There was a long-rumored love triangle within the Beatles camp involving George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Ringo's wife Maureen. That George had an affair with Maureen has been written about, but O'Dell reveals in book that she became involved with Ringo soon after.
Back in the day, Ringo was angry when O'Dell admitted the affair to Maureen.
"I never felt that I was invading anybody's territory," O' Dell says. "Obviously, I'm telling things that happened to other people, but they also happened to me.
"We're in our 60s now, some of us are even creeping toward 70s," O'Dell muses. "Everybody is grown up enough to realize this is what happened. We're well past it. Ringo's attitude today is, fine, as long as you tell the truth."
O'Dell was also right at the center of another rock 'n' roll love triangle -- Eric Clapton's unrequited (then requited) love for Harrison's wife Boyd, which led to heroin addiction (and his iconic album "Layla").
"What's hard for people to understand is that was such a very small circle of people within that rock 'n' roll world," O'Dell says. "The Beatles' world was very small. Eric came into that circle because he and George were friends. When the relationships started happening, it made sense. It was safer to stay in that world than to wander outside."
Somewhat ironically, considering her wild days during the drug-fueled '60s and '70s as an employee, girlfriend and tour manager (one of the first females to be a tour manager), O'Dell's current career is as a substance abuse counselor. She thinks it helped her dig deeply into her memory bank and be honest about her experiences.
For example, she doesn't gloss over the casual nature of relationships in the '70s music world. While working on the Stones' tour, she became involved with Jagger, because that's what women close to him were expected to do.
She was involved briefly with Dylan, but writes honestly about the many times he would look right through her. "It would be easy to say Bob loved me and always wanted to be with me," O'Dell says with a laugh. "But I talk about his eyes darting around, that insensitivity."
Chris O'Dell on
The song "Miss O'Dell": "It's an obscure song. You have to be a pretty good Beatle fan to know it. George and Pattie were in L.A. in '72 or '73 and George had recorded it. One day, he said, 'You're going to love this, they want to release "Miss O'Dell" as the A side of my single.' But in the end ... I was a B side."
Being in the right place at the right time : "I did a interview that ended up in Girl Scout magazine called 'Chris and the Beatles, the girl who lived the life of millions.' I was very aware early on that I was in a very special situation ... so I remembered things from that point of view, almost like an observer. I started writing down stories about 10 years ago."
Motown: "I went from Smokey who wanted to take me with all that sexuality, to the Beatles -- all they wanted to do was hold my hand. George and I were talking one day, he said 'oh, Smokey Robinson is my favorite, too.' "
Paul McCartney: " He's a good guy ... I saw him at the (Cirque de Soleil) Beatles Love show (in Las Vegas) very briefly ... and that was a bad time for him, he was getting divorced. He was always a very present person and charming. He was always the marketing genius."
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