Tiger Beat Tales with OG Editor Ann Moses
Michelle Newman 0:00
We all practice kissing on our Tiger Beat centerfold posters, right? If it was like a and without those, without Tiger Beat, we wouldn't know how to sing. Come
Unknown Speaker 0:17
on. Get happy. You. On, get
Kristin Nilsen 0:27
happy. We'll make you happy. Welcome to the pop culture Preservation Society, the podcast for people born in the big wheel generation who started manifesting early by wallpapering their rings with eight and a half by 11 inch pages torn from their favorite magazines.
Carolyn Cochrane 0:43
We believe our Gen X childhoods gave us unforgettable songs, stories, characters and images, and if we don't talk about them, they'll disappear, like Marshall will and Holly on a routine expedition.
Michelle Newman 0:55
And today we'll be saving Gen X's number one news source, Tiger Beat magazine in an interview with actual Tiger Beat editor, Anne Moses, author of the book meow, my groovy life with Tiger beats teen idols. I'm Carolyn, I'm Kristen, and I'm Michelle, and we are your pop culture preservationists. You up.
Kristin Nilsen 1:26
If you could name one magazine from your Gen X youth that captured your heart, it would likely be Tiger Beat this photo filled love fest is where our first crushes bloomed and prospered, helping us cover our walls and possibly even teaching us how to kiss just we'll ask Michelle about that later, and today's episode features an interview with one of the people responsible for curating those photos and writing those stories that fed our preteen fantasies. Anne Moses was just 19 years old when she started at tigerbeat magazine in 1966 and to this day, she cherishes the work that she did on our behalf. She was up close and personal with the biggest crushes of the late 60s and early 70s, and she has the stories to prove it. Why does she? Well, it's every
Michelle Newman 2:11
teenager's from the 1970s dream job, oh, my God. But also the type of job that would scare the pants off me, right? Because, actually, she has some stories about that. Can you like, it's almost, it's almost too good to be true, like she got to live out all of our fantasies.
Kristin Nilsen 2:35
It's a job you almost couldn't conceive of when you were a kid, you were like, somebody does this, like, somebody talks to my first boyfriend as a job. Like, that's their job. If I had known that was a job, I would have written that on my third grade like, what do you want to be when you grow up a Tiger Beat editor? That's what I would have done.
Carolyn Cochrane 2:57
Well, she's really like, at the right place, at the right time in so many aspects of her career and her relationship with Tiger Beat, because Tiger Beat actually launched in september of 1965 along with one other world changing event, and that would be when Carolyn Cochrane
Michelle Newman 3:14
insert like An angel chorus.
Carolyn Cochrane 3:20
So Tiger Beat was the brainchild of Charles lawfer, and he was a journalism and English teacher, out of all places you guys, Beverly Hills High School, would that be? Yeah, right. And you know what? He saw this publication, not only as a way to make money, but also as a way to encourage reading and acknowledging the interests of teen girls, which largely that had been a group that had been ignored by media. Yeah,
Kristin Nilsen 3:46
I find that so interesting that as much as this became an entrepreneurial Juggernaut, there were some real benevolent reasons for its beginning, and the fact that he was trying to honor the feelings of young girls, that's astounding. First of all that it was a man who did that. It was hard enough for an adult to do that, but for a man to figure out that, well, that must have come from him teaching high school, right? He could see what was happening, and that people just turn the other way and pretend that they're cuckoo beans, right?
Michelle Newman 4:16
And it almost is shocking that no one had thought of that before. Agreed, because it makes so much sense. It's like, oh, dull, you know, I think that I'm shocked, especially there were, you know, fan magazines, I think, in the 50s and 60s, but not really marketed to girls like Tiger B res,
Carolyn Cochrane 4:39
right? I mean, all the columns, the giveaways, the posters. I mean the posters, Tiger Beat did not stay assembled. Basically, you know, I mean, it was made to be taken apart, and staples very strategically removed. And, you know, the giveaways and the cutouts and the entry. Forms and sending in money for fan clubs. They really kind of hit on all the things that a young girl, teen girl, would have enjoyed about a magazine like that, and
Kristin Nilsen 5:11
that's exactly how they differentiated themselves. Right out of the gate, Tiger Beat was different because it wasn't a movie magazine, it wasn't a gossip magazine. It wasn't a tell all. Instead, it tapped into what teen readers really wanted, and that was photos, photos of their crushes and the opportunity to feel close to them. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of the photos. We know these photos, they were plastered all over our walls, and you'll hear Michelle comment later on, on why these photos may have been shot in the way that they were, full page, full face shots that were perfect for perhaps kissing. We'll talk about that later. Yeah, Tiger made
Michelle Newman 5:54
their head to be kind of life size. Oh yeah, yeah. Can't be like the size of a Ken doll. Did you guys ever try kissing your Ken doll? Wait, no, who what? No asking for a friend. Asking for a friend?
Kristin Nilsen 6:09
Yeah, it has to, literally, like the lips on the page have to be the same size as your lips. It's just, I surprisingly, didn't have, like a developmental psychologist on staff to figure all of this out. It's just so brilliant. So Tiger beats only real competition. At the time when it started, was 16 magazine, but Tiger Beat would differentiate in lots of ways. 16 featured famous people too, but they were often focused on jokes and entertaining the reader. It sounds to me kind of like it was an adult's idea of what kids like but Tiger Beat was focused on love, and like Carolyn said, before teen love your first crush, as if somebody was for the first time, taking the feelings of teenagers seriously. Also, 16 was based in New York, but Tiger Beat was based in Hollywood, where the stars were, and they made this clear to readers with lots and lots of photos of like see, here we are on the set of the monkeys. And see, here's our columnist and Moses with David Cassidy. Tigerbeat wasn't just reporting on the stars. They were friends with the stars, and this made readers trust them. Tiger Beat also created a very specific style that spoke directly to teens.
Michelle Newman 7:23
Yeah, Tiger B basically had its own lingo. And I think a lot of you listening will will remember this as as I start to tell you, this is all coming straight from Anne Moses's book, by the way, because besides listen to this, like besides exclamation points, which were basically as important as the posters. She said, You know, one of the editors, she thinks counted. You know, there was almost like a minimum requirement. Tiger Beat used fresh new terminology like this. A favorite was a fave. A photo was a pic, but two or more were picks, p, i, x, love was always spelled, l, u, v, and laugh was l, a, f, f, like guys were described as heavenly or out of sight. And if they were cool, they were gear. I don't remember that one here. I wonder if that was like late 60s, early 70s. They had the stars sign almost every poster with things like peace and love. You know, Davey, peace and love, David. I mean, this was the early 70s after all. Right, that's relatable, and the headlines were way more titillating than the actual story. And it was fine if they were even misleading, like Anne says in her book that a headline like Bobby rushed to hospital might actually have been about how Bobby Sherman drove really fast to Cedar Sinai when he heard his sister had broken her ankle instead of Bobby, like, we're different, a different meaning of the word rushed, right, Bobby rushed to hospital. And they also had stock headlines like blank, so fill in the blank maybe like David, David, why he's so special, and then maybe the next month it would be Davey, why he's so special, or Mickey, why he's so special, Bobby, and an attempt telling, yeah, telling tales on David. And then maybe a couple months later it would be telling tales on, Donnie, so they used stock headlines, 10 reasons we love Scott, 10 reasons we love and it was all just very sweet and innocent A Day in the Life spent 24 hours Donnie. This is that very kind of sweet crush, sweet
Kristin Nilsen 9:37
and very innocent. And I think that was very astute of them. They figured out that what we wanted was the good boy, the sweet boy. And a lot of the headlines would be, I have a whole stack, actually, of Tiger Beat magazines here from the Ann Moses era. And there's one headline here, and this is one that is part of a template, too, Mickey's favorite person. And you're like, Oh no, is it a girlfriend? Is it. But he's gonna marry somebody fell in love with. No, it's his grandma. It's his favorite person. He goes to grandma when he has problems, and she helps him out. And that makes us both be relieved, and also go, oh.
Michelle Newman 10:12
Or can you guys remember the ones that would say, like, the girl that stole, Donnie, that stole, you know, Scott's heart, or dad, and it would be like a puppy. It'd be like a
Kristin Nilsen 10:23
little Puppy's a puppy. And you guys, I used this it's so funny. I learned from Tiger Beat without really even knowing it. And in worldwide crush, there is a place where I lead people on, thinking that Rory Calhoun, the pop star in the book, has found a new love, because he's talking about his new love, and he's writing a new song for his new love, and he's so excited, and you find out he's gotten a new puppy. It's very Tiger Beat,
Michelle Newman 10:50
completely catered to us at that age. And what we wanted from our crushes, we wanted to know their favorite color and what they would do on a date, they would bring you roses and they would take you for pizza, and they love mini golf, or they love going roller skating. This was what we craved, at least it's, I know it's what I craved. No because we were young, yeah, right, this is what we want. This is we weren't ready for anything more than that yet, and Tiger Beat was right there with us, providing that kind of information that feels that for us, it was,
Kristin Nilsen 11:21
it was honoring us. It's like they could see us and what we wanted and they gave it to us. Yeah, exactly.
Carolyn Cochrane 11:30
And I loved finding out from Anne that, you know, those favorite colors, or their favorite food, any of these things we wanted to know about our future partners, right? Were not just made up. Ann didn't just sit and make them up, or a publicist didn't just send this in, like there was some research, like Anne. Anne knew some people, whether it was firsthand experience, like she noticed it, or as we'll learn in this interview, she got to know family members of a lot of these celebrities, and they trusted her. And so all that stuff we were reading, it was real. I think she's probably responsible for the whole color purple, and Donnie Oscar thing. I mean, I think probably true. Notice per retox on him one time and then.
Kristin Nilsen 12:14
So what that means is that she wasn't necessarily giving them a survey of, you know, what is your favorite soda, what is your favorite color? No, she's observing. He always wears purple socks. He always orders seven up whenever we're together. So it may have been presented in the magazine like they've answered some questions and wrote those, but she didn't write them out of thin air, right? Like she's using her powers of observation and her relationships with these people to answer those questions for them,
Carolyn Cochrane 12:42
right?
Kristin Nilsen 12:43
So, how did she? How did Anne Moses become a writer for Tiger Beat in 1966 at only 19 years old? Whew. So she was a writer for her college newspaper, and she also worked as an usher at a local music venue, and one night, there was a new band performing called the Dave Clark Five.
And she was so overcome by their performance, she had never heard of them. They were brand new. So she thought, I want to interview them. I could say it's for my school newspaper. So she finagled her way backstage. Remember, she's just an usher, that's all. She's just an usher. She tells the manager she was on assignment for her school newspaper. Well, she wasn't. But lo and behold, the manager gathers the Dave Clark Five around, and they sat with her for an interview. And it was such a rush for her. She was like, This is what I want to do. So she starts writing more pieces on the performers who came to town. And not long after, a fellow writer said, you should really go talk to Chuck lawfor at tigerbeat. Tigerbeat was brand new and had never heard of it. She was like, What is this Tiger Beat, but she got an interview with Chuck, and they promised her access to all of these stars that she loved to write about, and they were gonna pay her, and they were gonna pay her a lot. At one point, she said she was making more than her dad. It's crazy. This was like her dream come true, and it went the other way too for Tiger Beat, because Anne Moses became like Tiger beats secret sauce, because, remember, she's just 19 years old, so when these young Tigers come to town, who do you think they want to hang out with? The fun, 19 year old college student or a 40 year old reporter? Right? It was brilliant. It's so brilliant. It's absolutely brilliant. She's getting access like crazy. And those celebs trusted Anne, and they shared with her in a way that they might not share with a 40 year old reporter. So Anne herself becomes famous to the Tiger Beat readers because she's the one who's hanging out with the people that the readers are crushing on. She was featured in photos with them. She had her own column. Called meow with Ann Moses, and this was all proof to the reader that Tiger Beat had the real info, because they did. And at the age of 21 Anne Moses was named editor of tigerbeat magazine. She was the youngest editor of any magazine in the nation.
Michelle Newman 15:17
You go. I know.
Kristin Nilsen 15:21
What were you doing at 21 Yeah, it's
Michelle Newman 15:24
crazy. Well, and now, like we said earlier, Anne has written a compulsively readable book with all the juicy details of her time at Tiger Beat like hold a napkin when you read, because the Druce will drip out of your book. And it's called meow, my groovy life with Tiger beats, teen idols. And in it, Anne spills the tea on her time with the monkeys and Jefferson Airplane. David Cassidy, Bobby Sherman, the bee. Gees, Donnie Osmond, Elvis Presley, again, hold a napkin, you guys, because the tea is overflowing on these pages trust us. She tells us everything she couldn't tell us in the pages of Tiger Beat and trust us when we say it is a rollicking good time. Yeah. Am I right? Or am I right? Yeah. And guess what? Listeners, you can join us at our next book club on October 8. October 8 to hear some of these stories from Anne Moses herself. Definitely get the book before then, so that you'll be ready with questions for Anne, who is already so excited to chat with all of you you will hear in this upcoming episode. She is an absolute delight, and loves to tell these stories, and we're going to have links to order Anne's book in the show notes, as well as in the Weekly Reader this Friday, as always, all our supporters on Patreon attend our book club discussions for free. Non patrons get in for only $5 which is the same price as joining Patreon at the superstar level. So I don't know why you wouldn't just do that, right? I mean, and I'm so excited for October 8 to have Anne be our special guest, because I'm thinking we might even get some stories we haven't heard. And again, you don't have to have read the book to be a part of our club, but we highly encourage when I say it's compulsively readable, it's like a sit down in one sitting type because you cannot stop.
Carolyn Cochrane 17:22
Yeah, right. And there are photos, lots
Kristin Nilsen 17:26
of photos, yeah. And there is one story in particular that you will hear in this interview that will absolutely knock your socks off. It's something that Anne has kept a secret for almost 60 years, and she finally decided to share about it when she wrote her book. I am I'm still gobsmacked by the reveal, and you will not want to miss it. We'll ask her about it at the very end of our conversation here today. So please enjoy this trip down memory lane with this publishing pioneer, someone who laid the foundation for the decoration of all of our childhood bedrooms. Tigerbeat editor and Moses
Unknown Speaker 18:01
seven a okay, not really don't get excited, man. It's because I'm sure I
Speaker 1 18:12
know, oh, I could hide beneath the wings of the blue bird as she sings
Kristin Nilsen 18:21
the late 1960s was the advent of the Gen X era. Our first gen xers were born in 1965 including Carolyn, and it was in that same year that one of Gen X's most important cultural touchstones was born, the pre teen holy grail known as Tiger Beat magazine, joining us today is one of the pioneers who brought us tigerbeat At the dawn of the Gen X era. And Moses was just a teenager herself, writing for her school newspaper when she got her first job with Tiger Beat, not getting coffee or answering phones, but actually interviewing and photographing the hottest young stars of the day as a teenager, by the time she was 21 years old, she was named the youngest editor of a national magazine in the country. She was living everyone's teen dream, traveling the world, interviewing the monkeys, David Cassidy, Bobby Sherman, the bee, gees, the Osmonds and even Elvis Presley. And she has the stories to prove it, which you can find in her book called meow, my groovy life with Tiger beats teen idols, I kind of feel like we're in the presence of pop culture royalty right now and Moses, it is with a truckload of gratitude and awe that we welcome you to the pop culture preservation Well, thank
Speaker 2 19:33
you so much for having me. It's lovely to join you, ladies. Thank you. I'm
Michelle Newman 19:39
covered in goosebumps just because of how the importance you played behind the scenes in our lives. So this is an honor.
Speaker 2 19:51
Well, likewise, and when I found out that people knew my name, knew what I used to do and now. No on my socials, you don't know what it's like to have people comment that, Oh, you made such an impression on when I was 10 years old. And you know, I had a terrible home life. But when I read my Tiger Beat, I'd go to another world. I mean, the stories I've heard are just it, literally, it changed my life.
Michelle Newman 20:24
I have to say, too, one thing you said made me realize something, ladies and and you might be responsible for many well, for all of us and for many of our listeners, learning how to kiss, because we all practice kissing on our Tiger Beat centerfold posters, right and without those, without Tiger Beat, we wouldn't know how to test. I
Speaker 2 20:47
am so happy to hear that, you know,
Kristin Nilsen 20:50
I have a stack of Tiger beats right here that are all from the Ann Moses era. But you're right. They're those kids so cute. Yeah,
Speaker 2 20:57
those were, yep, you know, the publisher and editorial director. They were tuned in to a degree to what the audience wanted. They were like throwing things at the walls for those those first few issues, because the only thing like it at the time was 16 magazine and that had a lot of cartoons in them and things like that, and it was only a matter of months before they understood that what they wanted were pictures and the latest news on them. They were putting all these little details in like, you know, oh, the color their hair the way the sunlight made their eyes sparkle. It was different from my who, what, where, when and why, from my college newspaper, you know, the 5w of journalism. Okay,
Kristin Nilsen 21:55
so we're gonna get to the meat of this book. So you say in this book, this is an actual quote. You say the first faves, that's a Tiger Beat term fave. There's lots of lingo that goes with the Tiger Beat style that you just talked about. You say in your book, the first faves featured in Tiger Beat may have been sunny and Cher Herman's Hermits and the righteous brothers, but the monkeys put our magazine on the math.
And the title of that chapter is actually catching that train to Clarksville, meeting the monkeys and surviving Mike Nesmith,
Michelle Newman 22:41
I love this.
Kristin Nilsen 22:42
Can you tell us about the first time you met the monkeys on that last train to Clarksville? It
Speaker 2 22:47
was, of course, a promotional thing put on by the radio station. You caught the train at Union Station in Los Angeles, which is a very historic building, and they had rented a car of the train, you know, passenger car. So then the contest winners, I was a member of the press. The contest winners, we all got out, walked down to the beach from the train tracks, and they had bleachers set up, and all of a sudden, these helicopters come over, and the helicopters each dropped off one of the monkeys. So that was a that was the first introduction, and it was really impressive. The crowd was going wild, so it was really cool. So then, after they sang a couple of songs there, then they got back on the train, they had drums and guitars set up in the back of a caboose, and the kids could go back and watch them more closely. And they did a couple songs, and then they just kind of went and mingled after that. Chuck Laufer, he screen gyms had shown him. And pilot is the one who started Tiger B. He said he was a publisher Tiger Beat, yes, and it was law for publishing. So he had seen the pilot. I had not, you know, I had no idea. And he immediately locked up the rights to produce Tiger beats, official monkeys spectacular, their own man. The monkeys got their own magazine. And also the monkeys write to you, which was a monthly column where they each write their thoughts, and basically we wrote those, but
Michelle Newman 24:37
this is the information we're here, right?
Speaker 2 24:40
Yeah, it was. It was based on interviews being out on the set with them. I mean, from our knowledge of them, we didn't just make it up out of the air. It was of
Kristin Nilsen 24:52
access to them like so Tiger Beat had a deal with the monkeys TV show, and this became kind of your daily life. You're. Working with the monkeys and gathering this information. So you can write this column, yes,
Speaker 2 25:04
and it was a lot of information we had to gather. It turned out to be a lot and a lot of pictures too. So I did go out to screen gyms, and immediately Davy Jones spotted me, and he came over and I introduced myself, and he goes, Well, let me show you around the set. And I mean, he was that casual, that carefree, that easy going. I always kind of had butterflies in my stomach. Here I am on the monkey set. Come on. It was a big deal. And yet he just put me at ease immediately. So then after that, it would become routine that I would go out once a week. I had them sign autographs constantly, because we'd put their autograph at the end of their monkey talk column. We'd put love Davey on the color pictures and so on. Our artists needed that, Sharpie on white paper. So between shots, maybe one or two of them were working and one or two weren't. Like, I'd go into Peter's dressing room and we'd sit and talk for a half an hour, an hour, or whoever Now Mickey, kind of reluctantly, would go through that. It's like Mickey was just the type of person he wanted to be on all the time. He wanted to be making people laugh. If you were just sitting around talking, he'd be the clown. He'd be the one who would make everybody laugh. And he knew he had to do this. And he would be, you know, he'd be serious with me. And it just kind of like, okay, let's just do what we have to do and get it over with. Whereas Davey and Peter were just, it was almost like they were enjoying the process, you know. And then there was Michael and Michael. Michael was always very reluctant. I remember at one time he said, You know, I'm so many years old. I have a wife. I really don't care about this teeny bopper stuff. And I said, Yes, but you know, they care about you. So this is, you know, this is for the fans. So he would cooperate to a degree. But I remember one time I went and I said, I'd like to do a serious interview, you know, he basically said, Well, I'll do an interview, if you'll. And the word he actually used was ball me, you know, yes, like Good golly, Miss Molly, she sure likes to ball. That was the word he used. But I think I used the F word in because, you know, that's what he meant. I at the time, I'm pretty sure I just fluffed it off like, oh, you can't be serious, you know, Michael, let's just get this done. But that became my attitude with him was just Michael, just suck it up. Let's get it done. I know you don't like this. And then it wasn't too long before he just finally said to me, I don't like doing this stuff. Why don't you talk to my wife, Phyllis, and I said, that works for me. And so, you know, I met Phyllis. We started going to lunches, and I, of course, I would record, record our whole conversation. So it was like, how Phyllis met Michael, what's their home life like? What? What's Christmas like? It was like, we got into all kinds of subjects, and she was just the nicest woman and such a pleasure to be with. And in a way, we became friends. She knew I was not out to write anything bad about them, because
Kristin Nilsen 28:54
that's not what Tiger Beat did. Tiger Beat was was promoting. No, absolutely not. You weren't a tell all. You weren't trying to get dirt at all. You were just trying to get fun facts for
Michelle Newman 29:05
them. You just wanted all the
Speaker 2 29:06
exactly stats, basically. And so those times with her ended up to just be a pure joy for me. I just
Carolyn Cochrane 29:15
want to remind our listeners, how old are you at this time? Are you like 20 when you're experiencing this, yes, okay, yes.
Speaker 2 29:22
Because, because, when I started at Tiger Beat in 66 I was 19,
Carolyn Cochrane 29:32
okay, a kid still a kid, thinking of you having that dialog with him, with Michael, and being like, no, and you were very mature, it seems like 481,
Kristin Nilsen 29:43
yeah. So you were able to make relationships with these people who were older than you, and they and they trusted you and confided in you. I actually have so I have a collection of Tiger Beat magazines from 1968 a friend, very graciously gave me. This collection for my 50th birthday. That's fabulous. Your name is, your handprints. Your fingerprints are all over these magazines. It's all the monkeys. I can see how much time you spent with the monkeys because it's on every single cover, and it's there's a lot about people's houses too. And there's one headline here that says Peter invites you to his home. But there is one story that I want you to tell about going to Peter's home that you didn't get exactly what you
Unknown Speaker 30:28
expect. Oh, okay,
Michelle Newman 30:29
you got more.
Speaker 2 30:32
Well, it was after. It was after Peter left the monkeys, because he was the first to leave. He had bought a house in the valley when the first you know, house picture was of his Hollywood bachelor pad, and it was actually, at the time, it was right up the street for me, below the Hollywood sign. And he had a, you know, it was just a two level house, you know, you walked in on the first level, and it was all glass, so you had views of, you know, the smog, and then, then underneath that were the bedrooms. But after he left the monkeys, you know, he had bought a house in the San Fernando Valley, had a pool. It was like a regular home, definitely not a stars mansion, because he had to give up a lot to leave the monkeys. And so I went to the door, and he opened the door, and he was in the nude, and he just said, Oh, our house is clothing optional. You know, would you like to join us? And I said, I'm fine the way I am. Thank you very much tried to look him in the eye, not anywhere else.
Kristin Nilsen 31:46
And everybody's naked, right? Everybody in the house, I
Speaker 2 31:49
think, I think they were, yes, I was gonna say some were, some weren't, but they pretty much were. There were only about four or five people in the house that day, and some were swimming in the pool, you know? So they dive off the diving board and whatever,
Michelle Newman 32:05
I think this is tracking, though, with how I imagine the times were. Oh yeah, then right, like, very free, very open. So maybe today, if I went to someone's house, like, if you went to a celebrity's house and they opened it naked, and said clothing optional, you might be like, Oh, that's different. I'm gonna be I'm feeling like, maybe back then it was more like, All right, that's, that's kind of what's happening now. Well,
Speaker 2 32:31
what's interesting is I had written an obituary when Peter passed for, I think it was CNN, and the woman who called me that was the editor of that section, or whatever, and she read my story, and she said, Now, did you feel like that was sexual abuse when he opened the door naked, and it was like not in A million years, it was free love in the park. It was, you know, hate Ashbury put a flower in your hair. And while I never went naked at a love in it didn't shock me, as she would have imagined, like you said, it's like, this is the way things are at this moment. And she had a hard time understanding that, because it's like, Oh no, this would not fly today. And I didn't think a thing about and of course, Peter acted exactly the same as as he would have, you know, in his dressing room, in his monkey shirt. Yeah,
Michelle Newman 33:39
Peter acts the same as clothed Peter.
Speaker 2 33:43
So it was hard to like shock me at the time, just because I was aware of all the things happening in the world. You
Kristin Nilsen 34:09
this. You had so many great relationships with people because, and part of that is because you Tiger Beat had arrangements with these different TV shows. Another one of those TV shows was here come the brides starring Bobby Sherman, who I in retrospect, it's only now as a 56 year old woman where I fully understand how beautiful Bobby Sherman is. Yeah, that is a beautiful man.
Speaker 2 34:34
He was so cute in that show and that he had a stutter, just, you know, you couldn't help but love him,
Kristin Nilsen 34:41
and he actually wrote the foreword for your book. He did. He did.
Speaker 2 34:45
He was such a down to earth, unfazed by the Hollywood hoopla, and he had a monthly column where he writes to you, but then to your point when the Partridge Family came along again. Because of our work with the monkey screen, Jim's contacted him. It was the same kind of situation going out there as on the monkey set. So
Kristin Nilsen 35:10
you spent a lot of time on that set of the Partridge Family, yes, but it sounds like it was mostly David Cassidy and Susan day that we're going to be Tiger Beat material.
Speaker 2 35:19
Yes, yes. And the thing was, so he also Laufer contracted for tiger eats official Partridge Family magazine. They got their own magazine too. Yes, they did. Oh, yeah. It went on for, oh, at least a couple of years when you met David
Kristin Nilsen 35:37
Cassidy and saw what was happening. Could you predict his meteoric rise. Could you see that that was going to come? Yes, because
Speaker 2 35:44
by that time I was older, I was looking at Tiger Beat from an entrepreneurial point of view, as much as my excitement and giddiness of being, you know, a new writer for Tiger B, by this point, I was thinking about the business too, and I just come to learn whether it was through osmosis or whatever, of what appealed to our readers, and I just felt duty bound to give the readers what they were craving. And you know, that's why I so often had my picture taken with them. We wanted to show them we're in Hollywood. We do go out to the set every week,
Kristin Nilsen 36:33
and then those pictures of you would be in Tiger B. You're like, you're talking to David Cassidy, exactly, real. Yeah. It's
Speaker 2 36:39
just it was validating that we were the magazine that was in Hollywood, because 16 was in New York City. And, I mean, they all go there occasionally, but we're with them every day. Basically, was the really what we were trying to get across to the reader. So it gave us that authentic stamp. And it was true, we really did spend a lot of time. Can
Kristin Nilsen 37:03
you tell us about the giveaway with the puppies? Oh, there's a Tiger Beat contest that is just the best story ever. Because it's not only so Tiger Beat, it also shows David Cassidy in a very interesting light. This is fascinating. Well, I
Speaker 2 37:19
was over at his house because Sam Hyman, his his roommate, he wrote a column like living with David, and we did. We paid him for that. It's not like it was contracted through screen gyms, because it was his roommate. And I was over at their house, and David said, Oh, these puppies, you know, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm going on tour, and I don't know what I'm going to do with them. Was it his dog? Yes, it was his and Sam's dog. It was the dog Sam, I think was David's and Sheesh, which was short, short for hashish. But we didn't, we didn't print that at the time and and that was Sam's dog, so that their two dogs made it, and
Kristin Nilsen 38:12
who are your puppies?
Speaker 2 38:15
So they had all these look cute puppies. And he said, I just don't know what I'm going to do. And it wasn't like he could put an ad in the paper and, you know, you know, come over and pick up one of David Cassidy's excess puppies, you know. So I said, David, what if we have a contest all see that they're taken care of and well taken care of, because by that time, they were at least six weeks old. So they were, they were weaned from their mom, and so I took them, I asked my mom, you know, will you watch these puppies? Because we had a fenced backyard, nanaim, so she, she put up with those puppies for like, two months, because it took, it took a month to get the contest out on the newsstands. Then it took a month to get all the entries back in. And then David helped choose who would get the puppy. So the five were chosen, and then I had to get kennels for them all, and then I had to put them in the kennel, take them to the airport. And I mean, every time I cried, every time I dropped one off,
Speaker 1 39:33
got on a silver plane and flew away, chased all my rainbows to the end, I wish I knew then what I know today. I'm on my way back home again, love, that's what's waiting for me. That's where I've got to be just to look in your eyes.
Speaker 2 40:02
And I mean, anything that's gonna boost Tiger Beat sales, you know? I mean,
Michelle Newman 40:08
well, it all the contests did. I mean, even by the time we all were readers, oh my gosh, when you know life Garrett's teddy bear, Sean Cassidy's teddy bear, or whatever, and another one that you mentioned in the book that just cracks me up. The locks of Donnie Osmonds hair, he's going to get a haircut. So you're like, why not? Hey, I bet we can make a lot of money on that hair on the floor. Like, clever you guys just thinking of these all the time.
Speaker 2 40:30
We did not sell those, by the way, if that was a contest where you could win, I had gone to the photo shoot for Donnie getting a haircut. You know, Mrs. Osmond was always with them, or Mr. Osmond, but, but almost always it was Mrs. Osmond. So I asked her, I said, Would it be okay if we got some of the things and and give it, you know, to our readers in a contest to win a lock of donnie's hair, and she's like,
Kristin Nilsen 41:01
hair that's dropped on the floor, right? It's not like, let's carefully cut some hair off of his head. It's like, Let me sweep this up from his haircut. That's
Speaker 2 41:07
exactly what we did. In fact, there's a picture of Donnie and I gathering it and putting it in a plastic bag in that article. And so she said, Yeah, that would be fine.
Michelle Newman 41:17
I can't believe she said, Yes. Instead of like, gross. Well,
Speaker 2 41:21
she was really okay with me because Gloria stavers of 16 had printed a picture. She had done a photo shoot with Donnie, and she had him take off his shirt, and she ran that picture. Oh, but I also respected the modesty that they believed in and and she just so she came to trust me implicitly after that. And yeah, so she's like,
Michelle Newman 41:48
hair, hair that's already on the floor. Nobody, right? And like you said earlier, you weren't selling the hair but, but knowing that you could use this as a contest, certainly had to put dollar signs in your eyes for the magazine, which, like you said, but before, like now, you're understanding the entrepreneurial part of it, and that's always going to be good for Tiger bean, right to say when a lock of donnie's hair is going to sell more magazines
Speaker 2 42:13
at that point in time, I wasn't really thinking about selling the magazine. It was making it the best for the readers,
Unknown Speaker 42:22
and they called it oh,
Unknown Speaker 42:30
I guess they'll never know how the young hearts
Unknown Speaker 42:38
really feels. He
Unknown Speaker 42:46
and why I love a song.
Kristin Nilsen 42:48
And the last thing I want to ask you about is, I think one of the most exciting but heartbreaking reveals in your book. I cannot believe I've never heard this before. I can't believe you've been sitting on this for 55 years. And there's a line in your book that introduces it just perfectly about this story. You say, as I stood next to the stage, it occurred to me that I was living the fantasy that I wrote about for all the young girls who read Tiger Beat. I'm talking here about a relationship that you had, that came about while you were working in the field for Tiger Beat, and it sounds like it was, even to this day, one of the most important of your whole life.
Speaker 2 43:35
It was my first real love affair. It was significant, and it's funny, because I'm a romance book reader, and I know that half the books say, Okay, our fingers touched and it was electric. I had never had that experience until I had gone to the hotel do an interview with the Bee Gees, all
Kristin Nilsen 44:00
of our listeners just went, Okay,
Speaker 2 44:06
here we go. Here we go. And so they were in town, and I went over to the hotel, and of course, Robert Stigwood was their their manager, and he said, Why don't you guys go out on the patio so there's enough room for the five of us. And literally, you can see it in the there's a black and white picture of us sitting on but the way Morris is looking at me, and something just sparked between us, and it was just amazing. I mean, certainly it didn't interrupt the interview. We kept going and everything. But in my mind, I'm just going, this has never happened to me. You know? What is this feeling? And then, of course, they had to go do a TV rehearsal, and so I'm walking out of the hotel with them, and and Morris says, well, walk with me. So we were pretty much by ourselves. And he said, Oh my God, that's the greatest necklace, you know. Where did you get this? And I said, Well, I made it, and it was an Indian beaded necklace. It was so popular then, you know? And I was making them on the little looms. And he said, Oh my god, I'd love one of those. And I said, Well, I'd be happy to make you one. Write down your address and I'll send it to you. So I didn't even go back to work at tigerbeat that way. I went straight to the hobby shop. I chose the colors that I was going to make it out of, and I started that night. It was like, Oh man, I did send it off to him. And then I didn't hear anything. I didn't get a note or anything. But then one morning, it was like 5am totally dark outside. You know, I'm sound asleep, and my phone at home rings, and it's Morris calling from London on a transatlantic phone call. I mean, even Tiger B didn't spend money on transatlantic phone calls. Ever, never, ever. And, I mean, I about fell out of bed. I was just so shocked that this was happening to me. And then he proceeded to call me. And about the third time he called. He said, I would love it if you'd come and stay with me, you know, in London, with my family. And I said, Well, I would love to do that. I said, I have to check with my editor, you know. And again, I thought, you say, check with my mom. And so he said, Of course you can go. So I bought my plane ticket. We had not established where I was going to be staying. I mean, I never asked him. He just said, Can you come to London? And so I was supposed to arrive at 630 in the morning. Well, it was 930 their time, and it was supposed to be 630 it's not like I could text him and say I'm going to be late. I mean, there's literally no way to contact him, but someone came on the plane from the airline and said, I'm looking for Ann Moses. And I said, Well, I'm Ann Moses. And he said, Please follow me. And he takes me, gets my luggage, and then takes me through customs, and then there at right, as I walk out of customs, is more standing there just looking like a dream in one of his velvet jackets. And that wasn't the half of it. When we walked outside, he had brought John Lennon's Rolls Royce to pick me up, and I'm climbing into the back of a Rolls Royce princess, and I'm riding in the back of a limousine with Morris, you know, and he's holding my hand. And, I mean, I mean, we've never been on a date, but it was so casual and just seemed like as natural as it could be. So then we're going to his house, north of London, in a little subdivision. He was living with his parents. Was he the same age as you or older? It turns out, it turns out he was 17 at the time. Oh, we Wow. I mean, it appalls me today, because I think I would have gotten arrested, but, yeah, he was so much more mature than I was because of the life he had led up to that point, it never crossed my mind. I don't think, until I was writing the book, and I had to look at specific dates on it. Oh, my goodness, robbing the cradle.
Kristin Nilsen 48:49
So, so he's still living with his parents. Obviously, he's only 17 years old. So you go home to his parents house.
Speaker 2 48:55
So then, then we went home. He introduced me to his folks. His grandma lived with them, and she was, she was not very cogent. And of course, Andy Gibb he was there, and he was this little tot. And we would, we would give him a quarter to go down to the candy store so he'd leave us alone.
Speaker 2 49:21
And, he was, he would save Barry's bath water. How would get it? I don't know, because Barry wasn't living there, but he was selling Barry's bathwater. Oh my gosh,
Michelle Newman 49:34
brilliant, like, bring
Kristin Nilsen 49:35
it to school. Who wants my brother's bath water? Oh, my
Unknown Speaker 49:40
God, that was that was so talk about
Kristin Nilsen 49:43
entrepreneurial No kidding. You go on and tell us the entire love affair in this book. And I really want readers to read it because it is just like out of the romance books that you read. It's a beautiful, beautiful story, but I do have to warn people, because it's a trash. Magic, tragic ending, because basically, the two of you are, you're having this, this love affair, and you think that you and Morris are going to be together forever, until one day he's in your bed and he tells he breaks some news to you.
Speaker 2 50:15
He does. It was the night before my 21st birthday, so we had gone to a party. Lee Hazelwood, you know, who produced? Nancy Sinatra, these boots are made for walking. He was a record producer. He had a party at his house. And the Bee Gees were all invited. They had flown into town to do the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. And so they were rehearsing all week. And so we went to this party, and there's this fabulous picture of Morris looking at me at the party. And I mean, it was, when you look at it, it was everything I felt that we had together. But we get home, as we had done the rest of the week, because he stayed with me the whole week at my house in Hollywood. I had a little house that was down lower than Peter's house below the Hollywood side. And he he stayed with me instead of staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel with the rest of the group. And so, you know, we had spent every evening do, doing what couples in love do, and as we did that night when we got home from the party. So this was after midnight, so technically, it was on my 21st birthday, and he told me, you know, after we'd made love, he goes, Oh, there's something I have to tell you. I'm married to Lulu God, and I just that
Carolyn Cochrane 51:38
bitch
Kristin Nilsen 51:39
dagger.
Speaker 2 51:40
You got it right? I mean, I don't think I spoke, you know,
Michelle Newman 51:47
if he's what, 18
Speaker 2 51:51
Yes. And it turns out, I would find out a couple of weeks later that he was not married to her, and they did, in fact, get married, you know, a year later or something. And I also found out years and years later that he had been forced to break up with me by Robert Stigwood, because Robert Stigwood, he he wanted that celebrity matchup to be like a super couple, and I didn't, and I didn't fit that mold. So, so it was heartbreaking. And, you know, years later, I mean, ever since then, it was like, in my mind, I would go to I embellish what we had. Did I, you know, have I made it bigger than it really was over the years? But then my mom was 93 and she sent me a box, and in this box were all the letters I had written, them from London. Oh, my God. And of course, I print some of those in the book because it validated everything that I had in my mind. I wrote them from Paris, and I said, I said, Morris is in Germany, you know, performing Morris said to tell you he loves me, and you know, he's coming to see me soon. And, you know, blah, blah, blah, and so it was really a revelation. And it was after that that someone that I used to know in the Tiger Beat days, she was working for the publicist that was doing the publicity for the Bee Gees, and she was the one who told me what actually went down. And, I mean, it was just like the final chapter, because obviously, all these years later, I don't I don't hate him. I couldn't have any bad feelings because of the experiences I had with him. And and our very brief but intense relationship. And, I mean, I could see that that would would not have been the life I would have wanted. I would not want to been a superstar's wife in any way, shape and form and and, you know, and then he, you know, when he got into alcoholism and such. I mean, I all I felt was was sad for him. At the same time, I was so happy that he finally found somebody to love. Had two kids, and even though his death was tragic, he had those those wonderful years with people who loved him and vice versa. So I have zero regrets, and I decided I'm having a new start. I'm moving to Salt Lake. It was such. It was so much more of a slower pace of life than Southern California, and I. I just, I upped and did it. And of course, it would be only matter months, months before I would have, you know, just by having sense, meet the man who would become my husband. And we've been married for 44 years now, and have two amazing young men that we we raised and I mean, that's that's why I wouldn't change, change one iota of anything that happened to me.
Carolyn Cochrane 55:29
I've got to say your whole story from the first pages of your book, the serendipitous timing of so many things in your life, just being somewhere at a certain time, the way the stars aligned. I mean, I don't know what you believe in, but I've got to believe the universe knew exactly what it was doing. Well,
Speaker 2 55:49
there was someone looking after me, I'll tell you that much, 110%
Michelle Newman 55:54
Oh, my goodness. And this has been such a delight, we could keep chatting to you for hours. But thank you so much for being here and for talking with us and sharing these stories. You guys. Can you believe we're in the same group as like Davy Jones and
Kristin Nilsen 56:12
degrees, two degrees from Elvis, I'm two degrees from Davy Jones. It
Michelle Newman 56:16
is a stage to wrap it up today. Could you give us a Tiger Beat headline in true and Moses Tiger Beat fashion that sums up how this job affected your life,
Speaker 2 56:31
the day that changed Dan's life. You
Carolyn Cochrane 56:49
Oh, you guys, wow. I feel like even now I need to take some deep breaths after hearing and share her story about her relationship with Morris Gibbs of not only John Lennon's Bentley, but a little Andy Gibbs selling Barry's bathwater.
Kristin Nilsen 57:12
I know
Michelle Newman 57:16
I still when I when I remember the first time I read the story with Morris, I like, kind of like, want to hide my eyes, like, no, who what, and then you see it. And like, it was just like I had so many emotions going through my body at the same time. It's a it's a great story, and the way she
Kristin Nilsen 57:37
tells it, too is so kind and tender. It really is her romance to own, and it makes me, it makes me happy for her, and it makes me happy for him.
Michelle Newman 57:48
Yeah, I thought it was told with so much respect for the relationship they had and the love they shared. And you know, regardless of how you feel about this, the circumstances surrounding it. I feel like she still looks back on that kindly, stupid,
Kristin Nilsen 58:06
Stingy makes me so mad. But
Carolyn Cochrane 58:10
as she's kind of pointed out, it all worked out,
Kristin Nilsen 58:15
yeah, and she was supposed to have that romance in her past. She was supposed to have that romance to look back fondly on. And, yeah, it's just a beautiful thing. And I have a little surprise for you guys, because I, as I just said at the top of the episode, I have a stack of tigerbeat magazines from 1968 It was a gift from my friend Colleen, who, on my 50th birthday, gave me all the issues of tigerbeat from my birth year, which was such an amazing gift. So they're all from 1968 So, and this is prime and Moses time. So today I, just before we recorded, I just decided to look through and see Anne Moses in my pages and just examine it a little bit. And lo and behold, I come upon her column, meow. And here we have here's, there's her column right there.
Michelle Newman 59:03
So cute. You guys. She's so like that girl. She's so
Kristin Nilsen 59:07
groovy. And I start to read her column, and she says, Oh, what a great gassy, groovy, pop filled month. This has been before the Bee Gees left Hollywood. Lee Hazelwood gave a party in their honor at his beautiful Spanish home in the valley. Everyone in town seemed to be to appear at one time or another during the evening to congratulate the Bee Gees on their great show the week before, she's writing an article after the night when Morris told her he was married to Lulu. And she talks about, oh, there's this photo of him, of us at the party where he's looking at me so sweetly. Here's the photo, yeah, and we'll put this in the Weekly Reader you guys it he is just looking at her with pure adoration.
Carolyn Cochrane 59:54
How young he looks. Oh, he was
Michelle Newman 59:56
so cute, too. He
Kristin Nilsen 59:57
was adorable. Yeah, is, I
Michelle Newman 59:59
think. Got photos in the book too, in Meow. Oh, it might be, yeah, I think it is. But wow, that's that talk about being committed to your job and your that she had to have still been hurting so much, right? Then also, he's looking at her. That is pure adoration. I know, I know he basically that cartoon heart says his eyes,
Kristin Nilsen 1:00:24
it is so teen love, right? And it's the thing that everybody dreams about. It's the thing that all the Tiger Beat readers dream about that teen love. And you know what? Teen love doesn't last people, but it sure is fun. That's right,
Carolyn Cochrane 1:00:37
many, many, many. Thanks to Anne for sharing all of her stories, and particularly trusting us with that Morris gib one so great. And you know what? Also Ann, we want to thank you for being a trailblazer, for stepping into a male dominated field at such a young age, and for standing up for your readers that had to take guts. And one of the biggest takeaways I had after talking to Anne was how important it was to her to share the information that readers really wanted to know and to deliver it to them in clever, creative ways. I feel like that we have Anne to thank for learning that purple was donnie's favorite color and that he loved her chili recipe. She knew what we wanted to learn and to know, and she fought for that for us, and we are so grateful. Anne, thank
Kristin Nilsen 1:01:25
you. Anne Moses, we'd also like to thank all of you for listening today. Tigerbeat is seriously one of the reasons we remember our childhood so fondly, which is the whole reason we have all found each other. We appreciate you going on this ride with us, and we hope you got as much out of our conversation today as we did,
Michelle Newman 1:01:43
and we also want to give a very special thank you to our Patreon members who take their support of this podcast to the next level and get totally awesome bonus content in return, like free admission into our quarterly book clubs, our occasional book clubs, I should say we honestly could not do any of this without them, and today we're giving a special thank you to Johanna, Leanne, Deb Kimberly. Kimberly, Robert, Emily Mendel, Julie, Megan, Sharon, Felicia, Carmi, Alexis, Sheila, Jennifer, Pam, Natalie and Diane. Thank
Carolyn Cochrane 1:02:24
you everybody. Yeah,
Kristin Nilsen 1:02:26
thank you. In the meantime, let's raise our glasses for a toast, courtesy of the jiggliest show on TV, freeze company, two good times, two Happy
Carolyn Cochrane 1:02:35
Days, Two Little House on the Prairie. Cheers. Cheers. Everyone. The
Kristin Nilsen 1:02:42
information, opinions and comments expressed on the pop culture Preservation Society podcast belong solely to Carolyn the crushologist and hello Newman, and are in no way representative of our employers or affiliates. And though we truly believe we are always right, there is always a first time the PCPs is written, produced and recorded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, home of the fictional wjm studios and our beloved Mary Richards, Nanu. Nanu, keep on truckin, and May the Force Be With You. You.