If you are a John Lennon fan, you will be familiar with Dan Richter. He lived with John and Yoko at Tittenhurst in the early 1970s and worked for them. He photographed the Plastic Ono Band albums and the Imagine album. And besides that -- I didn't know much more about him.
I read his book The Dream is Over London in the 60s, Heroin, and John and Yoko on the Kindle app this last week, and I really enjoyed it. Dan is a very interesting man. He was a mime in New York City for a long time until he quit and decided to travel the world, learning about the various theaters. In Japan in the early 1960s, he met and befriended Yoko Ono.
Eventually, Dan and Yoko are in London at the same time and are hanging out together. Then Yoko gets together with John and introduces her new boyfriend to her friend. Dan, his wife, and his child move into Tittenhurst to help remodel the home. During this time, Dan was fully into heroin addiction, and he supplied the drug to John and Yoko. When they quit doing it, they confronted Dan and told him to keep living there, he needs to be off herion because they don't want it around them. They really helped him get on the path to being clean, and while Dan went back to drugs on different occasions, he really credits John and Yoko for helping him.
Dan was part of the Lennon's life during some very important time, including the whole Kyoko kidnapping and custody issues.
Dan's depiction of Yoko was probably the most realistic depiction of her that I have ever read. He points out her faults without making her seem evil while also praising her good side without making her look like a saint. Since he knew her before she met John, his observations were very insightful. However, I do think she did him wrong by promising to financially back the movie he wanted to make and then pulling the funds when John and Yoko decided to end Joko Films. Dan was literally in the middle of filming it with the actors. Yoko knew how important this project was to him and it just seemed mean to pull the assistance that she promised her friend.
This book is basically impossible to find in physical form. But it is available to read on Kindle for a reasonable price. If you are a John Lennon and/or Yoko Ono fan, it is one worth reading.
The link below is the affiliate link to purchase the ebook directly from Amazon.com I make a very small percentage of money from any sales using this link. All money made from the affiliate link on Amazon goes towards keeping this site running.
Not to totally excuse Yoko (and John), but... If Joko Films was indeed a division of Apple (Films), then it would have been one of the company's divisions which, along with Zapple Records for instance, Allen Klein shut down when he took over and started streamlining the Beatles' disastrous overspending. Which would explain why the financing for Dan's film, among others, was withdrawn.
ReplyDeleteThat is a good point. I don't know how things really went down, but it just felt heartless after reading about it in his book.
Deletehe was the third virgin on the orginal Picture
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