Q&A with Carol Connors, author of Elvis, “Rocky” and Me
1) What’s the event in your fascinating life that most people are curious about?
Of course, it’s my love affair with Elvis. Although I was in my early 20s when I met him, I was still a virgin, but we went together for nine months and my personal situation changed in the course of our affair. He didn’t break off our relationship, it was me who did that. Elvis never wanted to go out. All we ever did was hang out as his house in Los Angeles surrounded by his close buddies, often called the Memphis Mafia. I was young and wanted to do things, so I broke away.
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2) You were the lead singer of the Teddy Bears, which had a Number One hit record with “To Know Him Is To Love Him.” The other singers in the group were Marshall Leib and Phil Spector. What was Phil like in the time before he became a famous songwriter and producer?
Phil was an incredible guitarist. His favorite guitar people were Barney Kessel and Howard Roberts, fairly well-known as jazz musicians. I didn’t meet Marshall until I joined the Teddy Bears. He was also funny, but quiet. Together they were hip to music, music trends and recording technology. When we achieved success as the Teddy Bears, they were my big brothers. They protected me. They didn’t let me go out in the night with them even when I was a Teddy Bear, except once I was allowed to go to Frankie Avalon’s house for a dinner. Phil’s school years tracked differently than mine until high school. He went to John Burroughs Junior High, where he met Marshall Leib, someone who had the same profound interest in making music as he did. Phil and Marshall would always find a third person to join their little group, which would then play gigs around the Los Angeles area. By this time, Phil had become a very good musician, wining a talent contest at the high school, and with Marshall Leib, won a radio competition singing “In the Still of the Night.”
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3) You are most famous for co-writing the song, “Gonna Fly Now” (theme song for the movie Rocky). What do you remember most about that experience?
Here’s a story of the aftermath. On the night of the Academy Awards, competitively, Rocky was holding its own against the heavily favored Network, nominated for 10 awards. There was not much going on with the movie A Star Is Born, where Barbra Streisand warbled Evergreen another nominated theme song, and Henry Mancini, who was sitting next to me, leaned over and exclaimed, “Oh Carol, you are going to win the Oscar your first time out.” Soon afterward, Barbra Streisand came out to sing “Evergreen.” The stage was dark and, in the glimmer, Barbra, in her frizzy-hair days, sings “… soft as easy chair,” and the first applause breaks. She looked great, sounded great and Henry Mancini took my hand and said, “You just lost the Oscar.” He was right-on. When Barbra pick[=ed up the Oscar she said, “In my wildest dreams I could never, never imagine winning an Academy Award for writing a song.” My take is, I lost to the only time Barbra Streisand ever decided to write a song.
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4) Most people don’t know you wrote the hit record, “Hey Little Cobra” from 1964. How did the lyrics come about?
At the time, I liked driving sports cars, but I didn’t much care what was under the hood. When I approached “Hey Little Cobra” it was very much tongue-in-cheek. I mean the first lines of the song is the set-up: “I took my Cobra down to the track, hitched to the back of my Cadillac.” That’s a great rhyme wrapped in a confessedly goofy lyric. About as technical as I got was this verse, “I hung a big shift and I got into high.” I may not have known a carburetor from a camshaft but I knew my sports cars, which is why I wrote, “Everyone was there just a-waitin’ for me; There were plenty of Stingrays and XKEs.” I’m particularly proud of the chorus “Spring little Cobra, get ready to strike,” which was both a play on the car and a reference to the Cobra snake, which could spring and strike someone.
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5) You have two Academy Award nominations. After “Gonna Fly Now” what was your second nomination.
My writing partner Ayn Robbins and I had an interview with a top Disney producer, who was working on the animated film that became the very popular The Rescuers. We played some songs from another project we worked on. The producer liked what he heard and showed us the storyboards to the movie. The soundtrack to The Rescuers consists of four key songs and Ayn and I wrote all, with an additional writer on one of the tunes. The most important of those songs is called “Someone’s Waiting for You,” and it was nominated for an Academy Award in the year 1977
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6) You wrote many television show theme songs. Any you want to talk about?
At a tennis tournament I was sitting with Robin Leach, who had helped create the popular television show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. The show had first aired in 1984 and by the time I was sitting with him a few years later it was making Robin rich and famous. His catchphrase, at the end of every episode, the intent of which was to wish his viewers the best in life, was “Champagne wishes and caviar dreams.” I told him it would make a great theme song. He concurred and suggested I write it. I did and got Dionne Warwick to record the song, “Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams.” The time comes to record the song and we all go down to the recording studio. Although it’s a straightforward tune, Dionne, in her inimical way, played with it a bit and ad-libbed a few adjustments here and there. Meanwhile, I’m in the recording booth going nutsy-crazy. Dionne could see me and my jumping around like a maniac became very distracting to her. She called a break and walked into the recording booth. Looking directly at me, she said, “Carol, I love you dearly. I love the song. But get the fuck out of this recording studio.” She threw me out.
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7) What that your weirdest experience writing for a television show?
I was collaborating with the talented Billy Goldenberg to write the theme song for the television show “Love, Sydney,’ which ran from 1981 to `82 and starred Tony Randall and Swoosie Kurtz. The concept was interesting, Tony Randall played a closeted gay man who shared a house with a single mother (Swoosie Kurtz) and her daughter. Billy was the composer for the show and he brought me in to write the lyrics to the theme song “Friends Forever.” Tony Randall thought he was this great singer and he wanted to record the theme, so in the original introduction to the show, with the characters being introduced, Tony, in a deep, untrustworthy baritone, leads the song with secondary parts taken up by Swoosie Kurtz and the child actor Kaleena Kiff. It wasn’t great, so for the second season I got Gladys Knight and the Pips to sing the theme song. That just wasn’t right for Tony, who wanted to sing the theme song. So, the great Gladys Knight was out and the tone deaf Rony Randall was in.
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8) One of your greatest hit records was “With You I’m Born Again.” The singers were Billy Preston and Syreeta. Was it a Number One song?
It should have been. The song arrived on the Billboard charts at a very low number, probably in the 90s on the Top 100 list, then quickly galloped ahead. In March 1980 it reached Number Four and was headed to Number One. That is, until we learned there was a problem with radio giant RKO General, which owned important stations in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other large markets, plus it had hundreds of affiliate stations. What happened was, one of the ways RKO stations determined which new songs to play was the listening session, where a bunch of RKO song-meisters would sit around a conference table and basically do a thumbs up or thumbs down to each record. When “Born Again,” came around, RKO’s head programmer said, “nice tune, but it is not going anywhere.” He refused to play it. The song was taking off everywhere just not at RKO stations. With some of the big stations out of the loop, the song was effectively blocked from going further down the charts. It hung in there at Number Four for a couple of weeks and that was it.
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9) You knew a lot of famous movie stars, but it appears your most celebrated boyfriends were television personalities.
Yes, that is correct. Of the many guys I dated in my Hollywood years, I managed to screw up multiple possible liaisons with Steve McQueen and never got to date the man of my dreams, Clint Eastwood, who I also met. However, my true loves included David Janssen, the lead actor of The Fugitive, and Robert Culp, who starred with Bill Cosby in I Spy. I also dated Kiel Martin of Hill Street Blues, but that didn’t turn out so well.
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10) Is it true, you spent time with O.J. Simpson the day before he allegedly killed his ex-wife.
Sadly, that is a true story. On the night of June 11, 1994, I was at a fund raiser and O.J. Simpson was there with his newest lady, Paula Barbieri. We ended up at neighboring tables. I was sitting with three older women, who were absolutely gaga over O.J., gushing like teenagers. Casually I slip in that I knew him and they jumped at this opportunity, asking me if I would ask O.J. if they could have a picture taken with him. So, I got up and walked toward his seat. He asked me how I was and after all that pleasant small talk, I got to the point, that the women at my table would love to have a picture with you. “No problem,” he says and the picture of him, the ladies and me was clicked. (There were just three pictures of O.J. taken that night. The photographer sold the one with me later on for $18,000; today it would sell for more like $180,000.”) Before I left him, I asked about the Abyssinian cats his former wife Nicole and he had owned. He responded in a very bizarre tone of voice, which I’ve never forgotten, saying just one word, “Dead!” He didn’t say, “hey, they passed” or that they were gone. It was just the one frozen, macabre word. On June 12, 1994, Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman were found stabbed to death.