The Last Bohemians

Nikki Giovanni was one of the greatest poets of her generation and it was an honour to sit with her for a special episode of The Last Bohemians, recorded in Spring 2024 in London, while she was promoting what would become her final anthology, Poems: 1968-2020 (Penguin Classics). When we saw she was in town, we jumped at the chance to speak with her and we're very grateful to have been granted an audience.

A poet, author and activist, Nikki was considered a key figure in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 70s, which ran parallel to the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in America. It included notable writers and artists like Audre Lorde, Maya Angelou and another of our Last Bohemians, Betye Saar, many of whom she counted as friends. Just imagine that dinner party!

Nikki was born in 1943 in Knoxville, Tennessee, grew up in Ohio, and self-published her first two books in 1968. In the 70s, she was selling out huge concert venues and started blending gospel music with spoken word, on albums like Truth is On The Way, foreshadowing the birth of hip-hop. Her poems spoke boldly of justice and liberation but had love and joy at their centre, and she released over 30 books of them.

It’s strange and sad to speak about Nikki Giovanni in the past tense: she passed away on 9 December 2024, aged 81, of complications from lung cancer, just before this edit was finished.

We’ve sat on this episode for a while, unsure what to do with it and when to release it to the world. But we think you should have it in time for International Women’s Day 2025. Since 2019, we’ve either launched a series or a one-off around this time and felt that, with everything going on in the world at the moment, it’s the moment to send this special conversation out there.

And wow, does Nikki have some things to say, as she discusses becoming a success, her famous friendships with Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone, the power of anger, her self-care routine and why poetry is a serious business indeed.

////CREDITS////

This episode is hosted and exec-produced by Kate Hutchinson, with audio production and editing by Kit Callin. It was recorded at Spiritland Studios, London.

The poem you hear is 'Serious Poems' by Nikki Giovanni, part of the anthology book Poems: 1968-2020, out now on Penguin Classics.

The music used is 'Only Instrumental' by Broke For Free.

A huge thank you to Juliette Morrison at Penguin and Virginia Fowler for helping to make this interview happen.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelastbohemians.substack.com/subscribe

Rewind to the 1980s and London nightlife was an explosion of creativity – the new romantics were in, dramatic fashion looks were everywhere and at the back of the club, having a gossip, there’d be Sue Tilley, also affectionately known as Big Sue. 





She was the best friend of the outrageous performance artist and fashion designer Leigh Bowery, who became known for his shocking stage shows and about whom she wrote a biography. Sue worked at the Job Centre during the day and the door at his infamously wild club night Taboo, which was later immortalised by Boy George in the musical of the same name, by night. This was a place, in the mid-80s, where genders and sexualities were blurred and the more flamboyant your costume, the better. 





It’s also where Leigh and Sue met the painter Lucian Freud – both ended up sitting for him but Sue’s nude portrait, 1995’s Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, is perhaps among his most famous works, which, when it sold for $33.6 million, was the most expensive painting by a living artist ever to be sold at auction.





Sue left London to retire by the seaside on England’s south coast and it’s where she can often be found hosting quizzes and DJing in one of the local pubs, or working on her own pieces – she is now an artist in her own right and often paints the colourful characters she remembers from her clubbing days.



This episode was produced by Gabriela Jones.



Music: Ad Infinitum - Oh The City; Photosynthesis - Lagua Vesa; Waking Dreams (Nada Copyright Free Music); Santosha - Can Sandano; A Message From Your Space Cat - Felix Johansson Carne; Cotton Candy - Copse; Backplate - Joseph McDade; Waking And Dreaming - Brendon Moelleer

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelastbohemians.substack.com/subscribe

The inspiration for this series, Molly Parkin is a painter, erotic novelist and a former fashion editor who was once just as famous for her bedroom liaisons with the movers and shakers of London. She is never without a bejewelled turban on her head or a saucy anecdote at hand. Now 87, she lives on the iconic World’s End estate in Chelsea, in a kaleidoscopic apartment filled with her art and clothing.



In this candid – and fairly explicit! – episode The Last Bohemians meets her at home, where she discusses her illuminating sex life, her wild days at The Colony Club with artist Francis Bacon, her penchant for erotic writing and how to get off in your eighties.



Presenter: Kate Hutchinson

Producer: Alannah Chance

Photos: Laura Kelly

www.thelastbohemians.co.uk

@thelastbohemianspod


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelastbohemians.substack.com/subscribe

For the final episode of The Last Bohemians: LA, supported by Audio-Technica, we meet French fashion disruptor and true original, Michéle Lamy. She’s been married to the designer Rick Owens, her former pattern cutter, since 2006 and is often referred to as his 'muse'. But Michéle is a chameleonic creative in her own right, forever staging art happenings, musical collaborations and style projects around the world, as well as co-designing the furniture for the Rick Owens line.

She’s so in-demand that she’s tricky to track down: we did this interview partly in London, at Claridges in Mayfair, and partly at the Chateau Marmont in LA, the city Michéle lived in for 26 years until the early 2000s. In those days, she was better known as the owner and host of cult Hollywood nightspot Les Deux Cafe, where anyone who’s anyone would dine as Michéle performed smoky jazz numbers in her thick drawl.

Now Michéle is more nomadic, splitting her time between Los Angeles and Paris, and attracting beautiful freaks wherever she goes. A gothic style icon (she’s been called a vampire, ageless, the ultimate eccentric…), her signature look is ink-dipped fingers, a line of kohl on her forehead, a voluminous outfit and a cigarette always in her hand. Listen out for her many bangles too, which clank as she speaks!In this hypnotic episode, Michéle talks to us about the influence of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, her style awakening in the Moroccan desert, how she decides who to collaborate with, her unlikely kinship with Kim Kardashian, why she loves boxing, how she got gold teeth, following her instincts and the importance of “finding your tribe”.

That’s it for the LA series but listen out for some bonus episodes very soon. 

CREDITSFollow us: instagram.com/thelastbohemianspodPresenter and Exec Producer: Kate HutchinsonEditors: Holly Fisher and Mariana Sousa AguiarAdditional production: Sefa NykiPhotography: Matilda Hill-JenkinsWith thanks to Janet Fischgrund and everyone at OwenscorpAll music by Mara Carlyle with the exception of 'Laman' by Imdukal'N' El Hussain Safir and The Last Bohemians theme music by Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog Jones.

ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANSJournalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It featured 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. The series won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.Season two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre, and launched an LA series, supported by Audio-Technica.

ABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICAIn 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelastbohemians.substack.com/subscribe

Penny Slinger was a mover and shaker in Swinging London's art scene – though you might not have heard of her. She went to Chelsea Art School at the height of the Pop Art boom and, inspired by Max Ernst, went on to mix up self-portrait, collage, film and sculpture to create surreal and feminist images that still provoke today. Among these were her “full frontal collages”, including ones where Penny appears inside a wedding cake, the slice between her legs removed. Her 1977 collage masterpiece, An Exorcism, meanwhile, evoked the darkness of the English psyche, stitching together ghoulish images of the countryside, genitals, nuns and manor houses. In the UK, Penny counted the photographer Lee Miller among her friends and, at one point, lived in a turret in Soho, where her boyfriend – the counterculture film-maker Peter Whitehead – kept falcons. How’s that for bohemian! Penny appeared in experimental films and wrote a number of books on themes of sex, mysticism, eroticism and inner goddesses, including groundbreaking books of her collages and poetry, such as 50% The Invisible Woman. But after a solo show in New York in 1982, she abandoned the art world, tired of its sexism and narrow-mindedness. She moved first to the Caribbean, then to Northern California and finally settled in LA. It isn’t until recently that Penny’s work has been rediscovered. In 2009, she was included in the Angels of Anarchy show of female surrealists in Manchester and she was the subject of a 2017 documentary by Richard Kovitch. In this episode of The Last Bohemians: LA, supported by Audio-Technica, Penny covers a range of topics, including her sexual and sensual liberation, finding her voice in a male-dominated art scene, starring in the only feature film directed by a woman in the 1970s, how she hopes to see a retrospective in her lifetime and how desire doesn’t diminish with age...

CREDITS

Follow us: instagram.com/thelastbohemianspodPresenter: Kate HutchinsonProducer: Holly FisherPhotography: Lisa Jelliffe.With thanks to Zoe Flowers.Theme music: Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog Jones

ABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICA

In 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.

ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANS

Journalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It featured 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. The series won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.Season two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre, and launched an LA series, supported by Audio-Technica.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelastbohemians.substack.com/subscribe

Speak to anyone from the 1980s punk scene in Los Angeles and they’ll tell you: Johanna Went is an underground legend. While the bands like Black Flag, Fear and X were thrashing out their three chords and the truth, Went would take to the stage at clubs like The Masque, Club Lingerie and Hong Kong Cafe and perform between the live shows. The crowd hadn’t seen anything like it before.



She wasn’t a punk musician per se but the “hyena of performance art”, whose transgressive spectacles of New Wave theatre, experimental noise, elaborate and crude costumes, chaotic rituals, and gory props like pig heads and fake blood – lots of blood – built a cult following and predated Lady Gaga’s meat dress and Peaches' raucous stage antics and costumes by decades.



Johanna’s shows were wild, depraved and often grotesque, boldly taking on themes like female pleasure and menstruation. Take her 1988 performance Passion Container, in which she pulled giant bloodied tampons out of a silk vagina and chucked them into the crowd – this was pre-riot grrrl and before L7’s legendary tampon-flinging performance at Reading Festival in 1992. 



Many aren’t sure where Johanna Went went but The Last Bohemians: LA, supported by Audio-Technica, found her living a quieter life, in the beach town of Ventura, California. Across her garden table, she looks back at her transgressive work and talks about the magic of the 1980s punk scene, growing up an outsider, the beauty of performance art and why embracing ageing is the punkest move of all.



CREDITS

Presenter and Exec-Producer: Kate Hutchinson

Editor: Georgie Rogers

Additional production: Holly Fisher

Mixing and mastering: Mariana Sousa Aguiar

Photography: Kate Hutchinson

With thanks to Sarah Cooper at the Getty, Alice Bag, Mara Carlyle and all at Erased Tapes.



MUSIC

Theme music: Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog Jones



Piano Scapes 3 

Written and performed by Qasim Naqvi

Courtesy of Erased Tapes



Angelus Novus

Written by Saki Sugimoto

Performed by Hatis Noit

Courtesy of Erased Tapes



Away With These Self-Loving Lads (Instrumental) - Mara Carlyle

Pearl (Instrumental) - Mara Carlyle 

Bowlface en Provence (Instrumental) - Mara Carlyle

Bonding (Instrumental) - Mara Carlyle



Nerveskade - Sickhead

Apache Tomcat - Alright Rock N Roll



FURTHER READING/LISTENING

X-Trax

Hyperallergic

ArtForum

Bandcamp



ABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICA

In 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.



ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANS

Journalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It featured 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. The series won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.



Season two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre, and launched an LA series, supported by Audio-Technica, in summer.



thelastbohemians.co.uk

patreon.com/thelastbohemians

instagram.com/thelastbohemianspod

twitter.com/thelastbohospod 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelastbohemians.substack.com/subscribe

In the north of Los Angeles, in a neighbourhood called Glendale, an unassuming bungalow is home to one of the first women in Hollywood to cut men’s hair. Today she goes by the glitziest of names, Madelynn von Ritz, but back in the 60s she was called Lynn Castle and hung out with key people of the era, lopping off Jim Morrison, the Byrds, Sonny Bono and Neil Young's locks.



She was also a secret musician. But despite her childhood friends being musical svengalis like Phil Spector – who she once dated – as well as Jack Nietzcshe and Lee Hazlewood, it took her a while to reveal her talent. Eventually, however, she cut a number of intimate, melancholy demos in the hazy 60s with Hazlewood, who later famously teamed up with Nancy Sinatra and helped define the decade’s psychedelic sound.



Lynn is now 83 (going on 53!) and still writes music to this day, with a home studio tucked in the corner of her living room. Those old demos, meanwhile, were found by the label Light in the Attic and reissued as Rose Coloured Corner in 2017 – an album 50 years in the making – including her signature song, pop gem The Lady Barber. 



In this episode of The Last Bohemians: LA, supported by Audio-Technica, Lynn discusses her 'friendship' with Elvis, her series of almost-famous moments with Bob Dylan and the Stones, her positive outlook and life, and unexpectedly digs out letters from an old flame...



CREDITS

Presenter/Exec-Producer: Kate Hutchinson

Producer: Holly Fisher

Photography: Lisa Jelliffe

Theme music: Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog Jones

With thanks to Light in the Attic Records.



MUSIC

Lynn Castle - Caroline

Gary War - Bounce Four

Gary War - Clouds That Went Away

Philippa Dowding and Allister Thompson - Sequinned Mountain Ladies

Ketsa - Another Day

Dez Moran - August Events

Psuche - Dance Dance

Don Syke - Desert Blues

Peter Crosby - Had To Move On

Mara Carlyle - Nuzzle



ABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICA

In 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.



ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANS

Journalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It stole hearts with 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. It won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.



Series two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre.



thelastbohemians.co.uk

patreon.com/thelastbohemians

instagram.com/thelastbohemianspod

twitter.com/thelastbohospod 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelastbohemians.substack.com/subscribe

Our LA series, supported by Audio-Technica, returns this week with a Last Bohemians first: in a very special episode, we speak to three generations of an American artistic dynasty up in the leafy hills of Laurel Canyon: the incredible Betye Saar, her daughter Alison Saar and and granddaughter Maddy Leeser.



Betye Saar, 96 (she was 95 at the time of making this podcast), is a revered assemblage, collage and installation artist, known for her use of found objects, and was part of both the Black Arts and feminist art movements in 1960s and 70s California. Her best known works include 1969’s Black Girl's Window, which incorporates elements of mysticism and brings to mind the current #BlackGirlMagic movement, and 1972’s The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, a piece of art that confronted racist and cultural stereotypes. The latter was so revolutionary, said the Guardian, “that the activist and scholar Angela Davis credited it with launching the Black women’s movement.”



Betye is currently experiencing something of a renaissance, underlined by recent, pre-pandemic solo shows at MOMA in New York and its LA equivalent, LACMA. She still makes art every day. But, as Harper’s Bazaar recently said, her proudest legacy is her family.



We sit around the table and share tea and biscuits not only with Betye but with Alison Saar, 66, one of her three daughters, who started out by working with her father, Richard Saar, in his ceramics studio. A breathtaking sculptor whose work spans four decades, Alison’s pieces often take the form of female figures. They explore different takes on African-African experiences, and the idea of history repeating, often made in response to events and themes like Hurricane Katrina and the AIDS crisis, the menopause and mythology. And we are also joined by Alison’s daughter Maddy Inez Leeser, 28, who makes stunning ceramics inspired by the natural world.



The phrase “generational magic” really jumps out during this conversation, as the three women discuss motherhood and creativity, making art out of the everyday, being a mixed race family and the importance of exploring their African-American heritage, and the life and career advice that has been passed down from generation to generation.



It was such a privilege to join them one afternoon at Alison’s house in LA. We hope you enjoy hearing their gorgeous slice of life among the birdsong and car beeps.



CREDITS

Presenter/Exec-Producer: Kate Hutchinson

Producers: Sue Merlino and Holly Fisher

Additional production: Will Horrocks

Theme music: Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog Jones

With thanks to: The Saar family, Emma Haru, Lisa Jann, Kimberly David, Lauren Graber and Julie at Roberts Projects LA, and Bobby Lee and Ali at Warm Music for generously donating us the track Walking With Trees.



ABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICA

In 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.



ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANS

Journalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It stole hearts with 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. It won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.



Series two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre.



thelastbohemians.co.uk

patreon.com/thelastbohemians

instagram.com/thelastbohemianspod

twitter.com/thelastbohospod 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelastbohemians.substack.com/subscribe

The Last Bohemians returns with a brand new series set in Tinseltown, supported by Audio-Technica. From forgotten feminist artists to Sunset Strip sexpots and from punk performers to subversive style disruptors (and one Californian arts dynasty!): these are some of the most maverick women in LA, whose stories each say something different about the city.



In episode two, Team TLB head up to the valley and to the incredible home of Linda Ramone, wife of the late Johnny Ramone – guitarist in one the greatest punk bands there ever was – and custodian of the Linda and Johnny Ramone Ranch, a paradise of countercultural curios, movie memorabilia and Elvis collectables. Over a morning aperitif, Linda talks about growing up with NYC punk, dating bandmates and younger men, what Lisa-Marie Presley thinks of her themed Elvis room, the importance of fandom, her musical obsessions, how she maintains rock’n’roll’s legacy and the best way to silence your critics.



CREDITS

Presenter/exec producer: Kate Hutchinson

Editor: Georgie Rogers
Recording and additional production: Holly Fisher

Additional production: Colour It In.

Photography: Lisa Jelliffe

With thanks to Nancy Sinatra.



MUSIC

Theme music: Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog Jones
Diamondsnake - Rock n Roll Dream
Pudge - ABCD
X_________X - Black Leather Rock
Kathleen Martin - Play on Words (Doo Wop You Do To Me)
Overnight Lows - Slitwrist Rock N' Roll
Apache Tomcat - Alright Rock N' Roll
Elvis Depressedly - Rock N Roll
The Whips - Rock N Roll Dance
HoliznaCCO - House of the Rising Sun



ABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICA

In 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.



ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANS

Journalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It stole hearts with 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. It won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards. 



Series two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre.



thelastbohemians.co.uk

patreon.com/thelastbohemians

instagram.com/thelastbohemianspod 

twitter.com/thelastbohospod 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelastbohemians.substack.com/subscribe

The Last Bohemians returns with a brand new series set in Tinseltown, supported by Audio-Technica. From forgotten feminist artists to Sunset Strip sexpots and from punk performers to subversive style disruptors (and one Californian arts dynasty!): these are some of the most maverick women in LA, whose stories each say something different about the city.



Episode two is with 1970s Bond Girl, Gloria Hendry. She made film history when she snogged 007 in Live and Let Die, becoming Bond's first Black love interest. She took on edgy roles in what were known as blaxploitation films, like Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem. And before that, she became a Playboy Bunny in 1960s New York at the same time as training as a legal secretary, right when the Civil Rights Movement was bubbling up around her.



She's a total trailblazer, whose life story takes us from a broken home in New Jersey to the glitzy casinos of New York, via a film audition with Roger Moore in New Orleans. She remembers filming Bond, her raunchy scenes from what she calls the “Black renaissance” in cinema, how her life unravelled and how California helped get her back on her feet, what the Playboy Club taught her about life, why she stays in shape and how she paved the way for Black women in film.



If you want more, do check out her recent memoir, GLORIA, which is filled with incredible Playboy photographs of her from the 1970s and some abs to die for.



Trigger warning: this episode contains themes of abuse and suicide towards the beginning.



CREDITS

Presenter/exec producer: Kate Hutchinson

Editor: Georgie Rogers

Recording and additional production: Holly Fisher

Photography: Lisa Jelliffe

With thanks to Anders Frejdh, Dan Moss @ Colour It In, Mr & Mrs Smith.



MUSIC

Theme music: Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog Jones

Lobo Loco - Little Caesar of the Boulevard

Juanitos - Do The Kangaroo

Dee-Yan Kee? - Sunday Morning

HoliznaCCO - Laundry On The Wire

Nuisance - Qanisqineq (Instrumental)

U.S Army Blues - Oginiland



ABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICA

In 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.



ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANS

Journalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It stole hearts with 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. It won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards. 

Series two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre.



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