It wasn’t just the boy bands with their often raw voices, heavy beats, and gyrating rhythms; young female performers were also stepping out, expressing their own needs for freedom. Songs declaring liberty from centuries-old traditions that had kept them in the kitchen, and love songs dedicated to rebellious young men of whom Daddy surely wouldn’t approve were among the top hits for the girls. Many young women were in search of their very own “Johnny Rebel” with whom they wished to experience passion.
On a clear August night screams could be heard echoing through the hot, dry air, creating a vacuum of sound throughout the Hollywood Bowl until nothing was audible except for a high-pitched shrill. Girls danced orgiastically to the music while young men watched, far more interested in the young ladies’ performances than that of the British band, The Dark Knights onstage, performing their top hits,
Insatiable Lady, Street Beat and Girl, What I See in You
. By any standard, a good time was had by all, and the passion felt at the concert would no doubt continue afterwards into the night.
Frankie was among those present in the audience at the Hollywood Bowl that night. She shook her body so hard until sweat streamed from her fair-skinned pores. There was nothing demure about her as she moved to the blood-pumping rhythms.
It was still too early in the women’s revolution for men to accept the assertiveness of a young woman, especially one so beautiful. So Frankie learned to play the game, to give men a little of her sexuality—a flirt here and there, a tease or suggestion—letting them think they could rule her, while she actually had them in the palm of her hand. This game worked very well for her; men were dishing out all kinds of opportunities.
This particular night the favor granted to Frankie and her friends was access to a party being held by the band The Dark Knights after the concert. While most girls could only go home and dream, Frankie had the opportunity of a real-life meeting. Being a celebrity herself, she did have a much cooler and calmer attitude toward meeting famous musicians. She, of course, was excited, but she had developed the poise to not appear beside herself in the presence of an attractive, famous young man.
While crowds were being hoarded through lanes marked by police barricades, talent agent Les Brown, a clean-cut man, worked his girls—Frankie; Katie; Gillian Leary, a long-haired, naturally blonde beauty; and Emily LeMore, a short, curvaceous brunette—through the crowd to a waiting red Ford convertible. It was Les’s job as chaperone to be responsible for the young starlets’ reputations.
As the convertible wound through the Hollywood Hills, the wind blew Katie’s hair around her face while she applied of lipstick over her perfect full lips. She had to keep pulling her hair off her lipstick holder and reapply it.
“You’re going to waste that entire tube before you even get to make your mark,” teased Frankie as the wind blew her own hair, turning it into a big blonde mop. Frankie was rather careless about her appearance. She rarely wore makeup outside of performances, appearances, or photo shoots. Even without makeup, she was still far more glamorous than most women who spent hours getting ready. This disregard for enhancing her own beauty was also part of her rebellion.
“I just want to make sure these guys won’t know what hit them,” said Katie, pursing her lips together.
“That’s the idea, strike first before they take their first shot,” said Frankie with a gruff, playful voice and displaying a tight fist. “We want to show those boys who’s boss!”
Katie serenaded Frankie with a Dark Knight hit loud and way off key:
Girl, what I see in you
Is more than you will know
Is more than I can ever show
I want you to be mine
Every second of time
I want you to be mine
It’s all I need to feel fine.
“Katie, the was horrid. I’d stick to acting if I were you,” said Frankie casually.
Emily turned and leaned over the vinyl seat to address the girls in the back. “They say the Dark Knights are now bigger than the Beatles.”
“I thought the Dave Clark Five were bigger than the Beatles,” retorted Katie, checking her puckered lips reflection in her compact mirror.
“I heard it was the Beach Boys,” replied Gillian, trying to keep the wind from ruining her hairstyle.
“And I thought it was Gerry and the Pacemakers,” said Frankie with a chuckle, and started swooning over Katie, singing the song “How Do You Do It?” All the girls laughed.
“Okay, whatever! Ladies, we’re going in with a plan. Let’s call it out here before we get there. That being said, I call Nick.”
“He’s married,” Katie responded.
“That’s my choice, Miss Prissy. Gillian, Frankie, Katie: make your call,” said Emily.
“Well, it’s not going to be Robbie, he’s way too pretty—that curly blond hair, those big red lips—and all those sexy moves are kind of creepy,” said Katie.
Emily asked, “What’s the problem, are you jealous?”
“You bet! I don’t need to have a guy who is prettier than me. He’d be competition with all the other guys,” said Katie with a loud laugh.
“Yeah, I heard he goes both ways,” said Frankie. “That would be a serious concern.”
“It could have its advantages,” said Emily. “You could get two guys for the price of one.”
All the girls laughed as Les held firmly to the leather steering wheel and glanced in the rearview mirror at the girls. “There’s going to be no calls to make,” he said, “none at all. There will not be one or two guys. Hear me! I have agents, PR people, and parents to answer to.”
“Les, you’re a big square,” said Frankie, kicking the back of his seat.
“Aw, isn’t that sweet?” said Katie. “Les is going to protect our honor.”
“Little does he know, it’s already lost,” said Emily. All the girls laughed.
“Hear that, Les? We have no more honor!” shouted Frankie.
“I don’t want to hear anymore,” said Les. “What you girls do behind closed doors is none of my business; just make sure the press doesn’t find out.” He continued along the windy road with mansions on either side, hidden behind large brass gates, while the girls settled impatiently in their seats.
Frankie leaned over the seat behind Les and said, “Girls, we don’t know what we’re walking into. Yeah, these guys are hot topic, but who knows what they’re
really
like . . . you know, like, in person. All we know about these guys is what we’ve seen on television. They wear make-up. Their noses might be bigger than their heads! They might have unsightly moles, or small dicks, or worse—they could be boring!”
Les shook his head as he turned up a sharp hill toward a mansion on the right. “Frankie, if your father could hear how you talk,” he said.
“Aw, shoot, Les. You’re a big fat bore!” exclaimed Frankie.
“Frankie, you can be a real drag at times,” said Gillian. “Don’t take away our dreams of big dicks.”
Frankie laughed as she fell back onto the leather seat of the convertible. “I’m not going to get sucked into an image; I’m a realist.”
Ahead in the near distance was the mansion where the Dark Knights were staying while in town. Despite all the big talk and big ideas, the girls grew nervous. Behind that front door was the wind that was blowing change across the globe. Somehow they all knew, in one way or another, each of them would be changed forever after tonight.
Street Beat
After the concert, Dark Knight guitarist Alex Rowley was in need of some privacy and a cool down. Behind the Hollywood mansion, he stood in the shallow end of the pool, leaning against the edge. From inside the mansion he could hear the Dark Knight’s hit song,
Street Beat
blaring:
It’s a different kind of beat
With the shuffling of our feet.
Heavy work boots create the sound
While we’re wondering ‘bout town
It’s the street beat
Different from the rest
It’s the street beat
The one we like best
Tapping pulse of a gentlemen’s feet
May be pleasing to all they meet
But they do not have the soul
With the thinness of their sole.
As he ran his fingers across the cool water, he gazed up at the stars. He could see them more clearly in Los Angeles; they were rarely visible back home in England. The cloud cover of England often suffocated Alex. Somehow he felt freer and more inspired under clear skies. There seemed to be more space for his mind to travel. He closed his eyes and submerged under the water. In the cool darkness, there was peace and serenity.
There was darkness and the earth was spinning. Alex reached out to hold on to something, but there was nothing there. He stumbled, tripped over his feet, and fell onto the cracked cement pavement in the backyard of his parents’ terraced home in Manchester, England. It had been seven years since the 1940 Nazi bombings, but debris and rubble still remained.
Throughout the war, Irish descendant and shipyard worker Leon Rowley and his wife Nadine, who worked part-time as secretary at a shipyard office, bore three sons within a period of four years. The Rowley’s’ eldest, Connor, was born in their basement shelter during a German air raid. When the bombings ended, there was a general sense of relief, but quite of bit of heightened wartime anxiety still remained; life for the most part seemed uncertain. During those tense subsequent years, Nadine gave birth to Patrick in December 1942 and to Shane Alexander in early spring of ’44.
After the war finally ended, the Rowleys spent two years getting back to the basics of raising a family. Nadine originally had dreams of raising daughters in pretty dresses and dolls to play with. Instead she had three feisty, high-spirited boys. Connor, the oldest, grew stern and serious beyond his years; Patrick had a sweet and honest personality; and Shane, their youngest, tested all boundaries—climbing walls, eating anything he could get his mouth around, and putting things over his head. It presented quite a challenge for a tired working housewife, so she left much of the discipline on her husband’s shoulders.
Leon Rowley was a hard-looking man, with slicked dark hair and a scarred face from his short-lived boxing career before the war. Turning his attention from his small plotted victory garden, he saw his five-year-old son, Shane Alexander, sitting on the cement with a tin pail over his head. “Alexander, take that orf yer head and come over ’ere!”
Patrick glanced up at Leon. “Pop, is he all right?
Leon shook his head. “No. He’s not all right.”
Connor walked over to Alex and removed the pail from his head. “Stop messin’ about!” He carried the pail inside the house for water.
Still a little dizzy from spinning in circles, Alex crawled on his hands and knees across the cement to the small plot of dirt. Leon sprinkled a few seeds into Alex’s small hands. Alex carefully laid them in the small narrow trenches and covered them with small mounds of dirt. Connor returned with the pail filled with water and carefully poured it over the garden.
Lying on his belly, Alex meditated on the trenches.
His brother Patrick sat alongside him. “What are you looking at? You know seeds don’t grow that fast!”
Alex stared hard. “I can see it. See? There is a little sprout now.”
“Yeh don’t see anything. You’re just makin’ it up,” said Patrick.
“Yeh can’t tell me what I can and can’t see!” yelled Alex.
“Pop! Alex’s seeing things!” Patrick screamed.
Leon stepped out through the torn screen door. “Come inside, both of yeh. Let the seeds have some peace. Nothing grows if yeh keep starin’ at it.”
Alex stood up and smacked his older brother Patrick on the head. “Snitch”
Patrick shoved Alex. “Numbskull!”
Leon grabbed both his boys by their collars and pulled them toward the house. “Let’s behave.”
Leon dragged both boys into the house and put them in opposite corners, like opponents in a boxing match. The living room was modestly decorated—a tweed couch and chair covered with leather patches, doilies on secondhand wooden furniture. Despite recovering from the wreckage of war, Nadine tried hard to make her home happy and comfortable.
Alex snarled at his brother from across the room. “Snitch.”
Patrick raised his eyes and looked away. “Numbskull.”
It was the ad in the newspaper that caught twelve-year-old Alex’s attention: GUITAR FOR SALE—FORTY SHILLINGS. He had to have it; it was a matter of life and death for Alex. Tugging at Nadine’s dress, he batted his eyelashes with a swooning glance. How to work Nadine was a trick he had learned early in life. She always went for the soft sell. “Ma, Ma, please, please, please.”
“We can’t afford it,” she said, pushing him away.
Alex wasn’t to be deterred. He followed her into the living room, dropped to his knees, and wrapped his arms around her legs. “Ma, yeh gotta. Yeh gotta let me have it.”