It always feels a bit corny to be living in Los Angeles while writing a film script. It’s so cliché it makes me blush every time I think about it. While my husband and I didn’t move to LA so I could pursue my dreams with stars in my eyes and sunshine in my soul, it does help to live somewhere where movie making is always top of mind.

This second crack at a feature length screenplay has been a lot tighter and fluid compared to my first script. I was more organized and well researched. I outlined the shit out of the thing, which of course morphed and evolved as any story does into something slightly different.

My first script was based in-part on personal experience and ended up this cathartic experience that helped me let go of things from the past and was a good exercise in script formatting. I’m not discounting it entirely, I’d like to revisit it one day and revise it from a romantic drama to the rom com it really is. As much as I wanted to avoid that genre, after hearing film producer Lindsay Doran speak earlier this year I was reminded that it’s okay to write something that makes people laugh and feel good. Some of the films I go back to over and over have happy themes and endings. God knows we could all use some pleasant escapism these days.

The 60s and 70s are eras I’ve always been fascinated by. I often say I was born in the wrong decade, because the music, fashion and attitudes of that time are much more raw and sexy and interesting to me than anything that’s happened since. So naturally, last summer, I made the lofty decision to write a biopic based on Freddie Mercury’s life. Not at all ambitious or ludicrous. Of course, the film has been in the works for years with Sacha Baron Cohen set to play Mercury, until he backed out of the project over rumoured disagreements with the remaining members of Queen. I think more than anything it’s a story I’m dying to see onscreen, and I’m just too impatient to wait for someone else to do it.

While researching my debunked attempt at a biopic, I read the memoirs of two notorious American groupies: Bebe Buell and Pamela Des Barres. Never mind writing a story about rock stars, the women who inspired some of the greatest rock albums of all time deserved my attention so much more. So that’s what I did.

It’s the story of two women who become entangled with the same musician. Not entirely based on Buell and Des Barres, but absolutely inspired by them. I tried to write something that focused on the strength of the women of that era and how so many of them played muse to artists with little to no credit. How many of them went on to enjoy their own success as musicians, mothers, writers and artists.

One of my protagonist’s is based in LA and the other in New York, which made it really easy to immerse myself in the some of the scenes because so many of the places I wrote about still exist! Working title East and West.

When I was in New York in the spring, I managed to finagle my way into Gramercy Park (scene #12) after a kind older fellow caught me awkwardly taking photos through the fence. I stood in the crumbling lobby of Hotel Chelsea (scene #70) to soak in the energy of what was once a creative epicenter and a man came up behind me (seemingly out of nowhere) and said, “You know, everyone used to live here.” Then he kind of disappeared. Maybe he was a ghost?

A few weeks ago, photographer Baron Wolman was to appear at a gallery party in Hollywood to exhibit The Woodstock Years, now famous photos he had taken of fans during the iconic music festival. The reception was to be hosted by Pamela De Barres, so obviously I had to be there and luckily I had a chance to meet the woman who in part inspired my script. And she was warm and friendly and just as lovely as I imagined her to be.

When Baron was signing the book I bought of his amazing photographs, he looked me the eye and said, “You missed it, you know. The party’s over.” I guess that’s why I wrote about it.

Legendary groupie, author and journalist Pamela Des Barres

C’est fini!

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