John Lennon in 1980 photo help.

I think John looked great in 1980- very healthy and happy. He seemed excited to be with Yoko and working again, and from what I can gather he was full of ideas for the next few years. sigh.

 

He was quite thin the last couple of years of his life. I read somewhere he woke up each morning and wrapped a string around his waist to make sure he handn't gained any weight and if so, would fast accordingly. Any idea what he weighed in 1980? My guess is he was probably about 135 when he died. For his build he probably should have weighed about 150. This might account for the slightly unhealthy appearance some have noted in relation to how he looked a few years earlier, coupled with the cumulative effects of being a frequent smoker. His 1980 singing voice certainly sounds a bit smoke-deteriorated in relation to his mid 70s voice.

 

Thank you

Greg.

 

On another forum that deals with 'Grey Area's' the current thinking and knowledge is that at least 20 min's of the John footage is in the hands of a top level collector, what that may mean is anyones guess, but if pristine demo's of 'Grow old with me' can surface after 29 years of being all but lost, then i'm not giving up hope of one day seeing the video of John.

Greg.

 

It's funny, one of my mates saud last night "I wonder where John was heading, what he was on the cusp of creating", we cranked up 'Walking on thin ice' and then got really sad, that song and his work on it was amazing.

Greg.

 

I don't find that clip creepy, but I DO find it puerile. Almost like J & Y are saying, 'Hey! Just because we're old, it doesn't mean we've lost our taste for outrageousness....look what we're gonna do now...'

It's not like either of them were ever any great shakes to look at, naked or otherwise.

 

Interesting. Does this mean Yoko no longer has the 1" video tape masters made by Jay Dubin? And if a collector has video, does that mean they have the masters or a copy? How did the collector get the tapes? Was this a Fred Seaman inside job?

 

That is the big question, 'if' she does have them then she's not putting them out for a specific reason, ie John for whatever reason was not happy with how it came out, or .. and i think more likely she actually does not have them, she lost a TON of stuff when Seaman pillaged everything, we know she lost tapes like those fantastic single tracked 'Grow old with me' demo's, the cleaner 'Now and then', none of which she could offer the Threatles, but they have recently surfaced fed down by the big collectors, and and i'm hoping beyond hope that the 1980 footage may also make it's way down some day, tho it's pretty much a given this is the jewel in the crown of collectables, so i'm thinking it will be a long time, if ever that we see it.

Greg.

 

Bob Gruen photos from August 1980 at the Hit Factory and a Roger Farrington photo of John and Yoko entering the Hit Factory at 353 W. 48th Street in August 1980.

 

Gswan, i've never seen that attached shot before, but what makes it more interesting is that it looks like a "screen grab" from video

 

So Seaman stole demos and video and sold it for profit? I thought in the lawsuit he settled with Yoko only he only acknowledged taking diaries and photos? Did she go after him for the missing recordings and video too or did she not have enough evidence to prove he did it?

 

Seaman didn't steal this mythical video, it was already trashed. I know you all desperately want to see it but clutching at straws is a bit pointless. It's gone, forget it.

 

Your source for it being trashed?

 

No-one has seen it

 

So you are speculating that it does not exist. Is the glass half empty or half full?

I asked Yoko the following question on her Twitter Q&A last week and she didn't respond to it.

"John was videotaped performing "I'm Losing You" in August 1980 at The Hit Factory. Will this footage ever be released?"

Instead, Yoko opted to respond to silly questions like the ones below:
http://imaginepeace.com/archives/7703

If the footage was actually destroyed like you claim, why wouldn't Yoko just come out and say this on her Twitter Q&A? Why not just say: "John destroyed it" and lay the mystery of John's last ever pro-shot performance to rest?

Instead, Yoko avoids answering an interesting question about John's last ever pro-filmed music performance and opts to answer a bunch of asinine fluff questions.

This suggests to me that Yoko doesn't want to talk about this footage because she probably still has it and doesn't want to release it for some reason. Perhaps she feels the footage is unflattering to John and is squelching it to avoid what she feels could portray John in a somewhat unflattering light.

Another possibility is that an insider like Fred Seaman stole the tape and sold it on the black market and she therefore doesn't want to talk about for that reason.

 

Who is Fred Seaman?

 

John & Yoko's former assistant.

 

From a 2002 Bloomberg article:


Last Days of John Lennon, Coming Soon to a Manhattan Courtroom
By David Glovin


New York, March 13 (Bloomberg) -- "Photographs and mementos from the final
months of John Lennon's life, a trove that may be worth $1 million, will be
the subject of a battle in a Manhattan courtroom between the murdered
Beatle's widow, Yoko Ono, and his former personal assistant.

Ono plans to testify in the trial beginning April 15, accusing the aide of
pirating Lennon's legacy. The former assistant, Frederic Seaman, says he
took the photos on his own time and is their rightful owner.

Among the souvenirs are a Lennon family home video and 374 photos of the
couple, their children, and their friends. Ono also wants to recover tens of
thousands of dollars Seaman allegedly pocketed by selling Lennon's letters
to Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton.

``These are Yoko's last private photos of her family before John's murder,
and Seaman shouldn't be allowed to exploit them for his own commercial
gain,'' Ono's lawyer, Paul LiCalsi, says.

Ono said she sued, claiming copyright violations and theft, to protect her
family's privacy. The trial will give jurors an intimate glimpse of Lennon's
last days, lawyers said, before he was gunned down outside the Dakota
apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side on Dec. 8, 1980.

They'll hear about life in the Lennon household, including Seaman's
relationship with the expatriate from Liverpool who teamed with McCartney on
dozens of hits before the Beatles' breakup.

The case may turn on whether the photographs were shot as part of Seaman's
$175-a-week job or on his own time.

Works for Hire

``Works made by employees in the pursuit of their employment are `works for
hire' and the copyright vests in the employer,'' Columbia University law
professor Jane Ginsburg said. If so, she said, they belong to Ono.

``The question is whether there's an employment relationship, and whether
these photos were created as part of'' it, Ginsburg said.

The case was filed in 1999, after Seaman claimed ownership of a photo of
Lennon and his son included in a boxed set of Lennon's music. Ono balked and
sued over the picture and others that she learned about through her pretrial
investigation.

Seaman was 26 when he came to work for the Lennons in February 1979. He was
recruited by his aunt, then a nanny for John and Yoko's son Sean, and his
uncle, who was Ono's former agent. Ono says Seaman was a ``gofer'' who ran
errands.

Seaman says he was a ``trusted member of the Lennon entourage'' who lived at
the Dakota in a family owned apartment. He ate with the couple, vacationed
with them, and even bought them illegal drugs, he says.

He was like ``a relative, not an employee,'' he says.

As Seaman tells it, everyone snapped photos of each other. Sometimes he and
Lennon traded pictures, he says.

`One Extended Family'

``These are my photos,'' said Seaman, estimating their value at $1 million.
Dressed in black from head to toe, he wears his hair down over his collar,
Lennon-style. Now 49, he lives in Brooklyn, New York.

``The Seamans and Lennons were almost one extended family,'' he said. ``My
aunt and uncle were almost like Sean's surrogate grandparents.''

Ono, who wouldn't be interviewed, recalls it differently, said LiCalsi, her
lawyer.

``Taking family snapshots, getting them developed, and putting them in the
family album were all part of Seaman's job,'' he said. ``This is just
another attempt to rob the Lennons in a long, sad history of robbery by Fred
Seaman.''

Ono says in court papers that Seaman has long schemed to profit from his
status as Lennon insider, starting in 1981 when he hooked up with a friend
to write a tell-all book.

`Project Walrus'

Seaman stayed on at the Dakota after Lennon's death, Ono says, and secretly
left work every Friday with a bag full of loot, including diaries, love
letters and clothes. He even dubbed his pilfering ``Project Walrus,'' after
the Beatles' song, ``I Am The Walrus,'' she says in her suit.

Seaman denies that. He says in court papers that Lennon had a premonition of
his death and asked Seaman to safeguard his property if anything happened to
him. Ono's lawyers say Seaman's own diaries, which they've obtained, prove
he wanted to cash in.

Seaman's friend turned on him and revealed the thefts, Ono says. In 1983
Seaman pleaded guilty to grand larceny, according to court papers in the
criminal case. In return for probation, he promised to return what he took,
the papers show. Ono says Seaman held onto some items, including song lyrics
and letters written by Lennon that he later sold for $70,000. Seaman denies
it.

One letter was to Clapton, a copy of which is in court files.

`On the Road'

``After missing the Bangladesh concert, we began to feel more and more like
going on the road, but not the way I used to with the Beatles -- night after
night of torture,'' Lennon wrote in 1971, urging the guitarist to join him
and Ono on a concert tour.

Another chided McCartney and his wife Linda. ``Get off your gold disc and
fly,'' Lennon wrote. Linda McCartney died in 1998.

In her suit, Ono demands that Seaman hand over everything she says he stole.

So much has been written about Lennon, including Seaman's own book,
published in 1991, that it's unlikely much new will come out in court.
Still, an appearance by Ono is sure to cause a stir among fans of Lennon and
the Beatles.

Among them is Jay Schultz, a recent law school graduate awaiting admission
to the bar who will be advising Seaman in court. Seaman is defending himself
in the case.

``The jury will see that she's trying to hijack the Lennon legacy,'' said
Schultz, 25.''

 

Well that's Yoko for you.
Fred was never accused nor charged with stealing any video tape.
I would suppose that Yoko doesn't know what happened to the tape because Lennon himself had destroyed it as Jack Douglas said. If we hadn't had the vocal booth rcording, we'd never have known any of the Double Fantasy sessions were videotaped until that snippet of Yoko turned up. If that is indeed from summer 1980 and not 1981 as some suspect.
I'd LOVE the footage to still be extant, but it's never been seen by anyone. That means it no longer exists. I'll try to live with it!

 

The existing footage of Yoko from the same shoot that night IS FROM AUG 1980. We discussed this on another thread:

 

The 2002 Bloomberg article I posted above notes includes the following:

"Among the souvenirs are a Lennon family home video and 374 photos of the
couple, their children, and their friends. Ono also wants to recover tens of
thousands of dollars Seaman allegedly pocketed by selling Lennon's letters
to Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton."

So if he stole a home video, how much of a stretch would it be for Seaman to steal a pro-shot 1 inch video?

Of course, Yoko could still have the tape/s, but I wouldn't put it past Seaman to steal anything. The guy was an opportunist.

 

My view, for what it's worth, is that Seaman knows EVERYTHING. Obviously Yoko has set out to destroy the guy in the eyes of the public but he sullied his own decency aswell by stealing which IS inexplicable but in any case that guy could obliterate the cozy 'Double Fantasy' legacy. But any fan of John and his music just has to listen to those 1980 tunes and hear that John & Yoko were having an extremely tough time.....it's simply all there to hear.

Also..the infamous footage? We've all heard every piece of audio there is and John is clearly coke'd off his nut. (Lennon addresses 'Cocaine' in the track 'Solitude' which only surfaced for the first time recently and is a stunning find. I'm amazed this track has slipped under the radar so quietly to be honest, though it is on a bootleg).

There have been suggestions that the drug intake is so obvious that that's the main reason the footage was destroyed. The general concensus though is that they had a blazing row and it was all torched. We do have Lennon 1980 studio footage though. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttzFfqKvPEI

This clip surfaced first as an audio boot which gives me the undying hope of the 'other' footage having survived in some way. If you're telling me that NO-ONE ran a copy of that footage at some stage I'd be amazed....

T.

 

Yes, but a Betamax or VHS or Philips 2000 or some other videocassette is a far cry from a pro-shot 1 inch. Completely different. And if he HAD stolen a pro shot video he would have had to have it transferred to a Home Useable Format for prospective purcahsers or journalists to view, right? And this copy has never surfaced. So I say it was never made. Nobody, but NOBODY has EVER seen this video after the day it was shot. Fred himself has spoken of the things he stole and has never mentioned this, despite the fact that it is the HOLY GRAIL of Lennon footage.
The time for it to be exhumed from the 'vaults' was as the prime source for the 'Cheap Trick' I'm Losing You promo video 10 years ago, and as it WASN'T used then, I accept that it no longer exists.
I'm as unhappy about it as anyone (even you, monkboughtlunch!) that I'll never have the chance to see it, whatever condition Lennon was in. I mean, I love the 'Walking through Central park' stuff (although I'm not totally thrilled about the shagging stuff!)

 

Can you provide background on the row you are referring to?

 

Hi,

It isn't obvious to me that John was on coke on these tapes, i've been around the tracks.

If this tape is in the hands of a high level collector, which i firmly believe it is, at least 20 minutes of it, then it's understandable that it isn't out there. It's only been in the past few months that 'lost and assumed gone forever versions of 'Grow old with me' have surfaced, it was absolutely assumed these were gone, no one had heard about them .. when these surfaced i knew there was still a chance that the August video would one day maybe surface, but as it is the cornerstone, i can't see that being anytime soon .. unless the cops from the 'My brave face' nail this guy

Greg.