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Speaker 1: Jem Mission with Jones and Amanda Well.

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Speaker 2: Our next guest has been the manager for everyone from

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Speaker 2: Mike Tyson's or her sister loaned on a Summer. But

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Speaker 2: one of the biggest stars he managed was the singer,

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Speaker 2: songwriter and feminist icon of the seventies Helen Ready, who

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Speaker 2: just so happened to be his wife at the time. Well,

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Speaker 2: there's a new film based on her life, so so

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Speaker 2: much to talk to Jeff Wold about. Jeff Wold, Hello.

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Speaker 3: Hello, how are you very well? See the movie yet? No? No?

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Speaker 3: I know a debut at an Adelaide because the young

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Speaker 3: lady who plays Helen in the movie, Silda, is from Adelaide.

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Speaker 3: So they had six sold out Shallows. And I read

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Speaker 3: one of her reviews in the movie got good reviews

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Speaker 3: and the review trashy. But I'm used to being crashy

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Speaker 3: as andreg so it's sort of a bad Javanna.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm a giant Helen Ready fan, and I remember

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Speaker 2: being about twelve years old singing in the mirror with

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Speaker 2: my hairbrush to Iron Woman. I didn't even know what

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Speaker 2: the concept meant at that time. This is this song

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Speaker 2: has gone on to define an era and generations of

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Speaker 2: women and interesting loough in the film. Record label representatives

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Speaker 2: didn't think it would be a goa, that it was

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Speaker 2: too angry a song.

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Speaker 3: No, they just the exact quote from the record company

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Speaker 3: at the time. In nineteen seventy two, early nineteen seventy two,

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Speaker 3: she had written it for her first album and a

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Speaker 3: producer named Mike Frankovich was who used to be president

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Speaker 3: of Columbia Pictures. I was doing a movie called Stand

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Speaker 3: to Be Counted with Jackie Bissett and this quote a

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Speaker 3: women's movie that's in quotes, and he wanted the song

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Speaker 3: for the movie, and he said he needed a third verse.

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Speaker 3: So she wrote a third verse for the song. And

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Speaker 3: the promise was to him, because he paid us a

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Speaker 3: bunch of money, is that we would put it out

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Speaker 3: as a single. So w and I went to see

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Speaker 3: the record company. She already had one pretty big hit

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Speaker 3: with I Don't Know How to Love Him from Jesus.

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Speaker 3: Rice saw where she beat the Yvonne Ellerman record, and

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Speaker 3: so she was going to follow her that up with

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Speaker 3: I Am Woman and on the second album, and the

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Speaker 3: record company's exact words were, why do you let your

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Speaker 3: wife do this women's lib shit? That was directly, okay, yeah,

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Speaker 3: And the truth of the matter wasn't a question of

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Speaker 3: letting her do anything. You know, she could do what

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Speaker 3: she wanted to do, and she wrote that in bed

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Speaker 3: one night. It took her about twenty minutes. So when

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Speaker 3: the record first came out, it hit the charts at

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Speaker 3: ninety nine, went to ninety eight, skyrocketed to ninety seven,

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Speaker 3: and went off the charts, and they were not going

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Speaker 3: to help it come back. They were not interested. They

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Speaker 3: literally thought that would end her career. And they had

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Speaker 3: it partially right, because it was not the male program

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Speaker 3: directors or the male DJs who really aching to do that. None,

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Speaker 3: none of those guys was singing the song with their hairbrush.

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Speaker 3: I can guarantee that.

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Speaker 1: So with you and Helen, were you manager before being

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Speaker 1: the husband or was it the other way?

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Speaker 3: I ran, yes. It took me five years to get

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Speaker 3: her a record deal. We were married to sixty six.

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Speaker 3: I didn't get a record deal till seventy one. Even

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Speaker 3: though that even though bandstand she was supposed to have

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Speaker 3: gotten a deal with Mercury or barely, she didn't get

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Speaker 3: lunch let a load of deal. And then after she'd

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Speaker 3: been here a year, my friend do Wore paid to

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Speaker 3: make a demo for her and sent that to Mercury,

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Speaker 3: and that didn't do any good and I couldn't get

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Speaker 3: her a deal. It took me five years to get

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Speaker 3: her a deal to cut. And the deal was to

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Speaker 3: cut one single. That's it. And the only reason we

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Speaker 3: got the deal is the guy who gave us a

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Speaker 3: deal already, Mogul who's now dead, thank god. He was

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Speaker 3: a and R at the Capital, and the deal was

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Speaker 3: if I'd stopped calling him, he let her cut a single.

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Speaker 3: I was calling him sometimes five times a day.

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Speaker 2: Well ship with Helen. Of course, your marriage ended and

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Speaker 2: it was tumultuous. How is it you sound like you

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Speaker 2: have so much fondness for her still? How is it

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Speaker 2: seeing yourself depicted on screen?

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Speaker 3: You know what I thought? Andrew Moner, director did a brilliant,

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Speaker 3: brilliant job with the movie. The guy have played these

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Speaker 3: as horrific actor nat Evan Peters. There's some exaggeration because

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Speaker 3: it's a drama, you know, but I did a feel

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Speaker 3: I was a jackass. You know, I have subtitled movie

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Speaker 3: just all the cocaine y is and you know, so

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Speaker 3: it's it was. I would say about eighty five ninety

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Speaker 3: percent of it was accurate.

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Speaker 1: Do you still talk to Helen?

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Speaker 3: Unfortunately? I don't know if you were aware that Helen's

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Speaker 3: been in the motion picture in television call for about

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Speaker 3: three years now suffering from dementia. That yeah, and so

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Speaker 3: there is an upside to actually forgot she ates me

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Speaker 3: and you always got to look for the silver lining.

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Speaker 2: It's true, Jeff, I could talk to you for hours.

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Speaker 1: It's great to talk to you. You can catch I

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Speaker 1: Am Woman on stand Friday night. Check it out. It's

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Speaker 1: just great.

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Speaker 3: August twenty eight.

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Speaker 2: John from Friday. You can stream it anytime.

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Speaker 1: Jeff Weld, it's a treat to talk to you. Thank

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Speaker 1: you for joining us.

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Speaker 3: Okay, thanks very much, Jeff, with Joins and Amanda