National Screw Magazine Asks 70s Pop Stars, Porn Stars and Movie Stars: ‘What’s Your Worst Nightmare?’

“Success may fill the days with dreamlike drama and fortune, but does it help anyone sleep better?”

– National Screw magazine asks famous fads abut their nightmares

 

 

For the December 1976 issue of Al Goldstein’s National SCREW magazine (1976 – 1977), Jeff Goldberg asked a number of celebrities: ‘What’s Your Worst Nightmare?’

We hear first from movie director Gerard Damiano (August 4, 1928 – October 25, 2008), who says his worst nightmare is to turn down an Oscar because “I could not get an Indian to accept it for me”. On March 27, 1973, Marlon Brando had declined an Academy Award for The Godfather, sending in his place Sacheen Littlefeather to reject it in person as a protest against Hollywood’s portrayal of Native Americans.

Damiano’s tongue was firmly in his check. He’s chief contributions to cinema were as the writer and directer of the 1972 pornographic film Deep Throat, starring Linda Lovelace. In 1973, his movie The Devil in Miss Jones made the Variety list of the top ten highest-grossing pictures of the year. Deep Throat, then in its second year of release (and second year on the list), just missed the top 10, coming in at No. 11 for the year.

Despite his movies’ enduring popularity, Damiano’s odds on winning an Oscar were slim. Although, it was not without trying. In 1975, Inish Kae, the film’s distributor, launched an ad campaign touting The Devil in Miss Jones for Academy Award nominations. The ads in the entertainment industry trade press touted Damiano for the Best Director Oscar.

The movie failed to trouble the Academy’s voting panel, losing out to Miloš Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which won Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Screenplay (Adapted).

 

 

Ronnie Montrose (November 29, 1947 – March 3, 2012) was next. The American musician and guitarist founded and led the rock bands Montrose and Gamma. Montrose’s nightmare took place on the Bicentennial of 1976, in which he was on plane full of all the musicians he’d ever worked with and was the only one not having sex the stewardesses. His nightmare was compounded when a stewardess told him she’d run out of food:

“This dream took place on the eve of the Bicentennial, July 3rd. I call it Bicentennial Madness. All of a sudden, I became aware of myself in a craft of some sort. At first it seemed to be a plane, but it was not an airplane because it was on the ground, but there were seats set in rows resembling a plane and there were stewardesses. The passen-gers were all the musicians I’d ever played with in any band or session. Everyone was having sex with the stewardesses, except me. Everyone was getting food, except me! I said, Where’s my food? The stewardess said, Sorry, we ran out. But no one asked me if I wanted any.

“I got up and left the craft and had to descend into a basement to reach the street. Outside, I found my- self surrounded by tall buildings and I felt a feeling of foreboding. The buildings seemed to be teetering. I looked up and straight ahead of me I saw a smooth, round hill. There were bleachers built into the slopes and on top of the hill was an auto transport truck. five stories tall, filled with brand-new, shiny American cars. There were fireworks in the air and red, white, and blue klieg lights lighting the truck from behind. Suddenly a Roman candle was shot into the air and, when a burst, it reproduced the entire Declaration of Independence. I became aware of the bleachers again. filled with people in Let’s Make a Deal costumes. They were standing and waving at these men positioned at the base of the hill who were fir- ing rockets toward the bleachers. The men were in white asbestos outfits. The game was being hit by the rockets. When one of the contestants was hit, the men in the white suits would rush up and put the winner on a stretcher and load the damaged person into the new car he had won. The winners were very happy.”

 

 

Porn-star and onetime vice-presidential candidate Marilyn Chambers (April 22, 1952 – April 12, 2009) had a nightmare: “”I dreamt that I was in ant argy with Lew Gordon, a guy named Parrish (one of the prosecutors at Harry Beems’ trial in Memphis), and Nixon. It was weird. None of them belonged at all. Nixon was very cold.”

The composer John Cage (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) dreamt of creating music for cats and dog to eat: “I dreamt once that I composed a piece of music all the notes of which were to be cooked and then eaten. On the way to the concert hall to perform this piece I stopped to rehearse and cooked the notes. Then a bunch of dogs and cats ate them all!”

Bill Wyman, of The Rolling Stones, had a nightmare about “red skies raining rocks on me”.

Professor Irwin Corey (born Irwin Eli Cohen, July 29, 1914 – February 6, 2017) was a comic who campaigned for president on Hugh Hefner’s Playboy ticket in 1960: “”I have delightful mise-en-scenes and beautiful moments in my dreams, where actual life takes place, where there are no guidelines, no repression. My dreams are great, they’re not nightmares. A nightmare is reality. Nixon was once President. That was the biggest nightmare that ever took place in the United States.”

William Burroughs (February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) explained his nightmare: “I have this recurring nightmare, where some very large poison centipede or scorpion suddenly rushes on me while I;m looking for something to kill it. And I wake up screaming and shaking the bedclothes off.”

The photographer Ron Galella (January 10, 1931 – April 30, 2022): “I don’t remember my dreams.”

Artist Robert Indiana (born Robert Clark, September 13, 1928 – May 19, 2018) Robert Indiana: “”My dreams aren’t fantasies; they closely resemble reality. There’s a recurring pattern that’s kind of strange. I’ll be on a journey of some kind. traveling somewhere. It’s very difficult getting there.. The dream is filled with people that I know, sometimes in rather curious roles, doing things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. Very frequently it ends in a loss, not necessarily a death, but a loss.”

Robert James “Gino” Marella (June 4, 1937 – October 6, 1999), better known by his ring name of Gorilla Monsoon, was an American professional wrestler, play-by-play commentator, and booker: “”I dreamt that I was on the Titanic and it was going down. I remember everyone was in a state of panic and most of the people were in the water. There were several lifeboats which were jam-packed. I was swim- ming towards an object when I woke up.”

Tracy Nelson (born December 27, 1944) is an American country and blues singer: “”I’ve had two strange dreams. In the first, I walked into an antique shop and saw a copper tray which I liked. I asked the owner how much it was. He said, With or without food? I looked back and, much to my surprise, there was food on the tray. But strange food, like a suckling pig with an apple in its mouth, only it was a glazed elephant’s trunk wrapped around an apple. And, as I looked, it sprang out and grabbed me. My other is an erotic dream about Wally Cox.”

 

 

As the American writer an editor of the Paris Review, George Plimpton (March 18, 1927 – September 25, 2003) took the call and spoke long enough to say he had better things to think about: “Talking about strange dreams just ain’t my idea of how to spend the day.”

British musician Spencer Davis (17 July 1939 – 19 October 2020) had many nightmares. In some he saw aliens in his home in South Wales:

“One of my strangest dreams occurred when I was five years old, living in South Wales. I dreamed they were having one of the street celebrations they used to have at the end of World War II. Everybody was out- side, but I decided to go home. I went around the back of an old house, where we lived on the side of a hill, and I looked through the keyhole. And I saw something which wasn’t of this earth. It had the shape of a man, but it was like a robot wearing a space suit.

“During the ’60’s, when I was touring, I’d often dream of doing performances with all manner of people on stage, people living and people dead. I was friendly with a lot of the musicians who died: Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones-especially Brian. I’ve had many dreams of Brian, on stage, playing.

“But the most frightening dream that came out of my ’60’s experience isn’t really a dream at all. I’ll be asleep and I’ll think of how much money was made in those days, and how much of it didn’t find its way back to me. I’ve often woken up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat thinking that everything’s gone.”

Crime writer Mickey Spillane (March 9, 1918 – July 17, 2006) has only “lovely dreams”. “I dream all the time, lovely dreams. I dream about my wife. I don’t have night- mares. What do I got to be afraid of? I’m an old fighter pilot from World War II. I’ve been knifed, shot, and everything else.”

Bookmaker and sports commentator Jimmy ‘The Greek’ Snyder (September 9, 1918 – April 21, 1996) had nightmares. In reality, when he was ten years old, he lost his mother when his uncle, driven mad by the loss of his wife, shot and killed Snyder’s mother and aunt, who were walking home, before killing himself. Snyder told his mother that he wanted to stay at the grocery store that his father was running and play rather than walk home with his mother, which he cited as likely saving his life but also as a reason he became a gambler.

Snyder’s nightmares were filled with plane crashes. His other drams were erotic, which, oddly for a man talking to National SCREW, he kept to himself:

“I often dream of being in airplane crashes. The odds against a plane crash are thousands to one, but I’ve canceled reservations on two flights which did crash. Which frightens me because I fly a lot. My other dream I can’t tell you about. It’s erotic. When I used to gamble I never placed a bet because of a dream I’d had. I never played hunches. Winning takes a lot more careful calculation.”

Cherry Vanilla (born Kathleen Dorritie, October 16, 1943) is described as:  “DJ, actress, poetess, PA to David Bowie, groupie extraordinaire, and regular at Max’s Kansas City she then decamped to London as a singer along with Wayne County and The Heartbreakers at the height of the punk explosion playing such venues as the famous Roxy Club in Covent Garden.”

Her nightmare was about not smoking a joint with David Bowie and seeing shapes in the sky:

“Last night I dreamt this dream. Setting: a New York apartment of mine in the future, and only one bathroom. A roofless seating area where one could view the sky. Characters: many indeterminable, also David Bowie, Angela and Zooey. Time: Christmas. Location: Warm. Action: Zooey is putting things in my mouth and lifting up my dress to show my heiney. David waving his hand and lighting up a Christmas tree from across the room. Tiny white lights. Amazes the crowd with his new technology which he has obviously brought back from some place more advanced. Later, we are talking in a group on two facing sofas under the open roof, when suddenly a huge red shield appears in the sky. Within the shield is a white clock with no numbers and whiter hands. I wonder about air- planes hitting it but don’t ask. And then it seems to be holographic, projected from a satellite also up in the sky. The satellite I am sure is very real and solid. It is shaped like an hourglass, or egg-timer, or African drum. I have a feeling that David is controlling these phenomena.

“David is smoking hashish and passing it to his friends. He doesn’t pass it to me or my friends, I am amazed by the incredible things I’m seeing, even more so because I’m not smoking the hash and therefore realize they are really happening as I see them. Yet I long to be stoned so I can see them happen as the stoned ones are seeing them. I decide that I’m going to take some hash from the fridge and smoke it in the bathroom. Before I leave the sofa, the red shield around the clock disappears and turns into people dancing in a circle around the clock. Before I can recognize any of them they suddenly change into Walt Disney characters: Alice in Wonderland, Snow White, and Seven Dwarfs, and they continue to dance around the clock.”

American actor Melvin Van Peebles (born Melvin Peebles; August 21, 1932 – September 21, 2021) had no nightmares: “My most interesting dreams are the ones I’ve sold.”

Holly Woodlawn (October 26, 1946 – December 6, 2015), born Haroldo Santiago Franceschi Rodriguez Danhakl and for some years known as Harold Ajzenberg, was an American actress. Best known as a Warhol superstar, she appeared in the films Trash (1970) and Women in Revolt (1971).  Woodlawn was mentioned in Lou Reed’s 1972 hit song “Walk on the Wild Side”.

Her nightmare: “I’m acting in a movie with Liz Taylor. It’s the first dream I’ve had in Techni- color. Liz has purple eyes. She’s not like a star, she’s like a friend. We’re having a big argument. Then we both end up quitting the movie, because they want us to do indecent acts together, and we move to Nova Scotia to fish for salmon.”