Neon Angel-the only and final say

So, I finished Neon Angel by Cherie Currie. I didn't write about it or bother with first and last lines because, well, it's not really the kind of book with any lines particularly worth preserving. Some of the prose bordered on the artless sort I might have written on a scrap of paper to a friend in my 10th grade Civics class (to whit "I was wondering if someone had slipped her a mickey. She was just a total mess.") But you don't read rock bios for the prose. Nor do I read them to hear how someone came up with a chord progression after a day of jamming obscure jazz riffs. I want fucked up tales of debauchery and celebrities behaving badly. And this book definitely had that.

(The Dirt by Motley Crue is of course still the top of the mountain for such narratives.)

Cherie Currie had several great stories and I can't possibly type but a fraction. For one, she had an affair with a Latin pop star when she was 16 and he was mid 20's. I am guessing this was Julio Iglesias because the dates are about right (Wikipedia says he was born in 1943.) She also mentions he was famous for wearing white suits which seems right. But I can't say I'm an expert on Latin pop of the 70's or any other era. I only know who Menudo are because of their punchline factor.

(I'm more curious who the sleazy quick draw teen idol was that her creepy pimptastic manager basically forced her to sleep with. Really no clue except it's not Shaun Cassidy as she explicitly mentions him.)

The other story is really fucked up but it has a fascinating cameo. One night Cherie was kidnapped by a guy in a limo whom she mistook for a friend of a friend that she thought would have coke. Not only did he not have party drugs, he was a deranged stranger linked to some abductions and murders in Texas who was convinced she had run off and left him to be a rock star. He took her to an abandoned house he was squatting in where he beat and raped her. Repeatedly. She managed to escape finally and they caught the guy--who was easy to find because she had stabbed him in the gut with a knife covered in peanut butter.

This is where the story takes an odd turn. Her brother-in-law was a small time actor named Tony Young. Who got a call from Vic Morrow who in turn was a friend of Cherie's abductor. He asked Tony to try to get Cherie to go easy on the guy because he was basically a good guy who just had a crush on a girl and went a little crazy. Cherie said Tony must have been starstruck by THE Vic Morrow calling him because he actually did try to convince her to drop the charges. She didn't speak to him for a while after that (pretty sure I would have been over speaking to him permanently and I'd have worn a party hat to his funeral.)

I've read stories that Vic Morrow was a real asshole who left his daughter Jennifer Jason Leigh some ridiculously small sum of money in his will just to be a dick. This story? Not helping. Although, when he saw Cherie fall apart in court testifying and eventually have to be carried out by the bailiffs in hysterics, he did come over and apologize. He apparently really thought his friend was a good guy getting a bad rap. Not an excuse but slightly mitigating.

It gets even odder because they later were both in Twilight Zone: The Movie although not in the same segments.Which is pretty fortunate for her, well, considering.