Few women have become as closely associated with rock's golden age as Bebe Buell. The model, singer and bestselling author, who turns 73 today, July 14, has often been described as rock's most famous "groupie," thanks to her relationships with some of the biggest stars of the 1970s and beyond. But for decades, Buell has insisted that label never told the whole story.
After graduating from high school, Buell moved to New York to pursue modeling, where she was discovered by legendary agent Eileen Ford. She became Playboy's Playmate of the Month in November 1974, but she has always maintained that modeling was never her ultimate goal. She came to New York because she wanted "to be a professional singer," Buell once explained to Indie Power TV, adding that modeling simply opened doors.
"I was a pretty young girl, so I fell into the modeling thing, and I did Playboy, so then the rock stars came a-hunting, as I like to say," she cracked.
Her personal life soon became the stuff of rock-and-roll legend. Over the years, Buell was romantically linked to Todd Rundgren, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Jimmy Page, Iggy Pop, Elvis Costello, John Taylor and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler, the biological father of actress Liv Tyler. Rundgren, however, signed Liv's birth certificate and raised her during her early years, a decision Buell has said was made to protect her daughter while Tyler battled drug addiction.
Despite the mythology surrounding those relationships, Buell has consistently rejected the "groupie" label. Speaking with New York Magazine in 2011, she said, "I consider 'groupie' a sexist term, and I think it's misused. I was a free agent. I was a very independent, successful girl. I made my own money, I bought my own airline tickets. When I got a paycheck, I went to Bergdorf and I bought my own clothes. There were no rock stars buying me my clothes."
Music, she says, was always the real dream. Keith Richards encouraged her to start a band, while Ric Ocasek produced her first EP and his band The Cars served as her backing band on several tracks. Duran Duran's Taylor later assembled the musicians who would become the Power Station around one of Buell's projects before Robert Palmer eventually stepped into the lead singer role. Buell went on to front several bands of her own and has continued releasing music into the 21st century, including her 2011 album Hard Love.
Looking back on New York's creative explosion in the early 1970s, Buell described a scene where musicians, actors, artists and writers all shared the same spaces. In a 2009 interview with Juice Magazine, she recalled, "On any given night, there would be Jane Fonda in one corner, Alice Cooper in the other corner, [Andy] Warhol in another with David Bowie thrown in. It was just different because it all mixed and meshed together."
Her 2001 memoir, "Rebel Heart: An American Rock and Roll Journey," became a New York Times bestseller, allowing Buell to tell her own story after years of tabloid headlines. Even Cameron Crowe's Oscar-winning film Almost Famous bears traces of her legacy, with Buell serving as one of the inspirations for the film's backstage world and the character Penny Lane, which earned Kate Hudson an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe win.
Today, Buell continues to perform and proudly embraces the identity she feels best defines her. As she told New York Magazine, "I am a rock monster. I am a rock-and-roll machine, and I don't have an expiration date."
More than 50 years after first arriving in New York with dreams of becoming a singer, she's still proving there's much more to her story than the label that made her famous.
Related: One of Rock's Most Famous Muses Turns 70 Today
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