Samantha Juste

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Samantha Juste
File:Top of the Pos Samanatha Juste and Pete Murray.jpg
Samantha Juste (left) with Pete Murray on Top of the Pops (BBC TV c.1965)
Born
Sandra Slater
Other namesSamantha Dolenz
SpouseMicky Dolenz (1968-1975)

Samantha Juste (born Sandra Slater on 31 May 1944), became known on British television in the mid-1960s as the “disc girl” on the BBC’s Top of the Pops. In 1968 she married Micky Dolenz of the Monkees. Their daughter is the actress Ami Dolenz.

Background and choice of name

Sandra Slater was born in Manchester, Lancashire. Her mother Phyllis was a dressmaker and Sandra studied textile and dress design at Rochdale College of Art .

As a “leggy” blonde, Slater became a teenage model, taking the name “Samantha Juste” [1].

Top of the Pops

Top of The Pops was a weekly half-hour programme of current popular music, conceived and produced by Johnnie Stewart (1917-2005). It was first broadcast from a converted church in Manchester on 1 January 1964 and lasted until 2006. Samantha Juste was assistant to Cecil Korer, the programme's assistant producer.[2]

After taking over from Denise Sampey, who performed the role for the first few programmes, Juste’s function for 3½ years was to sit alongside the host (initially disc jockeys Jimmy Savile, David Jacobs, Alan Freeman and Pete Murray), to place records on a turntable and apply the needle as the artist was about to performtudio.[3] Simon Dee, who first introduced the show in 1966, recalled that “I got my introduction right [and] didn’t get too distracted by the luscious Samantha Juste, my lovely co-host”.[4]

Some viewers found Juste’s ritual, though obviously for effect, incongruous since the artists were there to perform; however, since they were miming, something about which the BBC made no secret,[5] there was honesty about the procedure. Indeed, on one occasion, a record by the Swinging Blue Jeans was played at the wrong speed.[6]

Recording career

Juste made a few records. She was one of two British women signed to Strike records (whose first single and only "hit", Neil Christian's That's Nice, was issued in February 1966) and its subsidiary Go. The other was Jacki Bond, a secretary with Strike, who, like Juste, had little musical experience.[7]

Juste performed No One Needs My Love Today, written by Phil Phillips, on Top of the Pops on 24 November 1966. This record was produced by Miki Dallon, the backing music provided by an orchestra conducted by Ken Woodman, who had worked with Chris Andrews and Sandie Shaw and is best known for Town Talk, which became the theme tune of The Jimmy Young Show when BBC Radio 1 opened in 1967. No One Needs My Love Today was not a hit, but it was featured as a climber by the offshore "pirate" station Radio London in the week beginning 20 November.[8] One critic commented that "any vocal shortcomings on this single are outweighed by her charming delivery".[9] Both No One Needs My Love Today and its "B" side, Pierre Tubbs' If Trees Could Talk, were available on compilation discs and to download forty years later.

Micky Dolenz and the Summer of Love

During Top of the Pops Juste met artists who contributed to the British rock boom of the mid 1960s. In January 1967 an American group called the Monkees, formed for an eponymous television series, reached the top of the British charts with I'm a Believer, by Neil Diamond. The drummer Micky Dolenz[10] (b. 1945) recalled that, he spotted Juste as he passed a studio cafeteria:

She is tall, blond [sic], beautiful, and wearing an emerald green outfit that ends up in a short skirt (very short) which tops off her unbelievably gorgeous legs ... She hold his glance briefly then looks quickly away with that haughty sophistication that only the British can do so well.[11]

Micky Dolenz at the Tribeca Film Festival , 2007

During the show, Dolenz was "in another world ... He just keeps watching the girl in the green dress as she plays a record, smiles, flirts with the audience, and dances".[12]

London and California

Juste and Dolenz began a relationship, prompting such headlines as "Samantha traps Monkee" and "Pops girl goes ape".[13] Dolenz appears not to have realised that Juste was a celebrity and the publicity took him by surprise. "Monkeemania" was such that some of the Monkees' female fans resented Juste - "she even showed up one day with ink stains on the emerald green dress" - and Dolenz claimed the couple spent a week in her "trendy" London flat.[14]

For much of 1967, Juste and Dolenz spent time together in England and California. Rick Klein, a friend of Dolenz and best man at his wedding, described a vacation with him in England during which Juste acted as "permanent guide", travelling with them to Stratford-upon-Avon in a rented Triumph car. Then, a few days later, savouring "Swinging" London:

Micky and I went to the Carlton Towers to see Samantha Juste in a fashion show and she looked outasite [sic]. After the show, we took off for Carnaby Street again and we went crazy buying clothes ... Micky really dug all the clothes at Biba's and Susan Lockes and practically bought out the stores. He also bought a dress for Samantha. It was the same dress that Sam wore in the fashion show and it looked fantastic on her.[15]

Juste wrote articles for the teenage magazine 16 about time with the Monkees.[16] She gave up Top of the Pops and moved with Dolenz to California, where they lived at Laurel Canyon in the Hollywood Hills. In June 1967 they attended the Monterey pop festival, which ushered in the "Summer of Love", Dolenz being photographed in an Indian headdress:[17]

Peter Tork [of the Monkees] and Micky turned up at the pop fest in Monterey, Peter acting as one of the emcees [masters of ceremony], Micky wandering around the grounds dressed as an Indian with a lovely British bird, Samantha Juste, at his side.[18]

Randy Scouse Git

In the same month as Monterey, the Monkees’ recording of Dolenz’s song, "Randy Scouse Git" (title from a recurring phrase in the BBC TV series, Till Death Us Do Part[19]), was released.[20] Reaching number two in the British charts,[21] though not issued as a single in America, it was based on Dolenz's time in England: "The Beatles, Samantha, the parties, the chemicals [i.e. drugs] ... It even has a reference to Mama Cass (Elliot of The Mamas & the Papas) who was in London at the same time".[22] The opening lines almost certainly referred to Samantha Juste:

She's a wonderful lady
And she's mine all mine
And there doesn't seem a way
That she won't come and lose my mind.

Whether Juste was the “girl in yellow dress” to whom it was easy to hum songs, it seems likely, given the intensity of her relationship with Dolenz, that she was “the being known as Wonder Girl”:

It's not easy tryin' to tell her
That I shortly have to leave.

Married life

Juste and Dolenz were married in Laurel Canyon in July 1968.[23] Dolenz's stepfather Dr Robert Scott officiated. The couple's daughter Ami Bluebell Dolenz, who became an actress, was born in Burbank in January 1969.[24]

Friends and celebrities

Dolenz recalled the order and sophistication that Juste brought to his home. They hosted parties attended by musicians and celebrities; Ringo Starr of the Beatles dubbed Juste "Earth Mother" for her having made him a chip butty (a french-fry sandwich) and eggs when he arrived after a "rip-roaring all-nighter".[25] Their friend, the songwriter Harry Nilsson, invited Dolenz and Juste to travel with him to Ireland to lend credibility (in Dolenz's words, "Samantha maybe ... but me?") when he met the parents of a woman he thought he might marry.[26] Juste's father, Leslie Slater, helped Dolenz to construct a studio used for "jam" sessions by John Lennon of the Beatles, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and the Dolenz neighbour Vince Furnier, who became known as Alice Cooper.

Divorce and afterwards

The Monkees had disbanded by the end of the 1960s, and it is clear from Dolenz's own reminiscences that his self-indulgence took its toll on his marriage. Juste and Dolenz were divorced in 1975, Juste retaining custody of their daughter, although they were reconciled as friends by the early 1990s.[27] In 2002 Juste was photographed with Dolenz at Ami's wedding in Beverly Hills to actor and martial artist Jerry Trimble[28] and, a few months later, attended Dolenz's own wedding in Calabasas to his third wife Donna Quinter.[29]

Business interests

While in California, Juste began her own fashion business, which she moved to Acapulco, Mexico, in 1976. She worked in Ireland, where she taught design, but returned to California, where she and Ami Dolenz began an on-line jewelery business called Bluebell Boutique.

Notes

  1. ^ Samantha was an uncommon name in Britain but growing through the character played by Grace Kelly in the 1956 film High Society. During the 1960s it became more popular, particularly through the television series Bewitched, in which Elizabeth Montgomery played f Samantha Stephens, but also through Samantha Juste herself.
  2. ^ OFF THE TELLY: Interviews/Cecil Korer
  3. ^ [1]. Juste is on the far left in this photograph, next to Pete Murray.
  4. ^ Richard Wiseman (2006) Whatever Happened to Simon Dee?
  5. ^ See The Independent, 4 May 2005, quoting the Radio Times
  6. ^ The Independent, 4 May 2005
  7. ^ Sleeve notes for CD, Backcomb 'n' Beat: Dream Babes, Volume Three (2001)
  8. ^ Radio London - Field's Fab Forty - 20th November 66
  9. ^ Keiron Tyler, October 2001 (sleeve notes for CD, Backcomb 'n' Beat: Dream Babes, Volume Three)
  10. ^ "Micky" is spelt thus (as on Dolenz's official website and in his 1993 autobiography), although the form "Mickey" often appeared at the time of the Monkees' fame in the 1960s and has done so since (e.g. in the Oxford Companion to Popular Music (1991) and the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles).
  11. ^ Micky Dolenz & Mark Bego (1993) I'm a Believer
  12. ^ Micky Dolenz & Mark Bego (1993) I'm a Believer
  13. ^ Micky Dolenz & Mark Bego (1993) I'm a Believer
  14. ^ Micky Dolenz & Mark Bego (1993) I'm a Believer
  15. ^ "Never Enough..." The Official Micky Dolenz Website
  16. ^ For example, 16, November 1967, reporting on the Monkees' European tour
  17. ^ Lisa Law (1987) Flashing on the Sixties
  18. ^ Mitchell Cohen, March 1986 (notes for Arista CD, The Best of The Monkees)
  19. ^ "Randy scouse git" was an insult directed by Alf Garnett (played by Warren Mitchell) to his Liverpudlian son-in-law. The script was by Johnny Speight.
  20. ^ Released in Britain under the title Alternate Title.
  21. ^ Charlie Gillett & Simon Frith (1976) Rock File 4
  22. ^ Micky Dolenz & Mark Bego (1993) I'm a Believer
  23. ^ MICKY & SAMANTHA: A YOUNG LOVE TO BE REMEMBERED!Tribute Micky & Samantha Dolenz
  24. ^ Google Image Result for http://www.geocities.com/chataholic2a2/Sam___Ami6.jpg
  25. ^ Micky Dolenz & Mark Bego (1993) I'm a Believer
  26. ^ Micky Dolenz & Mark Bego (1993) I'm a Believer
  27. ^ Micky Dolenz & Mark Bego (1993) I'm a Believer
  28. ^ Ami Dolenz Wedding
  29. ^ [2]. Dolenz was married from 1977 to 1991 to Trina Dow, with whom he had three daughters.

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