I've always really loved Abe for that and respected him for trying to help. I mean, he was in a position also, you know. in a position also, you know, where... Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And how did you eventually get back to the Mommies and the Pompies? A lot of groveling and pleading and begging and crying. And... But they went off to Forest Hills to do their first show. And Jill was a fine singer. I mean, she didn't have a problem learning the parts to a whole concert in the small amount of time that she had to do that. And she didn't sing as flat as I did.

Tell, I started to ask you before about your singing and that you never, and it's very clear in the book that you really never set out to be a singer. No. And there's, obviously it's a pivotal moment. You had been modeling never set out to be a singer. No. Obviously, it's a pivotal moment. You had been modeling. You had been making a nice living modeling. And then John said, give it up and become part of this trio.

And this is even before Denny comes into the picture. So at this point, it's Marshall Brickman. And if our listeners know that name, he went on to co-write Sleeper and Annie Hall with Woody Allen and write for the Dick Cavett, become a director. And produce the Jersey Boys. And the Jersey Boys on Broadway. Yeah, he wrote the book for the Jersey Boys. And he's such a rich man now.

There's an interesting interview. There's an article in Vanity Fair not long ago, and Marshall was talking about, you know, I don't know why he had to get out of there. He told you guys, I want to be a writer. I'm following a different muse. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, the truth is there wasn't really a singer among us. Right.

He was playing the banjo. He was playing great banjo, and he plays beautiful guitar. He was playing great banjo and he plays beautiful guitar. And, you know, he sang okay, but we didn't have a Denny. You know, we didn't have someone who could just stop you in your tracks, you know, listening to him sing. And he said, no, I want to go to New York and start writing. And we were going, yeah, right.

Good luck. And then we put, then John heard that the Halifax Three had broken up. Right, that was Denny's group. And that was Denny's group. And so we put the word out that we were looking for Denny Doherty. And he finally called and we said, come on over, we want to sing and see if we sound know, sound good together.

And that's how you became a singer essentially, singing in the house. Well With them. Yeah, but I was already I had already been trained a little bit by John and I

also studied with, he had me studying with Judy Davis in San Francisco and also with Bert Knapp in New York John, and I'd also studied with you. He had me studying with Judy Davis in San Francisco. Oh, yes, that's right. And also with Burt Knapp in New York. And, you know, John always said, you know, anybody can sing. I said, what do you mean anybody can sing? He says, all it is is training. It's like anything else. You you know you learn how to do it

and um in my case certainly that that did i had a terrible intonation problem and uh but you know you you learn if you go to classes and, you know, you learn how to sing and you learn how to blend with, you know, then it works out. But I started singing with Marshall and John. And then when Marshall decided to go back to New York and start writing, we found Denny. And he came over. And we were singing with Denny. We did the Shoreham Hotel. We opened for Bill Crosby.

Just the three of you now, you, John, and Denny. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A star is born. You are very funny, by the way. In this Vanity Fair article, you had a very funny line because Marshall Brickman was talking about the complicated energy of you and John together. The storm that was you and John. And he says when he came to the house, there were drugs, but not for me.

And then he says, there was sex, but not for me. And then you said, do you remember what you said? Yes, I do. I said, because he didn't stick around long enough. He said he left the group too early. Very funny line. Can I bring up

two romances with two very famous people? You had a romance with Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson. Yeah. Why not? Gilbert did, too. Full disclosure. Gilbert did too. Full disclosure.

You know, I talked to Warren yesterday. It was his birthday. And we talk a couple of times a year. It's all very friendly. But it was hell. It was hell it was hell both with Jack and with Warren for very different reasons Jack

Jack had a hair trigger temper and just felt that he could talk to anybody in any way he felt like he wanted. You know, he'd scream at you like, where's my fucking comb? You go, gee, I don't know. Wow.

It's amazing. I wonder. And then it was, you know, know he where are my keys jack i really have no idea but you know let's you know let's go look around the house and see if you can find him where's my damn sunglasses? And I said, Jack, listen, someday I'm going to just pick up my purse and walk out the door with my daughter and that will be the end of our relationship.

And you will not have the slightest idea why I got up and left and um and in fact that's exactly what happened and uh i left and i never went back and you know he has a lot of great qualities but you know keeping track of his you know stuff did you stay cordial over the years yes yeah and and what was i never let anyone go yeah you never know what they'll come in handy it's a nice quality yes Yes, that's true. That's very true. And what was Warren like? Warren, well, what do you think? For God's sakes.

Well, may I say that something you said, you said you love Annette Bening, and you often pray for her? and pray for her? I don't know how some people put up with it. You know, I asked a friend of mine once, I said, when Angelica Houston had been with Jack for something like, you know, 17 years, I mean, it's a long time.

I say, how does she take it it and then this friend of mine said because jack is very much like her father and she was used to it and so it was like water off a duck's back for her she didn't let it affect her uh. I took it all very personally. And, but with Warren, it was just, you know, it was a constant, constant drama. uh constant drama and um and i knew that there were that there were other women that that he was dating we were living together and this is right around the time of shampoo if i have the if i have the chronology right yeah right so you're you're in the movie someplace. Yeah. Yeah. I called Robert Towne, the director, and I just said, please, I'm so bored. Please let me do anything.

Just put me in a party scene. He says, I have a party scene coming up. Warren and I started seeing each other right then. And that was the end of the movie. So he was still kind of going with Julie Christie. Right. And Warren said something to me once. He says, What do you want more than anything in the world that I can give you?

And I said, You can take me to the wrap party. He says, Oh, no, no, no, I can't. I have to take Jukli. I said, No, well, you asked me what I wanted. That's what I want.

And he said, Well, I'll ask her. And she said, no, well, you asked me what I wanted. That's what I want. And he said, well, I'll ask her. And she said, well, of course you can take her to the wrap party. Take us both. Simple as that. That was that. And I think she was happy to kind of get rid of him at that point. So as far as you're concerned, Jack had an anger problem and Warren had a fidelity problem. Yeah.

I see. And, you know, I think that after three and a half years, Warren actually kind of got tired of me because he would do really stupid stuff. Like I got a movie with George Segal and I was going to I couldn't wait to do it. And Warren said, you can't do that. That would mean I would be alone for Christmas. And I said, yeah. And what's the problem? He says, you can't do it.

So I actually gave up the movie. Oh, I'm sorry. What was the movie? I forget. I just remember it shot in Canada over Christmas. And then I got Valentino. Right. You know, that Ken Russell was directing.

Sure. And it was a fabulous part. I was playing Valentino's wife, Natasha Rambova. Natasha. Yeah. Yeah. And Warren said, you can't do that movie. I said, why not?

He says, if you do that movie, you'll be gone for six months. I said, yeah, but you can come to London and see me, and there'll be times when I can come back to LA. I'm not going to shoot every single day. And he said, if you do that movie, it's over between us. And I realized that, you know, he was just waiting for an opportunity to, you know, to make it kind of kosher for him too. And, um, there's something sweet about a Lothario being so lonely that he needs companionship at the holidays. I know. There's a sweetness about that.

Yeah. You got to go where you want to go. Do what you want to do. So we're going to pause it right there, right around the middle point of this show with the charming and, as you can hear, the very candid Michelle Phillips. In part two next week, we'll get into Michelle's acting career, her clashes with her co-star, Rudolf Nureyev. We'll talk about meeting Groucho, visiting Brian Wilson. We'll talk about the lavish parties she and John were famous for throwing. We'll also get into the writing of she and John were famous for throwing.

We'll also get into the writing of California Dreamin'. Lots of great stuff in part two. So come back next week for the second part of rock and roll hall of famer and legend, Michelle Phillips. Please, please, don't follow You gotta go the way you wanna go Do what you wanna do with whoever you wanna be You gotta go the way you wanna go Do what you wanna do Do what you wanna do With whoever you wanna be You don't understand

That a girl like me can love Just one man You've been gone a week And I tried so hard Not to be the crying child Not to be the girl You left me high Left me high, left me high

You gotta go the way you wanna go Do what you wanna do With whoever you wanna be You gotta go the way you wanna do What you wanna do The way you wanna do You gotta go the way you are Do what you want With the way you are Do what you want

With the way you are Do what you want