The Hippie from Lennon's Imagine Movie on Cavett, too?

Could be, he seemed pretty fried at the time, although he was somewhat cleaned up on the Cavett show.
I've got to say if it was only the one encounter at Johns' house , which I did until finding out about the TV appearance here, I would have believed it to be genuine.
However, twice? Gotta be staged.

 

Maybe he can't talk, since if he did "work" for the Lennon's - then Yoko might still have "something" on him? There could be a clause in his old contract that if he speaks while Yoko is alive, she will personally come to his home and sing to him for 24 hours straight.

 

From "Eight Arms To Hold You", p. 55:

"Earlier in the day of the ["How Do You Sleep"] backing track session, a momentous occasion took place as John finally came face to face with Claudio, the confused follower who felt that John (along with the other Beatles) had been composing their songs based on Claudio himself. John had been receiving cryptic telegrams from the young man for nine months before finaly being confronted by the fan... Claudio's fixation apparently did not end with this incident, as he turned up in the audience of the Lennons' September 1971 appearance on The Dick Cavett Show".

- John

 

The voice didn't sound the same to me.

 

I always thought the Ascot scene was legit; Lennon seems too annoyed to be acting.

 

Case closed.

 

Why?

I actually find it less likely that the encounter at Lennon's home was staged if the guy also appeared on the Cavett show as an audience member. After all, he was an obsessed fan.

 

For one thing, there wasn't any acknowledgement by Lennon on the Cavett show (none that was aired anyway) such as, "Hey, weren't you the guy camped out on my lawn?".
If it was obvious to us it should have been even more so to Lennon.

 

Thanks for sharing.

I still think Claudio is a plant. We must find Claudio! Didn't he move to Brazil?

 

I agree. I think they both look very similar but have very different voices. I hear a lot more of an accent with the guy in the Cavett audience.

 

I thought the voices sounded identical.

 

Well, I don't think the dispute over if it was the same guy is really valid any more. We have not only the video of both interactions, but now an acknowledgment from a separate literary source as confirmation.

What still remains is whether these were 2 chance meetings, or whether they were somehow manipulated.

According to a book a read on Lennon a few years ago (I can't remember if it was Cynthia's or Shotton's, or both) it claimed that Yoko herself was originally a stalker fan. After months of this, something changed, and Lennon obviously started to reciprocate feelings.

Before Chapman, what indeed was Lennon's "take" on these inevitable obsessed fans? I mean, was he genuinely cordial to all of them? Was he perhaps toying with some of them? Did he use Claudio in this case to not only show his benevolence (at home) and to give him a chance to publicly answer some critics (Cavett)?

It's not like Claudio's question on Cavett was the typical fare for an average fan. It showed, again, some obsession or perhaps some manipulation.

Did his treatment of these type of fans vacillate? Did it somehow scare him and massage his ego at the same time?

As for "Claudio", once again, we can't assume that just because we haven't heard from him, he's dead. A last name would help in the search, though...

Thanks!

 

Dirani

 

I KNEW I read confirmation about this somewhere. Thanks, John.

 

Well, on the Cavett show Lennon saw the guy from a distance up in the stands, cleaned up and talking coherently. He probably didn't have the closeup of him that we see in the video.

 

In the Imagine film, John CLEARLY looks like he has just rolled out of bed to chat with this guy. I don't think it was 'staged'. And the 'Claudio' guy TOTALLY looks like he had been homeless for some time.

I'm not convinced it's the same guy. The period of time between him being a clearly confused homeless guy hiding in the garden at Tittenhurst to being in NYC for a filming of Cavett is rather short for him to become suddenly clean and sober.

Regardless, if it IS him, the level of obsession that someone could have during that period of time is SCARY. Now you can dig up stuff on the internet - back then, you REALLY HAD TO WORK to find out the whereabouts of people, short of hiring a private detective.

 

I don't know that this is contributing anything of substance to the thread, but the very first time I saw that scene in the Imagine film, I thought, "geez, it's Alan Aldridge!" My original copy of "The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics" had a photo of the author (Aldridge) looking very much the bedraggled hippie, practically a ringer for this "Claudio" dude.

That book has long been missing and although I've since replaced it with a new copy, the author photo isn't in the current edition.

If anyone could scan and post that photo it'd be way cool. I'd like to see how accurate my memory is, e.g. is the similarity between Aldridge and Claudio as close as I think it is.

 

Found it. Alan Aldridge author photo as included in the first edition of "The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics".

 

I remember hearing an audio interview with The Beatles - circa mid-60s
where John is talking about a fan who climbed into their hotel room.

I'm pretty sure this interview is from the Australian tour - which
I think was June 1964. I think I have it on a vinyl LP called
Beatles Downunder (which has no music on it - and I believe was
a legit release - albeit documentary style)

It may have been New Zealand. I think some of that album is
from there.

In any case...

My memory is John seemed kind of amused at the amount of effort
it took for this fan to make it to his hotel balcony. I remember him
specifically saying something about how he "knew this guy must be
Liverpudlian" before the guy actually opened his mouth and confirmed
John's suspicion.

This is early on, and I'm sure John might have enventually revised
his opinion on the subject of lunatic fans, but John's comments at
the time seemed very tolerant and not at all upset. Kind of like
if this guy was crazy enough to climb up/down the outside of the hotel,
then he might as well invite him in for a chat.

 

There is what is presumably a partial transcription of the interview you refer to in the Anthology book, dealing with this episode (p. 142):

JOHN: Melbourne was as wild as Adelaide, and I think that makes it equal. They were both about the wildest we'd ever seen. We never ask for civic receptions, we don't expect them. If people do it, we're flattered, but if they don't, that's that. There were crowds outside the hotel there. A lot of them got in - we'd find them in bathrooms.

We were all shoving our dirty rags into a case when I heard a knock on the window. I thought it must have been one of the others mucking around so I didn't take any notice, but the knocking kept on so I went over to the balcony - and there was this lad who looked just like a typical Liverpool lad. I knew before he opened his mouth where he was from, because nobody else would be climbing up eight floors. This lad - Peter - walked in and said, "Hullo dere," and I said, "Hullo dere," and he told me how he'd climbed up the drainpipe, from balcony to balcony. I gave him a drink because he deserved one and then I took him around to see the others, who were quite amazed. They thought I was joking when I told them.

 

Maybe.
As to fabtricks' assertion that the guy didn't have enough time to "clean up", I don't agree.
A week or so of sleeping at nights in a bed, a hair cut, and beard trim. Along with a break in doing whatever substances he might have been doing, at his age would certainly made for the "cleaner" appearance on the Cavett show.
Although, I still thought his voice sounded pretty near identical to the Imagine encounter.

 

Well, that settles it, doesn't it? I thought it was the same guy as soon as I saw the Cavett clip. I agree that someone should track this guy down.

 

I still say the guy in the blue sweater/red pants in the first clip (the film "Imagine") is the guy who asks the second question in the second clip (the Dick Cavett show).

 

Looking at both clips, I'm not convinced it's the same person. I'm not saying it isn't, just not sure if it is or not. Hard to tell with the lighting in the Cavett clip.