There are many unbelievable stories that have come out of Hollywood. This is one of them.
It concerns the great Telly Savalas, who first found fame in the 1960s in films like "The Dirty Dozen" and "Kelly's Heroes" before going on to attain superstar status in the 1970s with his portrayal of lollipop-loving TV cop Kojak.
When the original run of "Kojak" ended in 1978 Telly found himself a bit of a loose end. Thinking back on his chart success with the spoken word smash "If" in 1975, and reflecting on Robert Mitchum's reinvention as a calypsonian in the 1950s, he decided to head to Jamaica to try his hand at toasting.
Once ensconced in Kingston, Telly teamed up with leading producer Joe Gibbs and over the next five years or so put out a steady stream of top notch singles. Many of them featured one or other local female vocalist, all of whom were called Liza on the records.
You can find a few of the Kojak & Liza singles, including the two below, on a great compilation called "Joe Gibbs Presents Dancehall Stylee 1979-1981" which came out on Cherry Red last year.
Now I have to concede that you probably won't find this story elsewhere on the internet. Wikipedia would have you believe that the 'real' Kojak was one Floyd Anthony Perch who was a big fan of the TV series and so adopted it as his stage name. But as we all know Wikipedia is woefully unreliable.
"Hole In The Bucket" - Kojak & Liza
"Sky Juice" - Kojak & Liza
I'm not sure how much of this to believe. Anyway, I'm looking at that album and one of the artistes is Joe Tex (and U-Black), is that Joe "buying a book" Tex?
ReplyDeleteNo, just a fan who borrowed his name. Same goes for Lee Van Cleef who also features on the album.
DeleteI was about to join in the speculation about whether or not you're full of hooey, but then I got sucked into watching those Telly Savalas Looks At... videos and so many more important questions leapt to mind. Did Telly actually visit these places? If so, why is there no photographic evidence? Did he just pretend, from his recording studio in LA? Who wrote those awful, pun-filled scripts? Jimmy Tarbuck? And on and on...
ReplyDeleteI can shed some light on that. Back in the early 1990s I worked in the bit of the DTI that sponsored the British film industry. One of our jobs was sorting out residual payments from the Eady Levy, which had been levied on box office receipts and paid out to producers of British films and short films before being wound up in 1985.
DeleteThe producer of these films was a lovely man called Harold Baim who came in personally to collect his cheque and treated me and a colleague to lunch. The Telly Savalas short films were among the many "quota quickies" he churned out to enable film distributors to meet the then quota on the number of UK films they had to show. Telly and the other presenters just did the voiceovers. Harold himself did most of the filming and I believe wrote most of the scripts. He was a really fascinating fellow and you can find out more about him and his work at www.baimfilms.com.
As well as these two Telly did one on Portsmouth which is worth checking out.
I won't further compound my stupidity by wondering if the Clint Eastwood of General Saint acquaintance ever made the Dirty Harry series and a couple of films with an orangutan
ReplyDeleteDifferent Clint. Similarly, the reggae Josey Wales is not Clint in character.
DeleteTo save you asking, also no to John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Joseph Cotton and Charlie Chaplin.
So your next series will be singers with the same name as film stars?
ReplyDeleteBrilliant, I'd happily buy your version of events.
ReplyDeleteLove those films - some groovy little snippets of music in them too.