The story and photo were taken from here It is a very nice story and this fan and his father took some of my favorite photos of John and Julian. However, it isn't true that they were the ones that first told the public about the Lost Weekend. May Pang had been known ever since March 1974 when the photo of John and her kissing made all of the headlines. By the time they were in Florida with Julian, it was December 1974. John had already sang on stage with Elton John and in about a month and a half, the "Lost Weekend" would come to an end, and John would return to the Dakota and Yoko. But anyhow....good story.
John Lennon Shows up in Palm Beach
My Father came home from work one night and asked me if I would like to go on a photo assignment with him the next day to photograph John Lennon, of course he knew the answer before he asked the question, it was just his sense of humor. I don't think I slept very much that night, the anticipation was overwhelming. This was John's first time in Palm Beach, we got the assignment from The Palm Beach Daily News. I was supposed to shoot color slides, and my Dad would shoot the black and white for the paper. When we got there John was poolside with his son Julian, they were just back from Disney World in Orlando for the first time, with a woman that neither my Father nor I could identify. " Who is that, that's not Yoko, who is this woman with John that we can't identify?" ( It was May Pang, Yoko's secretary ) "I don't know Dad, I've never seen this woman before." We were so freaked out, we knew we had some special photographs. We broke the story to People Magazine and as it turns out, we were the ones to come up with the first photos of the event that John Lennon, and Beatle fans all over the world call "The Lost Weekend ". It was the fans great hope that Yoko was out of the picture and the Beetles would get back together again.
This was one of the most memorable photo shoots I ever had, I still carry a picture of me and John in my wallet, I got to speak with him briefly, he was so down to Earth it was amazing, not the celeb he could have acted like. This was one time I was totally star struck.On a return trip to Palm Beach with Yoko, I was able to meet John again, he was shopping on Worth Ave. with Yoko, there were people peering in to a shop window and I knew something was going on, I knew John was in town so I had an 8x10 of us together all ready to be autographed. I ran back to the studio, which was only a few blocks away, and grabbed the photo. I walked into the store , and up to John, holding out the photo. Surprisingly, he did not remember when it was taken, I explained it was taken in a bad time in his life, he had broken up with Yoko at the time . He gave a little acknowledging nod and said "oh ", and invited me to their new house in Palm Beach, to show him the rest of the photos taken that day. When I knocked on the door, he answered it himself, I gave him a set of proofs, and that's the last time I saw John Lennon.
Sadly all of my color slides were destroyed. By Ken Davidoff
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