PLAYED IN THE KEY OF LIFE

Carol Connors memoir “Elvis, Rocky and Me: The Carol Connors Story” received a Grammy nomination for Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording. She lost out to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, but if she had lost to Milli Vanilli she would have jumped off a cleft (her joke). She is perfectly happy about it, given who won. We tracked her down for an exclusive interview to mark her latest nomination.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.

THE LAB MAG
Tell us about your childhood and what makes you tick?

CAROL CONNORS
My childhood was very typical of every young girl's childhood. One thing that was actually quite sad: I wanted to be popular, and I wasn't. So one day I came home; I must have been about 10 or 11, and I was crying hysterically.
I said to my mother, "We have to move."
And my mother said, "Why? Why do we have to move?"
And I said, "Because I want to be popular. And maybe if I go to a new school, everybody will like me."
It was so important to me. And it didn't happen in my childhood.

I'm from a very poor family. My mother was from Poland; my father came here when he was one. He was a jockey and starting to do quite well riding the ponies. He went back to Poland in 1938, and he brought my mother to America. She is the only one who got out. Hitler invaded in 1939, and the rest of the family was annihilated. So I grew up under the cloud of the Holocaust. They would always talk about it. And I would always say to myself as I got older, that could never happen here. This is the United States of America. I remember my mother always saying to me, "Annette-ta-la", my real name is Annette, "Kiss the ground you walk on. You have no idea what it's like in other countries."

At 16 and a half, a young boy came to me. He was three years older, and he said, "I love your voice. I'm going to write a song for your voice. Do you have $10?"
I said, "$10? I don't have 10 cents."
He said, "Well, if you get $10 together, you can be in our singing group, and I will write a song for your voice."
I went to my mom and dad, and in those days that was a lot of money, or it was to us. And I talked my parents into giving me the $10.
My mother said, "Annette-ta-la, go do your homework."
But my father had been a jockey, and jockeys live on the edge, and he said to my mother, "Gail, let's hear her out."
I said, "Daddy, we're going to be rich. We're going to live in a mansion. You're going to drive a beautiful car. And I'm going to buy you a race horse."
And I'll never forget this. My father said, "I love most of it, but I'm not interested in the race horse anymore. Lose the racehorse."

They gave me the $10. The record went on to become the number one record in the world. It was written by the infamous Phil Spector. It was the first thing he ever did.

I didn't know, until we did the documentary Elvis, Rocky and Me, that I was the youngest and the first female from a rock and roll band to ever chart to the number one position in America on Billboard.

LAB
I'd love to know what your relationship with Phil Spector was like. Tell us about that.

The Teddy Bears (L-R) Marshall Leib, Carol Connors, Phil Spector. A picture of a publicity shot courtesy of Carol Connors.

CC
Well, there were three of us in The Teddy Bears: Phil Spector, Marshall Leib and myself. And we were one of the first garage bands. They were my big brothers. Remember, I was still in school. So when they were out partying with the Big Bopper or Frankie Avalon or whomever, I was doing my homework.

And Phil was wonderful.

"To know him is to love him
Why can't he see? Da da dee da da da"

That was taken from a Wagnerian opera. Wagner was his favourite composer.

Marshall was very handsome, and all the girls would be after him. Phil drooled and didn't have a chin. And nobody cared about me except that I was the voice of The Teddy Bears, but I was a kid. So, Marshall would be off, and Phil would hang out with me. And they really took care of me. I mean, they were wonderful to me in the beginning.

To me, Phil's entire life was a Greek tragedy. His father committed suicide. 'To know him was to love him ' was Phil's father's epitaph. He turned it into a teenage lament; he changed the "was" to an "is"... He literally cast my voice. My mother was supposed to study opera in the Warsaw Conservatory of Music, so I was from a musical background.

Phil was dating my best friend Donna. He would pick us up in his car and I would be standing guard, I was the lookout. I would always be singing and twiddling my thumbs while he was smooching with her, I guess you could say I was the beard. So he was always listening to me singing and that's why he cast my voice. He loved my voice.

The famous writer Dominick Dunne said “As a man of music, Phil was a 100+, as a human being, he was a - 0.”

LAB
Tell us about your first boyfriend.

CC
Elvis Presley fell in love with my voice. He said to the Memphis mafia - those were the guys that hung around with him - he said, "I love that girl's voice. I'd love to meet her one day."

So, I'm at a market, and this rather creepy Memphis mafia guy comes up to me; his name was Currie Grant, not Cary Grant, and he said to me, "Aren't you the girl that sang 'To know him is to love him'?"

I was holding a bottle of milk, and I'll never forget this; he said, "Mr Presley would love to meet you. He loves your voice."

And I said, "Right. And the cow jumped over the moon" as I dropped the milk.

But being my father's daughter, I gave him my phone number, and you just didn't do that in those days. Two weeks later, the phone rings and my mother picks up, "Anette-ta-la, there's an Elvis Presley person on the phone that wants to talk to you." Of course she was freaking out because it was the name, Elvis Presley. Currie said, "In a week I'm going to pick you up, and we'll go to meet Elvis." And so we went to meet Elvis.

Elvis had just finished Viva Las Vegas with Ann-Margret. He came up to me and the first words Elvis said were, "So why'd you name the group The Teddy Bears?" And I didn't know what to say, so I sang it. "I just want to be your teddy bear." And that started our love affair.

We went together for nine months. He said it was two and a half years, but it wasn't, it was nine months. And I didn't have a baby; I was too stupid. That's a joke. I adored him, and he adored me. We were friends up until the end. He congratulated me for Rocky. He was so proud of me that that had happened.

You want to hear the irony? He was offered the main part in A Star is Born. Colonel Parker did not like Barbra Streisand, and she did not like him. And he turned it down. From what I was told, Colonel Parker said, "My boy ain't going to play no second fiddle to no Barbra Streisand and end up a drunk." The irony is that the film A Star is Born was up against Rocky that same year, 1976!

Well, Talia Shire, Diane Warren and I are all members of AMPAS (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) We all believe that if Elvis had done that movie, he would have been nominated for an Oscar because there were moments in his other films where you could tell that he was really, really acting from the heart; he was very charismatic. You could see it. I believe that it would have saved his life. I've always believed that.

LAB
You mentioned the Oscars. Let's talk about the Oscars and Stallone.

CC
There was a little tiny film being done called Rocky, and I got the script. My father loved boxing, and I went to my dad, and I said, "Daddy, there's a film about a boxer named Rocky."

And he said, "Oh, Rocky Marciano, great heavyweight. Do it."
I said, "No, Daddy, it's not Rocky Marciano."
He said, "Oh, Rocky Graziano. He's a great middleweight. Do it."
I said, "No, Daddy, it's not Rocky Graziano."
And my father said, "Well, who is it?"
And I said, "It's a guy named Rocky Balboa."
And he said, "Never heard of him. Do it anyway."

We watched a rough cut and there was another song in the beginning, a temp track. We saw the iconic scene that John Avildsen created, the pivotal scene in the film; everybody was there: Sylvester Stallone, Carl Weathers, Ayn Robbins, Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler, just everybody.

So, some of them came back to my house, and Bill Conti sat down at my piano and played the beginning sequence. I thought to myself, What is anybody going to write to that? And everybody left.

I went into the shower and all of a sudden I could see the film; I could see what everything was about. I could hear the song, the music that Bill did. I understood the deeper meaning and particularly what the song should say.

So I picked up the phone, and I called Bill. I said, "Bill, Bill, I know what life's about. I know what the film is about. I know what the song's about."

And there's a pause, and he said, "Are you with somebody?"

I said, "Bill, I'm a Scorpio. Would I be calling you if I was with somebody?"

And he said, "Carol, give me the line before you electrocute yourself."

And the line was Gonna fly now. Because at that moment, when Avildsen put him in slow motion on top of the stairs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, he could go the distance, he could win, and when he put his arms up, he could even fly, which in my mind was the inspiration for all of us doing anything we can do in our lives. Just do it.

It’s the year of Rocky. It’s the 5oth anniversary of the film and the premiere of I play Rocky which is all about the making of Rocky. My book has launched, Elvis, Rocky and Me and Stallone’s book Steps is about to come out. Fasten your seatbelts everyone, it’s going to be a Rocky year!

Working on *‘Gonna Fly Now’* From Carol Connors private photograph album. Image courtesy of Carol Connors.

LAB
On that note, what's the best advice you've ever been given or you'd give to someone?

CC
If you don't eat it, sleep it, think it, drink it, need it… Forget it.

You have to have laser beam clarity on what you want. Almost like my father and horse racing, where some of the horses wear blinders, you have to be able to not let all this other stuff come in and change things.

I am the biggest fan of John Denver. Many, many years ago, I wanted to get a song to John. So, Lee Holdridge, who was John’s arranger conductor, whom I've written songs with for Placido Domingo, Lee loved this song. He was taking it to John, when John died in an aviation accident. He was flying an experimental plane in Ventura County. It was right when we were taking the song to him. I never did anything with it, which is not like me. I was so devastated by John’s death that I just put it in my piano bench.

Well, as fate would have it, with everything from the Grammy nomination that I just got and the book and this and that, I found a young break-through artist and the only person I wanted to show this song to. His name is Ansel Brown. Lee is going to do the arrangement.

I always believe you must go for it, and somehow I didn't with this song, but many, many years later, now I'm going for it.

Hugh Hefner and Carol Connors at The Playboy Mansion. From Carol Connors private photograph album. Image courtesy of Carol Connors.

LAB
Can we talk a little bit about Hugh Hefner and the girls?

CC
Oh, that's amazing that we're going to talk about Hugh Hefner and the girls now because the song that Ansel Brown is going to record, that was supposed to be for John Denver, is based on some of the tragedy and the sadness that I saw up at the Playboy Mansion.

I had the best time at the Playboy Mansion. Hef totally respected me. I got a call to come to a Midsummer Night's Dream party. His assistant Mary Conner said, "You do know the rules of the Playboy Mansion. You can't bring anybody. You have to come by yourself." And there was a pregnant pause. And I said, "Please tell Mr Hefner that I would love to come to the Playboy Mansion. I've dreamt of being able to see it, but I have to decline. I am not going to go anywhere unescorted."

And Mary said, "Let me get back to you." Two hours later, she called, and she said, "Mr Hefner would love you to come to the mansion for the Midsummer Night's Dream Party. Just tell us who your date is."

So he loved Rocky. And of course I was nominated for another Oscar for Walt Disney's The Rescuers. I wrote all the music for three of the songs and I co-wrote the lyrics with Ayn Robbins for all four of the songs. It was the highest-grossing animated film of its time. Hefner loved Disney and animation. He became a very dear friend of mine.

Carol Connors & Barbi Benton. From Carol Connors private photograph album. Image courtesy of Carol Connors.

Barbi Benton is my best friend. And Hef once said something to me about Barbi I have never forgotten. These were his exact words, and being a lyricist and a composer, I remember every word and every note. He said “Barbi was the singularly most intense romantic relationship of my life.” When I told Barbi this, she was so touched, she cried. That's what he said to me, and I've never forgotten it. And we were friends up until his passing.

Carol Connors and O.J. Simpson with others at a party the night before Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were murdered. From Carol Connors private photograph album. Image courtesy of Carol Connors.

LAB
Another name that's in the pantheon of characters in your life is O.J. Simpson. Can you tell us about that?

CC
I was at Diana Ellis’s fundraiser, the $ 25,000-a-plate party, and O.J. Simpson was there with Paula Barbieri. There were these little ladies at the event, and they were gaga over taking a picture with O.J., and I knew O.J. and Nicole because we had Abyssinian cats. They're very rare cats. And I said, "Do you mind taking a picture?" Well, it was one of the three pictures taken that night. And I remember my conversations with them. In fact, I had to testify, and it's in the trial with Judge Ito.

I said to O.J., "How's everything?" And he said, "Fine." I said, "Well, how are your Abyssinian kitty cats?" And I'll never forget this because it was so cold. He said, "They're all dead." Not like they passed away or we're so sorry... “They're all dead.” And it gave me chills. And the next day Nicole was dead. I've never forgotten that moment.

But when I saw him that night, he was with Paula, and he was very gentle and very kind with her.

LAB
I just wondered if there's one juicy story you can share with us that's not in your autobiography?

CC
You want me to tell you something juicy about Elvis? I'm not going to.

But I do want to say that the night Elvis died was August 16th, 1977, I wrote a song.

It's called You Loved My Night Away. The night I wrote the song, I started at four pm and went until four in the morning, I never took a bathroom break. I never petted my kitty cat. I never drank one sip of water, but I wrote the song.

Three major composers at the Academy have all heard this song and have said to me after I finished it, "How did you come up with those chord changes, Carol?" And I said, "I don't know, because I had never written them before." To this day, I believe that Elvis's spirit was with me and guiding me to those changes when I wrote You Loved My Night Away, which I was destined to write.

And last year, 2025, I performed it at Graceland. A picture was taken of me during my performance, and I believe Elvis was there watching me. I'm not a religious fanatic. I truly believe that happened.

LAB
How many nominations and wins have you had?

CC
Well, I am the Susan Lucci of the music industry. I've had two Oscars, two Grammys, three nighttime Emmys, one daytime Emmy with Dionne Warwick, two Golden Globes, all nominations, and I've never won one!

Maybe one day I will, because as I said, you never give up. I think that is the secret to life. I think if you love what you're doing and you continue to do it, every day is joyous.

LAB
Would you say that's your life's motto?

CC
I think that's one of them. For me, because I'm so into music, I always say that my life is my music and my music is my life. I really don't know about a lot of other things. I love music. It's the international language. Soothes the savage beast, as my beloved mother used to say. It's my life.

LAB
What are you working on next?

CC
Well, the song about some of the sadness I saw up at the mansion and what I've seen with young girls. And I have the lead song for the Broadway play of the film The Pianist, which was nominated for an Oscar, directed by Roman Polanski and starring Adrian Brody. It was Szpilman's music. I wrote the lyrics. It's called I'm Lost in this Moment. And I'm also doing a project about the birth of Israel and the Israeli Air Force called Angels in the Sky; it really touches my heart.

LAB
Well, Carol, thank you so much. We'll stop there. Always leave them wanting more.

CC
Sinatra once said to me when we were talking about music, "Carol, less is more." I never forgot that.

CAROL CONNORS

Carol Connors: To know her is to love her

PLAYED IN THE KEY OF LIFE

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