Kim Fowley was born as Kim Vincent Fowley on July 21st, 1939. He is most notably known for having been in the music scene and managing the all girl group ‘The Runaways’ in the late 70’s. He has been described as ‘one of the most colorful characters in the annals of Rock and Roll”. In interviews of him, he always portrayed himself as a sort of avante garde artist, in some ways, like a “thinker” that was different from other people.
His musical career started in 1957 when he was released from the hospital for having had polio where he went on to manage a local band called the Sleepwalkers. This band had Sandy Nelson and sometimes Phil Spector. According to himself, he worked in the sex industry in Los Angeles in the late 50’s.
His first record as a producer was ‘Charge’ by the Renegades. He promoted records for Skip and Flip, a music duo. In the 60’s, he recorded the song ‘Alley Oop’ which was number one on the charts in 1960. In 1961 he co-produced the instrumental, “Like, Long Hair”, which became a number 38 hit for the band Paul Revere and the Raiders. He even worked with Frank Zappa as ‘hypephone’ on the album ‘Freak Out’. These are just some of musical credits that he worked on.
Jackie Fox, was born Jacqeline Louise Fuchs on December 20th, 1959. By the time she was born, Kim had already began working in the music industry with people like Alan Freed and Berry Gordy.
In 1974, Kim put an ad in the local fanzine ‘Who Put The Bomp’ looking for female performers. He had hoped to form an all female group that he could produce for but no-one responded. In 1975, he met Joan Jett who had expressed her interest in forming a band. Not long after, he met Sandy West, who also wanted to start a band and soon she was practicing with Joan Jett. Eventually he gathered the other members who would be become the runaways, all in their teens at the time. Jackie was the last member recruited. Initially rejected for guitar, Jackie was recruited for bass.
Kim Fowley was never known to be a clean cut guy. As quoted in the book, “Queens of Noise: The Real Story of the Runaways”, he stated:
“favorite sport then was squatting on a table and fucking as hard as you could when the beer and ’ludes hit, and then you would fall to the floor and roll around and come that way. That was the orgasm of choice in the ’70s for me.” Allegedly, he would admit to anyone that he was after teenage girls, quote, “young cunt” or “dirty pussy”. In the June 1975 edition of ‘Backdoor Man’ he put an ad out looking for the perfect woman. An excerpt:
“I demand a blonde, blue-eyed Sex-dog; a modern Bridgitte Bardot with no sagged out tits or stretch marks. Brown hair with brown eyes tolerated only if it is massively titted with biker mama vibes. Surf stink is most appealing.”
The ad had no responses.
A close friend of Fowley’s, Steve Tetcsch, stated that they used to drive to high schools looking for teenage girls to hit on. “Westlake was a gold mine because these girls came from wealthy families. We’d all be arrested today.”.
A theme of Fowley associating women with dogs seemed to be a theme for him. The ad he placed cried for a ‘sex-dog’, the apartment he stayed at was called the Dog Palace, and according to quotes from Cherie Currie in the ‘Edgeplay’ documentary, there would be many times he would refer to the girls as dogs when they did something he didn’t like.
Months before Jackie Fox joined the Runaways, the band and another girl, Kary Krome (a 13 year old aspiring songwriter he met) were staying at the apartment known as the Dog Palace. According to Kari, when everyone fell asleep Fowley walked into the living room and shook her awake. He put a finger to her lips so she didn’t make any sound, and grabbed her by the ankle to the bedroom. Kari asked Fowley what was happening, and he allegedly said something along the lines of, “It’s time for dog worship”, and that if she didn’t give in to his demands, she have to go back to her parents in Long Beach. Even though Kari wanted to leave, and call someone for a ride, she didn’t have anywhere to go, and even worse, her family didn’t have a phone. On that night, Kim Fowley masturbated on her.
Kari said that he went to sexually assault her several other times. “In his mind, he thought that he was having a relationship with me, like a romantic relationship. He didn’t care what I thought about it. He just decided.”
Later in 1975, the Runaways played a New Years Eve show at Wild Man Sam’s. The owner of the venue, Jim Caron, remembered feeling uneasy about how young they were. After the final set Fowley took the girls to a motel near a club where they were celebrating. Soon after arriving, a roadie approached her with a Quaalude, telling her that she needed to take it, no questions asked, to which she did. There were witnesses that heard of her being given four-six pills that night. Most of the people at the party were teens.
There are differing stories as to whether Joan Jett was really there that night. According to one story, Joan played guitar with another person at the party. Undeniably, Lita Ford was not there, which many witnesses have corroborated. Joan has denied ever being at the party.
At one point, Jackie needed to lay down, as she was having trouble staying up. A roadie checked on her and Kim Fowley asked him if he was interested in having sex with her. Fowley said, “She doesn’t mind, do you?”. Unable to say no, Jackie was in terror that someone was about to have their way with her. She said that she looked at the roadie and tried make a pleading face as hard as she could, to convey that she was trying to say no. Thankfully, the roadie denied the offer. From this point on, she started to slip in and out of consciousness.
From there, though it is unsure how much longer after, Fowley stood over Jackie and began to unbutton her blouse, which did not have a bra. One person stated that everyone was trying to pretend that didn’t know what was going on. As the story goes, Fowley unbuttoned Jackie’s pants and penetrated her with the handle of hairbrush. He then invited other guys to have sex with Jackie doing so himself. Someone shouted, “Kim’s fucking someone!”. As Kim raped Jackie, he gnashed his teeth and growled liked a dog.
Jackie stated that she remembered opening her eyes, and Kim was raping her with people watching her. According to Jackie, she looked from the bed and noticed Cherie Currie and Joan Jett staring at her (some stories allege they were snickering).It was the last memory of the night she had.
Cherie stated that she spoke up and stormed out of the room, and all the witnesses felt intimidated.
Jackie didn't tell her parents what had happened to her.
After the assault, Jackie’s place in the band never felt the same. The next day, she showed up for practice and everyone was silent. The girls were all teenagers, and didn’t even know how to deal with what had happened.
From there, Jackie started to develop a mistrust for most other people. She refused to sleep on car rides during tour, she stayed sober. She tried to read and approve contracts for live shows. Some of the band members thought of her as a charity case, since they felt she was a novice bass player. In retrospect, Cherie Currie suspected that Kim Fowley was trying to pit the girls against each other. In 1977, Jackie had had enough, and was going to quit, when Joan got on her knees and begged her to stay. Not long after, they had their famous tour in Japan, where they were huge.
The final straw for her was when her treasured 1600 dollar 1965 Gibson Thunderbird fell off it’s stand and broke. In her room, she broke down and threw a coke bottle into pieces. She took a shard and ran it down her forearm. Cherie Currie helped her to the hospital where she got bandaged up. It was at that point, Jackie had had enough and asked to go home. She quit the band and was later replaced by Vickie Blue. Vickie stated that the other band members would often joke about Kim “fucking Jackie like a dog”. Apparently it was a running joke.
For years, Jackie was quiet about what had happened to her. There had been rumors for years that Kim Fowley had raped an underage girl at a new years eve party in 1975. Cherie Currie also wrote about it in her book, “Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway”. In the chapter, “Kim Fowley’s Sex Education Class,” Jackie was mentioned as a bystander, asking for more food after witnessing the rape. Jackie threatened legal action though, because the event Cherie wrote never happened, so Jackie was excluded from the chapter.
For years, Fowley denied that he raped her. In January of 2015, he died of bladder cancer. In July of 2015, Jackie made it publicly known that he raped her. Despite the time frame making it seem like she only wanted to come out after his death, in reality, Jackie had been trying to confront Fowley for years for what he did to her. In the few times that she could get a phone call with him, he’d first ask if she was taping the call. When he was at the end of his life, he didn’t respond to her emails, and the number she had for him ended up disconnected.
All Jackie wanted was an acknowledgment that what he did was wrong, and an apology.
In the end, Jackie came out on top. She went to college and even had some classes with Barack Obama. She became a lawyer. She knew, that Kim Fowley died without being forgiven.
[SOURCES]
wikipedia
Edgeplay
https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/the-lost-girls/
https://myspace.com/jackiefuchs
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