Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies by Pamela Des Barres Page A

attempting some trivia talk with the two of them-with Patti glaring at me as if I was about to unzip Donnie's pants-I excused myself to find Michael, hoping that a glimpse of my real live husband would make Patti retract her claws.... I hung onto Michael, making sure to gaze adoringly, and I could feel Patti finally relax and start to soften. I wasn't a threat after all.... A new friend! Meeting a new girl and hitting it off is almost as thrilling as falling in love. In some ways it's even more rewarding because romantic passion and honey-devotion can be back-breaking, feverish work, whereas female kinship is a constant, consistent, uplifting experience you can always count on.
    Two decades later, I still rely on Patti for consistently loyal, exhilarating kinship. We've certainly enjoyed our shared bouts of waywardness, and she has dreamed up the titles for three of my four books, including this one. I believe I have laughed with abandon harder and longer with Patti than with anybody else on the planet. She is so willing to throw her head back and roar, open her heart to the world and expect miracles in return.

    Patti's dear mama drank and her father was a bartender, so she grew up without much parental guidance. At fourteen, she had already driven cross-country with her girlfriends in a five-cylinder Mustang, and she says the first time she heard the phrase "wild child," it was being spoken about her. Patti has been working as an actress since her early twenties. I remember enjoying her fetching portrayal of a naughty nymphet in the dreamy French romp, Bilitis, and just last year, she courageously appeared naked in The Sopranos, crawling across the room on all fours before getting assassinated by TV's favorite mob. She had a ball working with our old friend Bruce Willis in his latest film, Perfect Stranger, but insists that raising her three teenagers is by far her most important gig.

    Even though she's penning her own memoir, I persuaded her to share her Cat Stevens saga one afternoon while her offspring were safely ensconced at school.
    "I was in London, modeling, and went to Sir William Brown's country house one beautiful, sunny Saturday," Patti begins wistfully. "Stevie Winwood was there, Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Jimmy Page. Everywhere you looked, there was an amazing musician. I used to be painfully shy, which should probably come as a huge surprise to you. I eventually overcame it because it was really getting in my way. But to this day, the only person I've ever been tongue-tied around was Jimmy Page. He was the most gorgeous man I've ever seen in my life. He must have thought I didn't like him, but the words just wouldn't come. Jimmy Page was like a painting; therefore, I was unable to say a word."
    There was a less daunting fellow at the country house that day. "Across the room I saw this wan, thin, dark guy, smoking a cigarette. We just stared at each other. Then I went over and asked him for a cigarette. He told me he had just gotten out of the hospital with tuberculosis. I said, `And you're smoking?' He told me just as his hit record was peaking, he started coughing up blood. He talked about his parents-his mother was Swedish and his father was Greek. I had no idea who he was."
    Patti had been dating singer Barry Ryan, who was in a group with his twin brother, Paul, who just happened to be best pals with Cat Stevens. "I walked in one evening with Barry, and there was the dark guy from the party, playing guitar with Paul-and he smiled. He started coming over more and more, and there was flirting going on every time, but Barry was absolutely clueless. Then one day, a whole group of us went to an amusement park. I'm afraid of heights, and there was this ride with two buckets that went up and down and 'round and 'round at the top. I had never even been on a roller coaster. Nobody would go on with Stephen (his friends never called him Cat), and when he said, `Who's going on with me?' I said, `I'll do it.' It felt