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The Maxine Entwistle interview, part two



Part two of the Maxine Entwistle interview from The
Mail On Sunday:

But why did John Entwistle suffer more than other
members of the band? Maxine paints a picture of a rock
and roll victim. And certainly what had seemed
attractive as an adolescent became desperate as a
grown man. 
When The Who became successful, writing teenage
anthems which chimed with their own adolescent
feelings, such as Can't Explain and My Generation
which includes the ultimate rallying cry, Hope I die
before I get old, Entwistle was just 19 years old. 
Maxine realised just how desperate the band had become
when, in their vain attempts to appear young, she
witnessed them dying their hair in a hotel bathroom
sink.
She said: Both John and Keith (Moon) died their hair
black. That was one of the things I stopped when we
got together. I made John go to his real grey. It was
more dignified.
At this stage, Entwistle would do anything to try to
compete with the flamboyant members of the group. Moon
was famous for driving limousines into swimming pools.
Roger Daltrey had perfected the brilliant techniques
of swinging his mike on stage like a lasso and Pete
Townshend dazzled audiences with his athletic mid-air
leaps white playing guitar.
31 
All Entwistle was required to do was stand in the
background while the others stole the limelight. It
was to depress him and inevitably  as with another
bass player, Bill Wyman of The Rolling Stones 
Entwistle began to resent his role as the band
wallflower, forever left in the shadows.
It was then that his addictions, the drinking, the
gambling and the constant stream of women, took hold,
while he stubbornly ignored warnings from his doctors
about his dangerously high blood pressure.
Maxine said: John had the reputation of being the
quiet one of The Who but I brought him out of himself.
We were soulmates. When we first met I wasn't a fan
but John kept pestering me for a date but I refused a
couple of times because I knew he was married and had
a wife and kid back in England. But he was persistent
and in the end I went out with him.
We had an affair for a year while he was flying back
and forth between his wife in England and me in L.A.
But their marriage was over. In 1980 he asked me to
move to England with him. First of all we lived in
Pete Townshends flat on Londons Kings Road before
moving to the country to a mansion called Quarwood. It
was a daze of drink and drugs and parties.
We lived sex, drugs and rock and roll. We would hang
out with Jagger all the time. Bill Wyman was a very
good friend. So were John Hurt and Michael Caine, We
partied every night. We would go to clubs like
Stringfellows and Tramp and it was champagne and pot
the whole way. But I was anorexic and my body was
messed up. I longed for a child with John but the
doctors told me I would never be a mother.
I had started getting unhappy in the relationship.
John was going away more without me. We got married on
a whim on September 11th, 1991 but I knew as I was
walking down the aisle of this tacky wedding chapel in
Las Vegas that the marriage wouldn't last. An Elvis
impersonator was our witness.
I hit rock bottom just a year later - on June 24,
1992. John was away with the band and I was in the
wine cellar drinking everything but I wasnt getting
drunk. Then I smoked some pot, but didnt get stoned.
I was frightened. I thought I was losing my mind. The
drugs and the drinking had become too much. I knew I
had to sober up to survive. I went into rehab.
There would be no going back to their relationship
that had begun in 1978 when she was a 22-year-old
waitress at LAs infamous celebrity hang-out Rainbow
Bar and Grill.
In an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting Maxine met French
count Thierry Curial de Brevannes with whom she had a
brief fling and who is the father of her
eight-year-old son, Oliver. She then went on to marry
her second husband, marketing manager Richard Bolen,
54, and now lives in a modest wooden chalet home by
Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
But she still wears an enormous black pearl ring given
to her by Entwistle as a reminder of past times, both
sad and happy. Maxine said: I wanted us to he like
Barbara and Ringo and detox together but John didn't
want to give up booze. He loved drinking too much.
When Maxine became pregnant Entwistle was furious and
filed for divorce. I think I humiliated him by
getting pregnant by another man. But by the time the
divorce was finally sorted out in 1997 we were friends
again.
We spoke on the phone every few months and I was due
to see John on July 3 when The Who played San
Francisco. Then John died. In the end, I went anyway
and met Pete and Roger backstage. I think John and I
would still be married if hed sobered up. And I also
believe that if we were still married he would be
alive today. I loved him and would have taken care of
him to the end.
Maxine did not attend his funeral last month in the
12th Century church of St. Edward in Stow-on-the-Wold,
claiming she had to look after her son back in
America.
In truth, however, Johns first wife, Alison, the
mother of his 30-year-old son, and Lisa
Pritchard-Johnson, his girlfriend of six years, did
not want her there.
It is a sad commentary, and yet a clichi of all rock
stars, that at the end three women were fighting over
his gravestone  and what little money there is left 
for the guitarist has bequeathed all his assets to his
mother, Queenie, and son, Chris.
Perhaps tragically for Entwistle, he didnt die before
he got old. He died a portly, grey-haired 57-year-old
trying to live out the fantasies of a teenager while
hating himself for it.
It was, in truth, a far more tragic outcome than his
cocaine-induced heart attack with a female stranger in
an anonymous hotel bedroom, desperate though that is,
too.

Additional reporting:
Elizabeth Sanderson


=====
-Brian in Atlanta
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