When pint-sized Rita Pavone did London, she really did in Herman and his Hermits!
They say she's the greatest -- she's fab.
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IT had to happen - and it did! When 4 foot 11 inch, 80 pound Rita Pavone hit London, she was an immediate hit (800,000 records sold in a matter of days!) - but she made the biggest hit of all when she met Herman and his Hermits. "She's great!" confessed Herman. "She can't speak much English, but with sign language and her consulting her pocket Italian-English book, we got along like crazy. "The first thing she said to us was: 'You're a gas!' What a bird! And sing? She's got the biggest, best voice around - bar none! "I met her two days after my milk tooth got knocked out - it happened during a pillow fight with the Hermits. And she noticed it right away. Consulting her dictionary, she pointed at my mouth and said: 'Fangless.' I tell you, that bird breaks you up! "And she's not a bit stuck on herself even though she's the most famous singer in Italy. I read somewhere that she gets two thousand letters a week - every single week - and that 200 of them are marriage proposals. To this she says: 'Before I am famous, nobody ever asked me out because I am not beautiful. Now everyone wants to marry me. Why? I am the same girl!' "Well, I think she's beautiful - but then, I'm a sucker for freckles and Rita's got a whole face full of 'em. She's as cute as a bug's ear, she is. And the fact that she's two years old than I am (she's 19 and I'm 17) didn't get in the way at all. I don't think that chronological age has much to do with a relationship. It's the mental age that matters - and what you have in common, your likes and dislikes. Of course, since we're both in the business of entertainment, singing, that helps. "Anyway, Rita and I, the rest of the Hermits and Rita's Mom and a chaperone all went out to dinner - a late one, because it was after her show - and had a ball. Her mom and her chaperone speak and read even less English than Rita and when it came to the business of reading the menu, it was fantastically funny. Two of the three had it upside down, frowning and trying to puzzle out the words. "I laughed until I thought I'd split my sides with it - but the waiter, one of those frosty, English butler types, just stook there, looking down his nose the whole time - and that made it even funnier. "Well, finally, they got their menus right side up, but they were no better off - they still couldn't make out a word. 'We should have taken you to an Italian restaurant,' I told them later, after I'd helped them with the pub's menu. 'Oh, no,' they cried out in that droll broken English, and explained that they ate Italian food all the time at home and |
had been enchanted with a typical British dinner. "Then, after dinner, we went to a discotheque - and can Rita do a mean swim. In fact, she knows the steps to all the latest dances - and has made up a flock of her own as well, some of which she taught us. "For instance, she has one that she calls 'Bullfight.' In it, one partner acts the part of the bull - the other acts the part of the matador, waving an imaginary cape and stabbing with an imaginary sword, whereupon the bull falls to his knees, sways back anf forth for a few beats - then end up in a heap, dead. Sound fun? It is - just try it. "To josh her, I told her I'd invented a new dance too. 'What it is?' she asked, her wonderful, big eyes getting even bigger. "'Simple,' I said. 'It's the Camel.' You just sit at a table in a discotheque and don't drink anything for a week.' She thought that was funny when she finally understood. "Oh, we really had a ball. I'm crazy about that kid. And we've arranged to see each other when the boys and I tour Italy, which we're planning on doing soon - and it can't be too soon for me. Not that I'm giving up all my other girls for Rita - after all, we only saw each other that one night. But she grows on you and fast! "I understand that she plays the Italian version of 'Dennis the Menace' in her country. That's the one reason she wears pants and boots. The other is that she says it's more comfortable. But underneath that boy's clothing, she's all girl - a great little personality! "Did you know that she used to make two dollars a week as a sort of assistant or apprentice seamstress in her native Turin? Now she makes $20,000 for a single performance! For a one-girl act, that's not bad. I tell you, the man that gets that bird for a wife is going to have a fine feathered nest, all right. Of course, if it's me, I'd want her to give up working. I want to have a houseful of kids, and a woman simply can't work and be a wife and mother at the same time and be any kind of a success at either job. I mean, just look around you at the entertainers who've tried it - they, most of them anyway - busted up. There's not going to be ay bust up in my life, not if I can ruddy well help it, there isn't. "But I guess I'm kind of getting ahead of myself there - I'm still in my teens and have no business even thinking about marriage. "Anyhow, that's the story of our date with little Miss Pavone. As she'd put it, 'Man, it was a real gas!'" |
 "You're a gas," she told me right away.
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 "We had a ball clowning around London." |
 Herman said, "But I like freckles!"
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 "I dedicated my first song to Rita."
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