[no subject]

THE DAY Maxine Entwistle decided she had had enough
was the day she went shopping in Beverly Hills. 
She had exhausted the exclusive boutiques in Rodeo
Drive and returned, tired but happy, to the Regent
Beverly Wilshire hotel to show her husband, The Who
guitarist, John Entwistle, her purchases.
But when she opened the door to their suite she was
topped in her tracks. There, on the hotel balcony, her
husband stood naked while a young blonde groupie
performed a sex act. Maxine was struck speechless. She
wanted to shout and go ballistic but she was so
shocked not a sound came out of her mouth. She walked
back out of the door without a word, knowing their
15-year relationship was effectively at an end. 
Uncertain of what to do next she called her
mother-in-law, Queenie, expecting sympathy and advice
but was told instead, John's a star. Hes allowed to
have a wife and mistress. They all do. All the wives
accept it.
But not this one. Maxine Entwistle is devastated by
John's death last month, of a heart attack in the arms
of a woman in a Las Vegas hotel bedroom, but she
cannot have been surprised by the circumstances.
Last week a coroner ruled that a massive cocaine
overdose triggered the heart attack. 
Although grieving, Maxine is glad she left John and
the carnival that went with being on tour with a world
famous rock band.
She knew that otherwise, one day, she too would end up
dead in an anonymous hotel bedroom hundreds of miles
from home.
It might have been an impure batch of drugs, a drunken
fall or even suicide. But she knew that the debauched,
debilitating excesses of the music business would get
her in the end, just as they got John. Few people have
seen the corrupt, morally bankrupt, world of rock up
close in the way that she has. 
Today, for the first time, Maxine talks about the
hatred and the bitterness that ran like a fault line
through The Who, and that turned Entwistle, 57, and
one of the world's most successful bass guitarist,
into a shambling drunk racked with jealousy and
consumed by a destructive self-loathing. She reveals
the band's uncontrollable envy of Mick Jagger 
for the money he has made, which they never could, for
his business acumen, which they never had, and for his
continued success which they couldn't emulate.
And she told me that despite The Who's image - in
which Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend and Entwistle had
been the best of friends since adolescence - they
couldnt, in fact, bear to be in the same room
together and only came together for recording sessions
and stage shows.
Maxine also disclosed that although John had a 53-room
Gothic mansion in Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire,
and insisted on traveling only by private plane, he
was in debt and worried that if he didn't earn more -
in the form of huge advances - to support his lavish
lifestyle he would be declared bankrupt.
It was this terror, fuelled by an addiction to
gambling, drink and sex, that persuaded him to go back
on the road and that ultimately; she believes, led to
his death. He needed the money that the tour would
provide him with but tragically he had spent the #1
million he had already been given, on gambling debts,
before a single note had even been played.
One mystery that still surrounds the death of John
Entwistle in the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas is the
identity of the woman who was in the room when he
died.
Lurid reports have focused around private strippers
and expensive call girls but Maxine, 46, is convinced
they are inaccurate. The petite American who was
married to John for eight years until their divorce
in. 1997 said: I am absolutely certain there will
have been a woman but John never had to pay for sex.
'John couldnt stand to be alone. He needed sex and
loved being the big rock star. I haven't asked any of
the band members whether there was a woman because, to
be frank, I would be shocked if there wasn't.
One day in LA he sent me and a friend out with some
money to go shopping. I got back and the suite had two
bimbos in it. I walked on to the balcony and there was
John getting oral sex from another girl. I was just
expected to tolerate it because he was a rock star.
People say it was a sad way to end up - alone with a
girl in his room. But it wasn't the girl that was sad.
It was the fact that he didnt want to be there at
all. He had to do one last tour because he was broke.
He knew he had high blood pressure and was at risk of
a heart attack, but he ignored all the signs because
he needed the cash.
The tragedy is no one around him did anything. For
all his fame and adulation, there was no one in his
life who cared enough about him to get him the help he
needed.
The Who never saw each other unless they were
working. Their egos were too dig to be in the same
room together.
MAXINE, who has successfully fought her own battle
with alcohol, said: John was an alcoholic.
When I last saw him two years ago backstage after a
Who concert in Los Angeles, he gave me a big hug and
told me how proud he was of me for getting sober. He
told me: "I wish I had the strength to do what you
did, but I don't." It was a cry for help. He should
have gone to rehab. But he was in denial and those
around him were too.
He and the rest of the band were always going on
about being jealous of Mick Jagger because of his
money. The Who never made the multi-millions that Mick
did.
Mick had a great business brain and was notoriously
tight with his money. When he was dating Jerry Hall
she told me he made her pay for her own plane tickets
and hotel rooms. John had money tied up in homes, but
he was always broke.
When I divorced John, everyone thought I'd get a huge
pay-off. But he didn't have that sort of money.


=====
-Brian in Atlanta
The Who This Month!
http://www.thewhothismonth.com
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