He came from a lower middle class background, says Pang, "so he appreciated people. It was just the mecca at that point. But the only way for that to happen was John not being there., The new couples time in LA resurrected Lennons lighter side, she said, both personally and creatively. I told them: I did!!. Gruen called the local police precinct which confirmed that three other people had reported a sighting, and the Daily News said that five people had reported a sighting in the same area of New York where Lennon and Pang lived. But Pang remembers the period differently. Theres amazing archival material throughout, and it gives you an unusually rich sense of what Lennon was like away from the limelight. Once they were together, Yoko would phone her incessantly, wanting to know what was happening. He couldnt stop. I was also surprised at some of the footage that was found of me. Walls and Bridges rose to the top spot on the album charts. John Lennon's lover May Pang has revealed the incredibly uncomfortable and 'bizarre' interaction she had with his widow, Yoko Ono, 30 years after the couple's former assistant enjoyed an 18-month . [2], While visiting Mick Jagger at Andy Warhol's compound in Montauk, New York, Lennon and Pang saw a Scottish-style cottage for sale close to the Montauk Point Lighthouse. Her father, a traditional Chinese man of that era, had no interest in a daughter but her mother provided an assertive role model. "I always say, 'Music saved my life,'" said Pang, who dropped out of college after her freshman year. In June 1974, Lennon and Pang returned to live in Manhattan. They were probably funny but rebellious. Its been covered by everything from E! Its my version. Their trauma, our entertainment: what happens to documentary subjects when the cameras leave? According to Pang, every time a call would come to the Dakota from Lennons young son Julian, from whom he had become estranged, Ono would instruct her to tell him his father wasnt available. All rights reserved. Its a portrait of the May Pang who grew up in Spanish Harlem as a second-generation Chinese-American (a minority among minorities, she says), and how she fell in love with rock n roll and fell into fame with a kind of karmic destiny. (In the early 70s, hed become a real political scold; after the drubbing received by 1972s Some Time in New York City, that was part of what he was letting go of.). The lyrics moved me. She and Lennon were planning to meet up with Paul and Linda McCartney in New Orleans, where the couple were recording a new album. The documentary chronicles how after about a year there, they returned, just as impulsively, to New York, moving into a small apartment on E. 52nd St., where they lived through the first months of 1975. She is proud of reuniting John with his son Julian who speaks glowingly of May in his on-camera interviews and ex-wife Cynthia, who died in 2015. [4][7] Ono explained that she and Lennon were not getting along, had been arguing and were growing apart, and said that Lennon would start seeing other women. ABC7 New York 24/7 Eyewitness News Stream, Download the abc7NY app for breaking news alerts. If there's one thing that May Pang has been fighting for the last 28 years, it's the idea that John Lennon was depressed, isolated and out of control during . On Sunday, April 23, Kenyon will be with May Pang for a conversation following the 6:50 p.m. showing of "The Lost Weekend" at the Angelika Cinema, and she will be answering questions from those in attendance. Lennon bought Julian a Gibson Les Paul copy guitar and a drum machine for Christmas in 1973, and encouraged Julian's interest in music by showing him some chords. And it worked. Variety is a part of Penske Media Corporation. Ono approved the move, Pang alleges, because she wanted to have an affair of her own with another musician. The original 500-page Loving John book focused mainly on Pang's role on Lennon's albums and sessions. My mother used to tell me, You have a mouth. But thats something wed have to guess at, since the life of John Lennon remains, for all the ways its been chronicled, not quite knowable. [6] Ono's show coincided with Lennon's 31st birthday, and a party was held at the Hotel Syracuse, which was attended by Ringo Starr, Phil Spector, and Elliot Mintz, among others. Pang received an RIAA gold record award for her work on Walls and Bridges and continued her work as production coordinator of Lennon's Rock 'n' Roll album, where she was credited as "Mother Superior". John loved movie stars. Her mother sent her to Catholic school at nearby St. Francis, where James Cagney once served as an altar boy. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) In February 1975, Pang and Lennon were together in Long Island when Ono called her husband and asked him to come and see "a therapist who could break his nicotine habit through hypnosis. Her particular experience with it could be seen as an HR departments worst nightmare. He understood better than anybody. Not that everything was bliss in this stretch of time. Theyve read about it by other people. In an extraordinary move, Ono gave the affair her blessing, telling The Telegraph in 2012, "The affair was not something that was hurtful to me. "I'm going, 'What? Pang, who was plucked from that Apple job by Ono herself to serve as her and Lennons personal assistant before Mays fling with Lennon, insists the phrase Lost Weekend doesnt do justice to the pairs year-and-a-half affair. It was, by any standard, a decision of seriously kinky manipulation. For more information, visit www.hkdpl.org. Ono told Pang he would start seeing someone new and suggested the two get together, she said. ", Lennon turned to Pang and said, "what a great line.". [40][41], Pang married record producer Tony Visconti in 1989; the couple divorced in 2000. Lennon later referred to this time as his Lost Weekend. I found myself shaking my head at times, laughing out loud and wiping tearsI really enjoyed the film. Yes, Yoko did approach me, and I thought it was insane, she says about being Lennons lover. Maybe not to anybody else. It was all a lark; Pang was just going with the flow. Pang, 64, gained fame in the early 1970s as John Lennon's girlfriend. She also told her not to tell Lennon about the calls. I can't do that, he's my employer, he's my boss. Because of her youth and position, many saw Pang as a particularly weak target for Onos agenda. All I cared about at the time was work. "It was nice, believe me. We didnt know that at the time, Pang said. 2023 www.lohud.com. There was so much he was missing., She believes that Lennons guilt over the estrangement made him awkward with Julian at first. In 1975, Lennon and Pang moved back to New York but lived in their own apartment away from the Dakota. No one experienced it like I did. "We had a balcony, and we faced the East River, and he loved sitting out there especially on a summer night," Pang said. Music was my passion, explains the Spanish Harlem-born author and subject of the upcoming documentary, The Lost Weekend: A Love Story, premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival for a sold-out show on June 10. May has defended herself in the past from reporters asking if she has exploited her brief affair with Lennon, and she admits being the other woman wasnt something she was proud of. ", Before long, Pang and Lennon moved in together in New York City, with Pang saying in a voiceover that she "was 23 and my first boyfriend was John Lennon.". Parts of Pangs story dovetail perfectly with todays sensitivity to the consequences of workplace sexual harassment. "One way of putting it.". She does pretty well with that on the merits of how she presents herself., Still, the image she suggests of Ono dovetails with the character many Beatle fans believed decades ago. The Brazilian magazine Trip published for the first time the lost Janis Joplin topless photos in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, in the summer Born 1955 in Brooklyn, New York, American model and actress Janice Dickinson moved to New York City to pursue work as a model after winning A cool photo collection that shows what naughty ladies looked like in the 1950s. It was Dec. 29, 1974, when Lennon picked up his pen and signed a stack of documents brought down by one of Apple's lawyers to Disney World, where Pang, John and Julian were vacationing. Tips for dealing with flood-related losses after the storm, Manhunt enters 3rd day for alleged Texas mass killer. Soon after, things heated to the point where, when Lennon relocated to LA for an extended period, Pang became his full-time lover. Pang believes Ono chose her to be the couples personal assistant because she was efficient. The press keeps repeating the same stories over and over., May does admit she eventually fell for Lennon. He and Paul McCartney mended fences and played together for the first and only time after the breakup of the Beatles (see A Toot and a Snore in '74). She told me, 'I'm thinking of taking John back.' Why AI Has Some Viewers Asking Which Film Actors Are Real. The period became notorious due to a few incidents in LA of very public drunkenness while the star was out in public. Ono was in Iceland to unveil a sculpture in Reykjavk and was staying in the same hotel. But she hasn't ruled out a future run for local office. [9], At the time Lennon had his 18-month relationship with Pang, he was in a period of his life that he would later refer to as his "Lost Weekend", in reference to the film and novel of the same title.[10]. The words had no meaning, but summed up the ethereal atmosphere Lennon conjured up in the lyrics and production. Though the ex-Beatle eventually returned to his life with Ono, for complex reasons described in the documentary, Pang contends that it was a total surprise to her. ", Lennon sang at The Garden with Elton John after losing a bet to his fellow rocker. "I think he'd be all over the internet," Pang said. She is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and grew up in New York's Spanish Harlem with an elder sister and an adopted brother, both of whom were born in China. [35], The Tribeca Film Festival announced the 2022 premiere of The Lost Weekend: A Love Story, a 97-minute documentary about Pang's life and relationship with Lennon, on June 10th via virtual home viewing. According to May Pang, she totally did, walking into Pangs office at the fortress-like Dakota, where John and Yoko had moved to feel more secure (Lennon, at that point, was being seriously harassed by the FBI, since President Nixon wanted him deported), and basically giving her an executive order: Youre going to have a relationship with John. Afterwards, Id say to him, Where is this going? And hed say, I dont know. [4][8] Ono explained that she and Lennon were not getting along, had been arguing and were growing apart, and said that Lennon would start seeing other women. John Lennon (1940 - 1980) with Yoko Ono, December 1968. At the time, she was married to producer Tony Visconti, who worked with artists including David Bowie. Yoko was calling 10-15 times a day wanting to know what was going on. At various times, Lennon, Ono and Pang have given their versions of the story to the press. Sex between them sealed the deal. Im just going for it. He wasnt happy in his marriage, and it made life miserable for everyone working around them.. Even so, Pang seems eager to give her account at this time in her life, as the proud, 72-year-old mother of two grown children by her ex-husband, the producer Tony Visconti. People will find out: May Pang on her time with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Yoko kept pushing, but I waited for John to make the first move, says May. Although May has written a pair of books about her relationship with Lennon including 1983s Loving John: The Untold Story and 2008s Instamatic Karma: Photographs by John Lennon she has hesitated until now to participate in a documentary, finally agreeing to work with a trio of producer-directors in Eve Brandstein (best known as the casting director for This Is Spinal Tap), Richard Kaufman (Real Life: The Musical) and Stuart Samuels (docs on Bob Marley and Midnight Movies). Lets put it this way. Victorian postmortem photos did exist, no one denies that, however, they were never taken in a standing pose using a stand. Pang said that the last time she spoke with Ono was a call she made to her after Lennon had returned to her. Yet, according to May Pang, who was Lennon's 22-year-old live-in lover during that time, that was anything but the case. Julian is interviewed throughout the film, and he (like his mother, Cynthia) maintained a close bond with Pang. Pang went on to reveal how her path had unexpectedly crossed with Ono's many years after Lennon's death, calling it his "cosmic joke". I'm not interested in him.'". Another factor that made her sanction the new documentary is the cultural moment were in right now. Pang tells her version of what happened in "The Lost Weekend," which is billed as a love story. I figured, if there was going to be a film about my life, I should be involved. I knew that John and Yoko, after marrying in 1969 and seeming like inseparable soulmates in art and life, began to have problems as a couple. But with the encouragement of her mother, who basically supported the family with her cleaning business, Pang got herself a job working for the Beatles company. I want you to go out with him,'" Pang recalls in the trailer. Once they started to sing She Loves You, I was smitten, says Pang. Ono had told Lennon she knew a way to get him to stop smoking through hypnosis. "But he kept trying.". Send it to Eyewitness News using the form below. She was vibrant and a bright light. Through him, she declined to comment. Then she walked out the door. Cynthia Lennon, who died of cancer in 2015, at the age of 75. I aligned myself with her.. The lovers were together about 18 months, and Pang said their physical relationship continued for awhile after Lennon returned to Ono in The Dakota. On October 28, 2002, I had a candid conversation with May, in which she . "He grabs his pad. I said: Congratulations. Why should I let somebody else talk about my time with John? The movies story is told, in part, through animation and a period soundtrack put together by veteran music supervisor Howard Paar with the images created to resemble Lennons own artful squiggles, seen on any number of handwritten notes from him to May that also appear in the film. A documentary about their relationship, The Lost Weekend: A Love Story, was produced in 2022. [citation needed] She volunteers with an animal shelter called Animal Haven in New York and owned a dog that was rescued after Hurricane Katrina. (modern). They looked like they hadnt taken a bath in months, she said. She never imagined that she would be the other person until, she says, Ono asked her: You dont have a boyfriend, right? I said: Yes, but please go to someone else with this. Then she said: Youre nice and you dont want him to go out with somebody thats not going to be nice to him, right? I said: Of course not. So, she said: Youre perfect. I said no and she kept saying yes. [1], After graduating from Saint Michael Academy, Pang attended New York City Community College. Now that Lennon was on his own with her in LA, Pang encouraged the ex-Beatle to reconnect to his son. An archival photo of John Lennon and May Pang in "The Lost Weekend: A Love Story" (Photo courtesy of May Pang Collection/Iconic Events) . In 1970 you joined Allen Klein's ABKCO Records as a receptionist. All Rights Reserved. [32] It was edited down to 300 pages, concentrating mostly on the sensational aspects of their relationship. John Lennon: May Pang was friends with the. That appearance shook the rafters and became famous, but what's less well known is how the former Beatle had re-connected with his bandmates, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney. An old interview clip of Ono featured in the trailer sees the artist call Pang "a very good assistant," and Pang explains that her job was "taking care of everything, working in the studio, doing clothes, doing the publicity.". [22] On the night in question, a naked Lennon excitedly called Pang to join him on the deck outside and they both watched a circular object silently floating less than 100 feet away. She wanted to be a model, but the modeling agencies told her she was too "ethnic". [5] Pang coordinated an art exhibition in Syracuse, New York, on October 9, 1971, for Ono's This Is Not Here art show at the Everson Museum. Pang remains in touch with some of the people from her time with Lennon, and Paul McCartney invited her to Linda McCartney's memorial service. A love story that took 50 years to tell, "The Lost Weekend: A Love Story" explores the 18-month romantic relationship between John Lennon and his Chinese-American assistant May Pang, See production, box office & company info. The idea that one of the greatest artists of all time was highly depressed and suffering from alcaholism at the height of his youth and fame fascinates me to no end, as it proves that some truly gifted people's struggle to find happiness can span throughout their lifetimes, however long or short. "He loved the city," she said. She designs stainless-steel feng shui jewelry. During that time, Lennon recorded three LPs "Mind Games," "Walls and Bridges," and "Rock 'n' Roll" and numerous singles, including "Whatever Gets You Through the Night," Lennon's biggest hit as a solo artist. The so-called Lost Weekend, when John Lennon, from late 1973 through 74, separated from Yoko Ono and relocated to Los Angeles, where he became a hard-drinking rock-club night owl while carrying on an affair with the 22-year-old May Pang (who had been John and Yokos assistant), has long been part of rock mythology. Lennon thought it would be a good idea for the musicians to live under one roof to ensure they would get to the studio on time, so Pang rented a beach house in Santa Monica for her, Lennon, Nilsson, Ringo Starr and Keith Moon to live in. Lennon and Ono reunited in 1975, although he and Pang remained close up until his death. In the photos that we saw at the time of her and John, she always had a waifish beauty, and a certain mystery behind those tinted hexagon glasses. Lennon was on the mend, she said, after the Beatles bitter split. I wonder if he beat her as well? Jun 9, 2022 4:35pm PT May Pang Aims to Set Record Straight About John Lennon Affair in 'The Lost Weekend,' Premiering at Tribeca "John was drinking, but that was overblown in retrospect,". Pangs parents, who had an arranged and unhappy marriage, were Chinese immigrants who, before coming to America, endured the Japanese invasion of their country that killed millions. In 1971, Lennon and Yoko Ono hired Pang as their personal assistant. "It's like, 'Wow, what happened?". But the film makes clear that she did fall in love, and so did he. He hadnt seen his father in such a long time, she said. What do you think?. Lennon and Ono were having marital problems and Ono suggested to Pang that she become Lennon's companion. Speaking recently to The Journal News at her Pomona home, Pang showed photos of Lennon, and a gold record for his 1974 album "Walls and Bridges," where Pang can be heard singing backup on "#9 Dream.". Yoko wasnt even aware we had gone until after we left.. [34][35] Besides the candid personal portraits, the book contains some historically important photographs, such as Lennon signing the official dissolution of the Beatles' partnership,[36] and one of the last known photographs of Lennon and Paul McCartney together. And we have to take that on faith, since its all very subjective and not necessarily borne out by what happened. American former music executive May Pang worked for John Lennon and Yoko Ono as a personal assistant and production coordinator, and when Lennon and Ono separated in 1973, Pang and Lennon began a relationship that lasted more than 18 months. Pang told her side of the story in a 1983 memoir, "Loving John," and "Instamatic Karma," a 140-page collection of private photos she took during her time with Lennon. On August 23, Lennon and Pang claimed to have seen a UFO from their terrace, which had a panoramic view of Queens. [24][25] In the same month, Lennon and Pang were also planning on visiting Paul and Linda McCartney in New Orleans, where Wings were recording the Venus and Mars album, but Lennon reconciled with Ono the day before the planned visit, after Ono said she had a new cure for Lennon's smoking habit. Not so much Ringo, but with George.". Few people knew John Lennon as intimately as May Pang. It wasnt Yokos idea that the two of them move to L.A.; that was Johns impulsive decision. And what is she doing with all those mementos Lennon left behind, the doodles, drawings and photographs? [11] While there, Lennon was inspired to embark on two recording projects: to make an album of the old rock 'n' roll songs that inspired him to become a musician, and to produce another artist. Pang pulled out her Nikkormat and captured the moment. "Not quite," she replied. The last time she said she saw him was during the winter of 1978-79. Our thanks to Viv Goldberg for her help in arranging the interview. They lived together in Los Angeles and New York from 1973 to early 1975, before the ex-Beatle reunited with wife Yoko. She also designs a line of stainless-steel feng shui jewelry. According to May Pang, she totally did, walking into Pang's office at the fortress-like Dakota, where John and Yoko had moved to feel more secure (Lennon, at that point, was being. May Pang The album Walls And Bridges was recorded in July and August 1974. She remains friends with Julian Lennon to this day. I loved this woman (Pang), I made some beautiful music and I got so fucked up with booze and shit and whatever."[30][31]. The relationship began while Pang was working for the couple in their apartment at the Dakota. So was Lennon's drinking buddy, Harry Nilsson. Lennon asked a real estate broker to put in an offer for it in February 1975. After Lennon returned to Ono, Pang started working for United Artists Records and Island Records as a PR manager,[19] working on albums by Bob Marley and Robert Palmer. Today, Pang is the mother of two adult children and she just wants to set the record straight. This beautifully done documentary brought me TOTALLY in to the life of John, his breakup with Yoko, his relationship with Julian, and his life saving love story with May Pang. ", "I'm not even gonna say what happened, some of it was ridiculous," he says. Pang was also there to witness when the Beatles broke up, legally speaking. May Pang was drawn into a romantic relationship with John Lennon in 1973, at the insistance of his wife, Yoko Ono. There was a more artistic feel on this side of the border. The Pang family left when the tenements where they lived were scheduled to be razed, and moved to an apartment near 97th Street and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan.