Clues And Contradictions: Where's John Lennon's White Rolls Royce? Part One

Guest blogger Eric Roberts provides a summary of the search for the whereabouts of John Lennon's White Rolls Royce (EUC 100C) that has taken much of our time the past few months.

1. THE STORY SO FAR

There have been unexpected twists, revelations and red herrings in this collaborative search for the current owner of John & Yoko's famous white Rolls Royce and its whereabouts.

The trail began with Sam & Rebecca Umland's original research for their book, Donald Cammell: A Life on the Wild Side (FAB Press, 2006), in which they mentioned that it was John Lennon's white Rolls Royce (EUC 100C) used in the final sequence of Donald Cammell and Nic Roeg's Performance (filmed 1968; released 1970). After reading Sam's blog entry The Ballad of John & Yoko's Rolls, I was intrigued and immediately commenced digging for any relevant data.

Suspicion first fell on Phil Spector, due to a statement by Plastic Ono Band drummer, Alan White, that in 1970, Lennon handed Spector the keys to EUC 100C at the conclusion of the Imagine sessions. The fact that Lennon's friend and producer still owns a vintage white Rolls Royce added weight to White's recollections. However, Telegraph journalist Mick Brown cast doubt on this theory by commenting that Spector never indicated during the course of several interviews that his white Roller once belonged to John Lennon. On the contrary, Mick was specifically told that the limousine that ferried him from his hotel to Phil Spector's mansion in Los Angeles was a "1965 Silver Cloud III," not a Phantom V. On closer inspection, Spector's 1965 Rolls Royce appears smaller and less spacious  than a top-of-the-range Phantom V.

Phil Spector's 1965 Silver Cloud III

1965 Phantom V

You'll notice the more rakish lines of the Silver Cloud, as if intended for younger, sportier members of the aristocracy. By contrast, the Phantom V is like a ship on wheels. Speed isn't the main priority: it's all about gracefulness, stability, and spectatorship. Solid, reassuring and very British, the 1965 Rolls Royce Phantom V was the epitome of English craftsmanship, a special state of refinement, one perhaps no longer permissible or possible in the 21st Century. Only 500 were ever made.

Moreover, EUC 100C has several features that distinguish it from Spector's Roller.  As Sam has pointed out, early on, Lennon had a communications antenna installed on the roof above the windshield. Later, a pair of vents were added. These were not present when the car appeared in Performance, shot in 1968, but do appear in the Apple Records promotional video, "The Ballad of John & Yoko," released the following year. Also, if you look closely at the downshot below, you can just make out the outlines of what appears to be a sunroof. (Click on image to enlarge.)

These modifications are not apparent in the photo of the white Rolls Royce in Phil Spector's driveway. Likewise, they are lacking in shots of the white '65 Phantom V in the Tebo Auto Collection in Colorado which is unambiguously attributed to Lennon. So the question remains: Where is EUC 100C?

For a list of previous threads on this topic, click here.

PART ONE OF TWO PARTS

The Search For John And Yoko’s White Rolls Royce Goes On...

Frequent 60x50 correspondent Eric Roberts provides a year-end update on the continuing saga of John Lennon's white Rolls Royce:

The mystery of the disposition of John Lennon's white Rolls Royce remains unsolved. Despite the recent 30th commemoration of Lennon’s assassination, we still aren’t sure of the exact whereabouts of John and Yoko’s white, 1965 Phantom V, or who owns it. To the best of our knowledge, there are at least three contenders, all of whom are based in the United States. One is doing time in a Californian prison; one is a legal attorney in Pensacola, Florida; and another is a property developer/car enthusiast in Colorado.

Phil Spector has never claimed to be the owner of EUC 100C. As we have seen, he just happens to have in his garage a white Rolls Royce of similar vintage to John & Yoko’s famous limousine. The only evidence in this line of inquiry is Alan White’s widely published recollection of Lennon offering Spector the keys to his white rolls at the end of the Imagine sessions in mid-1971 (see the previous blogs below on this issue). However, as Mick Brown has commented elsewhere in this blog, Spector would not have neglected to mention during the course of Brown’s interviews that his white Rolls was a gift from John Lennon. It would have been a talking point early on in the conversation, which took place in 2003.

This is supported by a short note in The Beatles Years Volume 2: After the Break-Up 1970-2001. December 1977: “On a sad note, Beatles fans in New York are horrified at the sight of John’s famous vintage white Rolls Royce car sitting neglected in an inch-deep pool of oily water in a $100 a month private garage.” (Source: http://www.wingspan.ru/bookseng/diary2/b10_1977.html)

The next “suspect” on the list is equally unverifiable. In a casual discussion between members of the Pensacola Fishing Forum, (http://www.pensacolafishingforum.com/f22/white-rolls-royce-bayfront-61968/) we learn that there is a local urban legend in the city of Pensacola, Florida, that links the vintage white roller that is permanently parked outside the office of attorney, Jim Reeves, to John Lennon. The forum commentary evokes a tangled, impossible to authenticate, “oral history” of a car that someone once claimed belonged to John and Yoko. (No photos available.)

Yet another white Rolls Royce purporting to be Lennon's former limo is featured on Flickr, parked on Main Street, Louisville, Colorado, USA. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/18767293@N00/sets/72157622341089611/detail/).

How bizarre that we know exactly where John Lennon's not-so-famous psychedelic 1956 Bentley is preserved but cannot state with any certainty what happened to the car that John and Yoko are most closely associated with. (See: http://www.sarasotacarmuseum.org/ and http://www.smallplanetbigworld.com/2009/05/john-lennon.html as well as http://www.bentleyspotting.com/2009/03/john-lennons-phantom-v.html)

At this stage, the leading protagonist in the white Roller saga has to be property entrepreneur and philanthropist, Stephen Tebo in Colorado. A recent contributor to this blog supports this hypothesis (see comments on the white Rolls posted on this blog).

Though still inconclusive, little by little, the real “life” of EUC 100C is emerging. Thanks to Rolls Royce historian, Rob Geelen, it is clear that the year and model of John & Yoko’s white Roller are identical to Lennon’s original black Rolls Royce, FJB 111C. And we also note that Performance (1970) was not the first time that EUC 100C had appeared in a motion-picture. (Source: http://imcdb.org/vehicle_317774-Rolls-Royce-Phantom-V-1966.html)

1965 Rolls Royce Phantom V Limousine By H. J. Mulliner, Park Ward design 2003 5VD63, delivered May 65 to to Patrick Barthropp Ltd., registered PPB1, and used in the movie Georgy Girl (UK, 1966), and subsequently by the Beatles. So not ordered new by Lennon.

You can be certain of one thing: whoever the real owner of EUC 100C is, providing they can establish the car’s provenance, they are sitting on a multi-million dollar investment. Its more famous, but by no means more significant black twin, FJB 111C, sold for nearly three million dollars 25 years ago. Ideally, however, John and Yoko’s white Rolls Royce should be on display in a major museum, preserved as an integral part of Beatle history.

Alas, the saga continues.

The Continuing Story of The White Roller

If you’ve been following this blog, then you know that I have been trying to learn what happened to John Lennon’s white Rolls Royce (scroll down to follow the developments, and be sure to check out the comments). It seems that once John Lennon began his life with Yoko Ono, he began wearing white clothes (as you can discern from the famous picture to the left). The interiors of his and Yoko’s home, Tittenhurst Park, were predominantly white, the exterior boldly white. White seems to have taken on a symbolic significance for both John and Yoko, perhaps influencing the minimalist design of the two-record set, The Beatles, released late in 1968, typically referred to as “the white album.” Presumably, Lennon felt that his so-called “psychedelic” Rolls Royce was no longer a true expression of who he was, and he (and perhaps the other members of the Beatles) no longer wanted to be associated with the psychedelic era.

So what, then, happened to John Lennon’s white Rolls Royce (EUC 100C)? Eric Roberts, whose dedicated efforts I have reproduced on this blog, is trying to find the answer. We did get a response from writer Mick Brown, who kindly agreed to do some checking around, specifically asking Tony King what he knew about the disposition of Lennon's vehicle. Although Mr. Brown’s reply was posted in the comments to the original blog (below), I have reproduced them here:

I have spoken with the estimable Tony King, who worked at Apple and was a close friend of John’s. He furnishes the following.

“I wish I could be the source of all information but I have no idea where it ended up, although I did use it when I was at Apple to go to lunch sometimes!

I think Ringo had it down at Tittenhurst Park for a while which is where John and Yoko lived and then Ringo and Maureen took it over after John and Yoko moved to the USA.

It also went very psychedelic for a while and was hand painted by Simon and Marijke also known as The Fool who did the outside of the Apple store on Baker St.

It had a loud speaker on the top so you could ask people to cross the road a bit faster which scared the daylights out of them!”

I thank Mick Brown very much for taking the time to ask Tony King about the matter. However, the fact is, Mr. King’s comments have not, unfortunately, determined the fate of the white Rolls Royce.

Eric Roberts responds:

Mick - Thanks for posting Tony King’s recollections about the vehicle. Unfortunately, there are one or two problems with the text. I suspect that Tony is talking about the white rolls (EUC 100C) in paragraph 3, but then, in the last 2 paragraphs, he is thinking of Lennon’s original black Rolls that he purchased around May 1965. As we know, it was this black Rolls (FJB 111C) that was hand painted with Gypsy (not “psychedelic”) designs. And we also know that in 1966 Lennon had a loud speaker system installed so he could chat with his fans without rolling down the windows, or startle pedestrians with a burst of song.

The reference to Ringo is also interesting (paragraph 3). I remember reading (somewhere) that John Lennon originally acquired the white Roller from Ringo, sometime in 1968, I assume. Ringo may well be able to shed light on the matter. Do you have his contacts? Or do you think it’s a blind alley?

Perhaps Yoko might be open to a short question about their famous car. Was it acquired by Stephen Tebo at auction, or was it a gift to Phil Spector? Are you by any chance thinking of a follow-up interview with Spector? In which case, you might slip it into the conversation…?

I hope this is of some help and that you will discover who is the current owner of this historic white Rolls Royce.

John Lennon's Other Roller

A couple of years ago I posted a blog on John Lennon’s white Rolls Royce Phantom V, the vehicle that appears at the end of Donald Cammell and Nic Roeg’s Performance (1970), the one in which Harry Flowers sits awaiting delivery of Chas ("Hello, Chas!"). It was this white Rolls that was later used in the Apple Records promotional video, "The Ballad of John and Yoko" (1969). It so happens that three different Rollers were used in Performance: the black one, shown in the film's opening moments; the black Rolls in the garage with a "tasty finish" on which acid is poured, destroying the paint job (actually that Rolls was coated with a clear substance that reacted to the chemicals in the liquid dumped from the jug—that wasn’t real acid poured on the Rolls!); and the white Rolls-Royce belonging to John Lennon used in the last sequence.

I'm happy to report that my post on Lennon’s white Phantom V prompted Eric Roberts of Brisbane, Australia to conduct some original research on Lennon’s second Rolls, which he kindly shared with me. I wrote him asking permission to share his findings on this blog, and he agreed. I wish to thank Eric for both the research and for allowing me to publish the information here. If anyone has additional information, especially regarding the date of John Lennon's purchase of the white Rolls Royce (EUC 100C), please write and I'll share it here. If anyone is willing share archival images of the white Rolls, please send them to me and I'll post them. Mr. Roberts' essay follows.

JOHN LENNON’S OTHER ROLLS ROYCE by Eric Roberts

Please note:
1. I think I saw (somewhere on the web) original documentation stating that FJB 111C was originally black. I may be wrong.
2. I am no expert when it comes to the subtle differences between various models of Rolls Royce cars. Is EUC 100C a Phantom V or a Silver Cloud III?

Everyone knows that, in 1967, John Lennon’s black, 1965 Phantom V, registration FJB 111C, was repainted yellow and covered in colourful gypsy-inspired designs. While it seems fairly conclusive that the original colour was black, a number of websites insist that it was white when Lennon bought the vehicle in June 1965 and that, subsequently, he decided to respray it black. Clearly, this cannot be true, since the so-called “psychedelic” Rolls Royce has a different number plate to the white Rolls that Lennon used from 1968 until he moved with Yoko to the United States. Further research is needed to verify that sometime ca. 1967-68, Lennon purchased a second Phantom V, identical to his 1965 black Rolls FJB 111C. It is important to recognize that Elvis Presley owned a 1960 Phantom V Roller, which he bought with the proceeds from his five picture deal with Warner Bros. Similarly, Lennon seems to have splurged on a Phantom V around the same time that The Beatles were contracted to make the movie Help!

In the aftermath of the critical failure of Magical Mystery Tour (1967)—in which FJB 111C makes a cameo appearance—Lennon began a new phase of his life with Yoko Ono. Lennon takes to wearing white clothes. The interiors of their new home, Tittenhurst, are predominantly white, and the exterior is (strikingly) white. White seems to take on a symbolic significance for both John and Yoko. Presumably, his psychedelic Rolls Royce was no longer an expression of who he was. It could only associate him with The Beatles in the mind of the media and the fans.

EUC 100C looks identical to FJB 111C, apart from the paint work and the wing-like radio antennae mounted on the roof. In the mid-1960s, the Phantom V was longer and heavier than the Silver Cloud III – a flying fortress, fully equipped with the latest communications technology. It was a status symbol and a mobile office within which one could feel perfectly safe. So taken was he with the new Roller that he took Yoko on an extended driving tour through Europe. Yoko is quoted as saying:

“He [John] had this beautiful white Rolls Royce and he said to me: ‘We should go round Europe in this car.’ I said Great! Let’s do that!”

Because of the matching number plates, we know that this was the same vehicle that was used in the film Performance shot in London in 1968. EUC 100C was also used in several Beatles photo shoots. Film and photographs from the late 1960s of John and Yoko contain glimpses of the white Phantom V, whereas FJB 111C would seem to have been put into semi-storage in Lennon’s garage at Tittenhurst.

THE SPECTOR CONNECTION
As the Beatles were in the final stages of disintegration as a band, John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s global Peace campaign took them to Montreal and Toronto , where Lennon agreed to take part in a rock festival featuring some of his idols, such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard. Having missed Woodstock, Lennon felt the need to honour this post-bed-in commitment, the only snag being that he had no band. By chance, he saw a young drummer playing in a London club and immediately recruited him into the newly formed Plastic Ono Band. Alan White, then 20 years old, only learned that Eric Clapton was also in the band at the airport. White went on to play on the Imagine album, recorded in Tittenhurst Manor and produced by Phil Spector. According to Alan White, at the end of the final session, Lennon was so ecstatic with Spector’s work that he gave him the white Phantom V:

“I’m giving you my white Rolls-Royce outside. That is what he said; he said, you’ve done a great job, I’m giving you my Rolls-Royce. And he gave him his white Rolls-Royce – the huge one that he used, and he gave it to him that day. He said take it, see you’ve done a good job… Amazing.”

Strangely enough, housed in Phil Spector’s garage in Los Angeles, is a white Rolls Royce that looks very like EUC 100C. (The original number plates have been changed to PHIL 500). Telegraph journalist, Mick Brown, in his book and various articles on his meeting with Spector a few months prior to Lana Clarkson’s murder, insists that Spector’s white Rolls is a Silver Cloud III, and gives its year of production as 1964 or 1965, depending on which of his articles you read. How certain is Brown that it is not a Phantom V?

To the untrained eye, a white 1965 Silver Cloud III would be very difficult to distinguish from a white 1965 Phantom V. Spector kept everything Lennon gave him—drawings, guitars, etc.—so why wouldn’t he keep Lennon’s classic Roller?

The only problem is that, in Longmont Colorado, multi-millionaire named Stephen Tebo, claims to have John Lennon’s white Rolls Royce in his private Tebo Auto Collection. In all probability, then, EUC 100C is owned either by Tebo or Spector. But which is it? How can we find out for sure and put this mystery of Lennon’s white Rolls Royce to bed?

REFERENCES:
1) Phil Spector: Nobody Would Want His Life Now
Telegraph
Mick Brown
14 Apr 2009

Our meeting was, to say the least bizarre. A 1965 Rolls Royce ferried me from my Los Angeles hotel to the Pyrenees Castle, driven by the same chauffeur who would later testify in court that he had seen Spector emerge from the mansion on the night of February 3 holding a revolver in his bloodied hand, and say, “I think I killed somebody.”

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/phil-spector/5154302/Phil-Spector-nobody-would-want-his-life-now.html

2) Notes From the Edge #247
Mike Tiano
August 11, 2001

Mike Tiano: So, along with working with John Lennon, you also worked with Phil Spector on a lot of (the Imagine) sessions. Any memories or stories that pop into your mind?

Alan White: Just small things like John walking up to him [and] in front of me, saying [to Spector], “I’m giving you my white Rolls-Royce outside.” (laughs). That is what he said; he said, you’ve done a great job, I’m giving you my Rolls-Royce.

MT: He said that to Phil?

AW: Yeah, and he gave him his white Rolls-Royce—the huge one that he used, and he gave it to him that day. He said take it, see you’ve done a good job... amazing.

Link: http://nfte.org/interviews/AW247.html

3) Pop’s Lost Genius
Mick Brown
4 Feb 2003

A car was waiting for me downstairs, a white 1964 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud, license plate ‘Phil 500’.

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandjazzmusic/3589445/Pops-lost-genius.html

4) Tearing Down the Wall of Sound by Mick Brown (Knopf, 2007)

A car, I was informed, would be collecting me from my hotel at noon. At the appointed hour, a white 1965 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud, license plate PHIL 500, drew up outside the hotel.

5) With a Bullet
Joe Domanick
Los Angeles Magazine, April 2007

Phil Spector’s arrest came at the end of a long, traumatic night. It began when his backup chauffeur, Adriano DeSouza, drove his red Ford Crown Victoria up the castle’s steep, winding quarter-mile-long asphalt driveway and parked adjacent to the two-story, six-car garage and motor court. A Brazilian army veteran working illegally in L.A. while on a student visa, DeSouza - who was formally dressed in a chauffeur¹s uniform of black suit and tie and white dress shirt - locked his car, walked past Spector’s 1964 white Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud to a shiny new black Mercedes-Benz S430. He got behind the wheel and waited until Spector stepped out of the rear door at about 7 p.m.

Link: http://www.lamag.com/article.aspx?id=14736

6) Mrs. Phil Spector’s Hot Rides
Rachelle shows 20/20 her husband's 1965 white Rolls Royce Silver Cloud.
Video - 00:21 | 07/30/2009
Link: http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8213055

7) Yoko Caused International Incident With Belgium Strip Show
The Quietus, Ben Hewitt, September 10th, 2009

She also revealed that she had been forced to keep a low profile when she returned to Belgium with John Lennon, adding: “He [John] had this beautiful white Rolls Royce and he said to me, ‘We should go round Europe in this car.’ I said ‘Great! Let’s do that!’ So we were driving round Europe until he said: ‘Now we’re going to go to Belgium’. I said, ‘John, er, I have to tell you something!’

“And he said, ‘Oh, well, let’s just lie low.’ So we were lying down very low in the back of the car. We drove through Belgium on the floor of the car! But they didn’t stop us!”

Link: http://thequietus.com/articles/02706-news-yoko-ono-caused-international-incident-after-stripping-in-belgium

8) Tebo Auto Collection
Longmont Colorado

Jump on this unique opportunity to attend a private event featuring Stephen Tebo’s extensive collection of antique and classic motor vehicles. Mr. Tebo started his car collection in 1975 when he purchased a sleeve-valve, three-door 1925 Willys Knight for $2,500. Recent additions include a 1929 Duesenberg and a mid-1960s Shelby Mustang. Other highlights are John Lennon’s white Rolls Royce, Steve McQueen’s Indian Chief, Frank Sinatra’s Jeep, the taxi used on the Jerry Seinfeld show, a limited-production 1954 Kaiser Darrin, a room of Corvettes, a room of British cars, vintage fire trucks and much, much more. This rarely-seen private collection will go back under wraps after this event, so don't miss your chance!

Eric Roberts
Brisbane, Australia

“More Popular That Jesus”

The way the story goes, John Lennon’s infamous remark about the Beatles being “more popular than Jesus” was printed in an interview that appeared in the London Evening Standard in early March 1966. Lennon is quoted as saying, “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first—rock ‘n ‘ roll or Christianity.” Apparently, so the story goes, his remark created nary a stir in Britain upon the publication of the interview.

Things went differently in the United States. Roughly five months after the aforementioned interview was published in England, some of Lennon’s remarks from the earlier interview were excerpted and reprinted in the 29 July 1966 issue of Datebook, a teen magazine, apparently to coincide with the release of Revolver on August 8. Within days of the magazine’s appearance on the newsstands, the American backlash against the Beatles began. It took a few days for the remark to circulate in the media, of course, but by 11 August, or right around that date, rock music, at the very least an annoyance, became a full-blown “social problem.” The vast popularity of the Beatles led many adults to conclude that the band’s influence on teenagers was immense, on the assumption, I suppose, that young people would accept their messages uncritically, the personal beliefs of the Beatles being like scripture. The first edition of Bob Larson’s Rock & Roll: The Devil’s Diversion, the subject of which he called “the moral and religious significance of rock and roll music,” was published in January or February of 1967, that is, about five months after Lennon’s remark was reprinted in Datebook. A second edition of Larson’s book followed in 1968, and a third in 1970. However, in a footnote in the third edition (1970) of his book, Larson claims that Lennon’s remark, “Christianity will go. We’re more popular than Jesus now,” appeared in the 21 March 1966 issue of Newsweek. I haven’t confirmed that reference, but I’ll take his word for it. If so, one wonders why the remark didn’t prompt such controversy in the American media until it was reprinted in Datebook in July later in the year.

Peter Watkins’ film Privilege (1967), about the trials and travails of an influential British pop star, was probably being filmed when Lennon’s remark was first published in Britain. But Lennon’s remark, “We’re more popular than Jesus,” was re-deployed and spoken by a character in AIP’s Wild in the Streets (1968), a satirical allegorical fantasy about the political dangers posed by a charismatic rock star. Written by Robert Thom (Death Race 2000, 1975), the film draws on a wide variety of themes, including, perhaps most importantly, the Oedipal romance. It features a weak father (Bert Freed) and a terrible (castrating) mother (Shelley Winters). The mother’s character was probably inspired by the Angela Lansbury figure of 1962’s The Manchurian Candidate, and like the Angela Lansbury character, the Shelley Winters character is shown to be politically ambitious once she learns that her runaway son has become rich and famous. The film’s anti-hero is Max Frost (born Max Flatow, Jr.), played by Christopher Jones, whose lack of proper maternal love is the implied motivation for his desperate need for adulation and affection. Precociously intelligent but also highly self-centered, Max escapes his unhappy home life to become a multi-millionaire by age twenty-two, by forming a hugely successful rock band and by hiring a fifteen-year-old financial genius as a band member. In order to suggest his fundamental immorality, we learn that Max has fathered several illegitimate children with whom he has no contact, literally and emotionally neglecting them in the same way his mother did him. Oddly, he likes to sleep with children, and encourages his band members to use LSD. He does nothing to discourage being seen as a Christ-like figure; in one scene, his hook-handed and slightly stoned band member, played by Larry Bishop, asks Max if he has the power to restore his missing hand.

After learning that 52% of the U. S. population is under twenty-five, Max uses his celebrity status to hijack the proceedings at the youth-oriented political rally of Senatorial candidate Johnny Fergus (Hal Holbrook, sharing a family resemblance to John F. Kennedy, in the same way that Millie Perkins, who plays Fergus’s wife, is meant to suggest Jackie Kennedy). Revealing that he is fundamentally a demagogue rather than an entertainer, Max presents a platform to reduce the voting age in the United States to fourteen (“Fourteen or Fight”) and initiates a covert plan to gain control of the Senate, first by engineering the successful Senatorial bid of drug-addled band member Sally LeRoy (Diane Varsi). Eventually, by lowering the voting age, he is elected President of the United States. In his Oedipal struggle for control over his figurative father, Johnny Fergus, Max lures away Fergus’s son Jimmy (Michael Margotta), “brainwashing” him to his way of thinking and turning him against his parents. Throughout, during his speeches Max has called his youthful minions “troops” and “babies,” and once he is President, he enacts laws imprisoning those over thirty, requiring them to ingest large quantities of LSD. Not only does the film want to suggest the demagoguery of rock stars, but American youth are shown to be terribly misguided, mindlessly throwing support behind an individual who is fundamentally a self-serving tyrant, able to use the power of the media to shape his image for his own ends. The film also invokes the hippie hysteria of the late Sixties, an hysteria that was in part spurred by the counterculture’s embrace of non-Christian (largely Oriental) religion. I suspect that one of the sources of inspiration for Robert Thom’s script was the “CBS Reports” documentary hosted by Harry Reasoner, titled The Hippie Temptation, that aired on 22 August 1967. Indeed, in general the film seems heavily influenced by the media depiction of the counterculture in the late 1960s. The film is one instance of the widespread reaction to Lennon’s remark, and perhaps one of the earliest films to do so.

The Ballad of John and Yoko's Rolls

In yesterday's blog I mentioned John Lennon's Rolls-Royce Phantom V, the car that was later repainted in psychedelic fashion (for complete information on this particular Roller, go to the following website). I also said that Lennon didn’t acquire this particular Rolls-Royce until 3 June 1965, and that it was repainted in psychedelic fashion in April 1967. I encourage readers to visit the aforementioned website to verify all of this information.

I have brought up this issue because a couple of individuals have emailed me--including a third person whom we actually interviewed as part of our research--challenging my and Rebecca's assertion in our book, Donald Cammell: A Life on the Wild Side (2006), that the white Rolls-Royce used at the end of Performance (1970), the one in which Harry Flowers sits awaiting delivery of Chas ("Hello, Chas!"), and the Rolls in which Chas/Turner rides off in the film's final moments, was John Lennon's Phantom V. It was this same white Rolls, so we asserted, that was later used in the Apple Records promotional video, "The Ballad of John and Yoko" (1969). That could not be John Lennon's Rolls-Royce used in the film, we have been informed, because it was painted in psychedelic colors. The Rolls-Royce used at the end of Performance is white. I responded to these queries by saying that we did our research, and that indeed our information is correct.

It is true that three different Rollers were used in Performance: the black one, shown in the film's opening moments; the black Rolls in the garage with a "tasty finish," on which acid is poured, destroying the paint job (actually that Rolls was coated with a clear substance that reacted to the chemicals in the liquid dumped from the jug--that wasn't real acid poured on the Rolls!); and the white Rolls-Royce belonging to John Lennon used in the last sequence.

Since the issue has come up in the past, and since there may be others who haven't written me but who also think we are incorrect, I thought I'd address it, and settle the matter once and for all. I've included below a series of frame grabs from the final moments of Performance in order to fully reveal the identity of the Rolls-Royce used in the last sequence of the film.

The first still consists of a shot taken from Chas/Turner's subjective POV approaching the white Rolls...


Chas/Turner climbs in and the Rolls pulls away, revealing the front license plate, EUC 100C. Note the antenna on the roof toward the front, over the top of the windshield:


Following the 180 degree rule (editing on the axis), there is a cut to the rear of the Rolls-Royce as it pulls away from the curb and begins down the street. Again the shot reveals the license plate, EUC 100C:


The same white Rolls used in Performance, owned by John Lennon--certainly he was wealthy enough to own more than one such luxury car--was used a few months later in the Apple Records promotional video, "The Ballad of John and Yoko." Please forgive the poor quality of the image, but here's a screen grab taken from early in the video. Note the gull-wing antenna on the roof, near the front windshield:


Here's a shot of the Rolls toward the end of the video (again I apologize for the poor quality of the image). Note the license plate, EUC 100C:


I should also add that David Cammell, the film's Associate Producer, told us that it was John Lennon's car, so I hope that all of this is proof enough that our assertion in our book about the identity of the white Rolls-Royce is correct. The equipment in Turner's "studio" was also borrowed from the Beatles' Abbey Road studio, with the exception of the Moog Series III synthesizer, which was brought over by Jon Weiss, a representative of Moog at the time.

In a subsequent blog I'll discuss what happened to the Moog synthesizer that was used in Performance.