Sixties
City presents
a wide-ranging series of
articles on all aspects of the Sixties, penned by the creator of the iconic
60s music paper Mersey
Beat
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Sixties
City presents
a wide-ranging series of
articles on all aspects of the Sixties, penned by the creator of the iconic
60s music paper Mersey
Beat
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When sentencing
Janie Jones to seven years in prison in 1973 after she’d faced charges for
vice and corruption, Judge King-Hamilton called her one of the most evil
women he’d ever sentenced. Janie first hit the headlines in August 1964
when she appeared topless at a premier. A friend of hers, film producer
Michael Klinger, had his new production ‘London in The Raw’ opening at the
Jacey Cinema in Piccadilly. Topless dresses had proven to be something of a sensation in Paris and Klinger asked her if she would turn up at the film's premiere in a topless dress. She was known by her real name Marion Mitchell then and was accompanied by one of her sisters, Valerie. The two arrived in a Rolls Royce, stepped out of the car and let their wraps fall to their elbows, putting up a bold front for the photographers. “One must keep abreast of the times,” she said. The Mitchell sisters were charged, and appeared at Bow Street Court where they were bound over for a year and ordered to pay £25 costs. Offers to appear topless in Cabaret poured in, but Marion said, “I don’t want to make a career out of boobs" and in 1966 changed her name to Janie Jones and had a minor hit with the number ‘Witches Brew.’ In 1967 she was charged with attempting blackmail after allegedly threatening a man with exposure for participating in sex orgies. She was acquitted. Later the same year she was charged with running a brothel, but was acquitted again. |
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| For a time she
married singer John Christian Dee, basically as a publicity stunt to promote
their act as the duo Adam & Eve, but it didn’t work out. She was brought to trial once more as a result of a News of the World story, in June 1971, in which she was accused of being involved in a sex payola scandal. She was sentenced and sent to Holloway Prison. Janie was freed in April 1977 and spent some time nursing another sister, Beatrice, who tragically died of cancer. The sisters were miner’s daughters from Seaham in County Durham and Janie had won a clog-and-tap-dancing competition at the age of five. She left school at 15, worked in a hospital for a time, and then became a dancer at the Woolwich Empire before taking a job as a Windmill Girl. More information on Janie Jones |
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Bill Harry attended the Liverpool College of Art with Stuart Sutcliffe and John Lennon and made the arrangements for Brian Epstein to visit The Cavern, where he saw The Beatles for the first time. Bill was a member of 'The Dissenters' and the founder and editor of 'Mersey Beat', the iconic weekly music newspaper that documented the early Sixties music scene in the Liverpool area and is possibly best known for being the first periodical to feature a local band called 'The Beatles'. He has worked as a high powered publicist, doing PR for acts such as Suzi Quatro, Free, The Arrows and Hot Chocolate and has managed press campaigns for record labels such as CBS, EMI, Polydor. Bill is the critically acclaimed author of a large number of books about The Beatles and the 60s era including 'The Beatles Who's Who', 'The Best Years of the Beatles' and the Fab Four's 'Encyclopedia' series. He has appeared on 'Good Morning America' and has received a Gold Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. |
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