photos
Susan
“Paul, you and Ben are just too much, too soon!”
David Bailie
When David drove down to my Aladdin’s Cave in the country to borrow my guns and holster (which I then had to retrieve!) so he could practice for “The Timber”
As “Cotton” in the first 3 “Pirates of the Caribbean” films
Light My Fire poster and the two Polaroids I took of Sam and Jan for reference
REAL Pop Art!
My largest painting in Woody Allen’s “Play It Again, Sam”
What a shocker when I first saw it in the scene with Woody and his friend!
Also in “Fools” with Katherine Ross and Jason Robards
Gary and Franky celebrating their 40th at Kenney Jones’ 16th century stunning polo club
Casper, the friendly ghost-dog
David Niven’s “phony” Tudor villa...Primmie’s last residence in England.
She moved from here to LA with the two boys in 1946
Fruling
The Psychedelic Raiders strike!
The “La Bamba” house in Silverlake with the small studio downstairs and the porch from where I shone the mirror toward’s Cranham’s 21 miles away
“A Day in the Life”poster
Dave as a sheriff in “The Timber” doing in the guy who killed his wife
Bob Hickson’s stunning ELO logo
Bob was really the most skilled and talented illustrator of the bunch
Check out his site...frightening work
856 Clayton...where Aunt Katy ruled
Funky Features house on the right
142 Central Avenue
Ed and Charlie’s studio on Santa Monica Blvd...from where Ed made ‘that’ phone call that changed my life
Alexe, Liz, & Therese at the Windmill
Chris
Where I was sitting (working) when ‘that’ phone call came in
”Paul, it’s Ed. How would you like to paint the Starship Enterprise?”
My view looking towards Santa Monica
Another view of the view...1823 N. Dillon
Tracey and Raffles two days after I met her
Alex with the lovely Bob Hickson in 1995 in Sebastapol, CA
Flash
Rosie in her Cockney rhyming slang T-shirt---”trouble and strife--wife”
Tom Cranham (the only pic I have of him) and George Pryor
of “Little Georgie and the Storyboards” fame
The apartment building above the Hollywood Bowl that came crashing off it’s foundations
Lesley in our garden flat at 18 Elm Grove Road in Barnes with the painting that started it all in the background. This photo was taken after I moved to Los Angeles and just before ‘that’ phone call from Ed
The room underneath my studio on Dillon where Bob Keane recorded Richie Valens’ three first records: “Come On Let’s Go” “Donna” and
the vocals for “La Bamba”
The photo on the lower right is me playing with Clapton and Gary at the Parrot Christmas of 1984...Rosie took the picture. The conch shell to the left of the picture was my going away present from the FX crew in September of 1979
Okewood church...just down the road from The Parrot
The infamous Parrot!
The welcome fire in The Parrot
With the adorable and endlessly funny and charming Susan in front of the main (stunning) Victorian building at Skywalker Ranch that houses the library, cafeteria, and various offices. The library would knock your socks off...what a place...also the location of that famous last interview before his death in 1987 of Joseph Campbell, who influenced both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg with his 1949 landmark book,
“The Hero With a Thousand Faces”
“Moggy” in his new, bright red livery on the Windermere Ferry 1987
My bed alcove was just to the left of the picture...Flash & Raffles (Raff zonked out by the front door in my studio) would sleep on that far corner of the sofa so they could keep an eye out the window for anything interesting happening in the garden below. When they heard me making waking up noises, I would hear “plonk-plonk” as they jumped down off the sofa, which they were not allowed on because of all the cat hair they would leave. I had to smile at their guile, playing me...”What? Who...us??? We weren’t up there!”
Cute
The nifty Toshiba television I gave to Ed when I moved to England the second time in 1991
Louise
The flattened staircase to Jim’s front door
The Paasche airbrush I used to paint the Enterprise
Lesley posing in front of the Barnes flat May 1970
18 Elm Grove road
Just found this photo of Peter Lloyd at the La Bamba house...1981
Fabulous folding Polaroid SLR camera that EVERY illustrator needed to gather instant reference...such a clever design and ever so useful before digital cameras
next to my mint 1921 Western Electric candlestick phone...the first year they included the dial on the handset
307 Portobello Road...my room was the two windows just above the awning
18 Elm Grove turned back into the attractive Victorian terrace that it originally was
The bed alcove
The Gaumont Notting Hill Gate where I saw my painting in ‘Play It Again, Sam’ and where I ran into Glenn Shorrock his last day in England
Graingy...the mad steam locomotive chaser, tuning in Dad’s new FM radio/record player...1952
Alex today with his lovely girlfriend, Francesca
(he’s got his dad’s taste in beautiful women)
Having a stunning mother didn’t hurt, either, to imprint
“pretty woman” on him! A very handsome couple
Tracey & Alex
I could see that beauty ready to blossom when I met her at the dentist’s
Gordon, Albert Lee, and Albert’s wife at Kenney Jones’ polo club
Kenney Jones jazzin’ it up with the Tornados at his polo club.
I took the photo, and it’s the best photo I’ve seen of him...he was so happy playing with these guys, and playing on his jazz hero’s kit---Clem Cattini
The Cosmos brothers’ store location in the 60’s
Yamaha at the Windmill
Lesley and Gary Brooker in my room at 307, February 1970
Brooker on my kit at 307
Funky Sam, Funky Paul, & Funky Jack in Mallard at the psychedelic car show in Muir Beach 1966...photo taken by Victor Moscoso. You can just see the bat-tail rising up behind my head. Mallard was built in Putney, next door to Barnes (but I didn’t know that then).
Peter at work in my studio at the LaBamba house...he was living in Taos, New Mexico at this time, and when he got a job in LA, would bring his drawing table and art supplies and work alongside me. I loved watching him create. Such a monster of a talent.
From left to right: Jane Dornacker (Knickerbocker’s girlfriend), Colin Crosby and Kellogs (Procol’s roadies), Franky Brooker, Bob Knickerbocker, and Gary Brooker at the Grizzly Bear Gold Mine in North San Juan, CA on Procol’s second US tour in early ’68. Carole stayed in the kitchen, staking out ‘her’ territory making lunch, and I took the picture. You can see Bob is a pretty interesting-looking character...sadly broke up with Jane and OD’d on heroin...such a waste.
Jane became a hilarious comedienne, joined the Tubes and wrote and sang, “Don’t Touch Me There” then went on to fame in New York broadcasting funny traffic reports from a helicopter...which came down once, nearly drowning her, then months later came down again whilst she was on the air, screaming in terror as the chopper hit a pier, flipped over, and killed her. Jane would have easily been as big as Bette Midler...she had that much talent. RIP sweetheart.
Bob died 6 months earlier...they left a 16 year-old daughter, Naomi, who now lives at Lake Tahoe.
February 28, 2013: Franky just informed me that Kellogs died a few days ago. RIP Logs....
Coming into Death Valley, summer (!) of 1980. 115F. Morris blew third gear climbing out of the valley, but we managed to limp him home for a rebuilt gearbox by a whizzo British mechanic in Silverlake...which is still working perfectly. I’m wearing the very first shirt Lesley ever made for me. So strange she made it 10 years earlier at the Elm Grove flat in Barnes on her new Bernina, and now I’m wearing it in Death Valley.
Casper in Richmond Park
photo by Lesley...check out her fantastic photos here
Robin Trower’s ‘Bridge of Sighs’ oil painting (32” sq). Painted in one go at the flat in Barnes...I stayed up all night. The painting has not been cared for as can be seen on the right hand side...it looks like it has been stored flat with something on top of it. Someday it will be in a museum, but at present it is in Chrysalis’ offices in Notting Hill...hopefully being cared for.
Aussie singer, Ron Charles, in the back garden of the Battersea house, 1975, just before we went to the Supertramp ‘Moving to America’ party and my consequent move to LA. Ron always went for slim women, whilst I liked busty ones...and he now lives happily back in Melbourne with a busty nurse very proud of her assets. “I understand now why you always went on about big tits!” he laughs
Ahhh...just received this from Wronald (I call him that) of his contemporary single from that time in 1975...and he’s still knockin’ ‘em dead in Melbourne today with his pipes (and quite happily living with that busty nurse!)
Alex and Francesca guess where?
Fru on our first walk at Trebarwith, Cornwall
No Fru...one of two lonely heart-wrenching 500-mile trips to walk ‘our’ walk without her...so painful, yet I had to do it, and the next time I’m in Cornwall I know I’ll walk this walk to the sea without her again
At the famous Jamaica Inn, Cornwall
David and Primmie’s first ‘drafty’ cottage in Dorney at the beginning of the war
The church in Huish, Wilsthire, where David and Primmie were married and where Primmie is buried. Her grave is the second from the right in the foreground left of the path. She was only 28
For the California trip photos click here
