avg_rating: 3.67
name: Pamela Des Barres
about: Pamela Des Barres aka Miss Pamela (born Pamela Ann Miller on September 9, 1948) is a former rock and roll groupie, author, and magazine writer.Des Barres was born in Reseda, California. Her mother was a housewife and her father worked for Anheuser-Busch and occasionally worked as a gold miner. She idolized the Beatles and Elvis Presley as a child, and fantasized about meeting and dating her favorite Beatle, Paul McCartney.A high school acquaintaince introduced Pamela to Don Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart, a musician and friend of Frank Zappa. Vliet in turn introduced her to Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones, which drew her to the rock music scene on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. She started to spend her tim Pamela Des Barres aka Miss Pamela (born Pamela Ann Miller on September 9, 1948) is a former rock and roll groupie, author, and magazine writer.Des Barres was born in Reseda, California. Her mother was a housewife and her father worked for Anheuser-Busch and occasionally worked as a gold miner. She idolized the Beatles and Elvis Presley as a child, and fantasized about meeting and dating her favorite Beatle, Paul McCartney.A high school acquaintaince introduced Pamela to Don Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart, a musician and friend of Frank Zappa. Vliet in turn introduced her to Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones, which drew her to the rock music scene on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. She started to spend her time with The Byrds and other bands, and when she graduated from high school in 1966, she took various jobs that would allow her to live near the Sunset Strip and pursue relationships with rock musicians. She famously paired up with Nick St. Nicholas, Mick Jagger, Keith Moon, Jim Morrison, Jimmy Page, Chris Hillman, Noel Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Waylon Jennings, Ray Davies, David Gilmour, Frank Zappa and actor Don Johnson.She was also a member of The GTOs, an all-girl singing group formed by Zappa. The group started out as the Laurel Canyon Ballet Company, and began performing as an opening act for Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. The group's act was performance art, a mix of music and spoken word, since none of its members could sing or play an instrument. They released an album, Permanent Damage in 1969, backed by Zappa and Jeff Beck. The group dissolved a month after the album's release because some of its members were arrested for drug possession.In the 1970s Des Barres decided to pursue a career as an actress, and acted in a few movies, including Zappa's 200 Motels, commercials, and a year acting on the soap opera Search For Tomorrow in 1974. After a downturn in her acting career she went to work as a nanny for Zappa's children, Dweezil and Moon Unit.On October 29, 1977, she married Michael Des Barres who had been lead singer for the first band signed to Led Zeppelin's Swan Song label, Detective, Silverhead and, briefly, for Power Station. They have a son, Nicholas Dean Des Barres, born on September 30, 1978. The couple divorced in the summer of 1991, due to Michael Des Barres' alleged infidelities.Des Barres wrote two books about her experience as a groupie, I'm With The Band (1987) and Take Another Little Piece of My Heart: A Groupie Grows Up (1993), as well as two non-fiction books, Rock Bottom: Dark Moments in Music Babylon and Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies (Chicago Review Press, 2007). She currently writes articles for online and print publications. (from Wikipedia)" ...more