Jennifer Moss (Lucille Hewitt of Coronation Street), who has just returned from America after spending two weeks with Davy, talks exclusively to RAVE readers about the real Davy Jones that she knows—and loves!
“I wanted to kiss you but I didn’t have the courage. I was so shy.”
So said a young man not noted for his shyness, especially with girls! But then Davy Jones was only fourteen at the time and the object of his devotion, Miss Jennifer Moss, was a cool, worldly-wise fifteen year old!
At the time they were sitting on a bed in a hotel in Leeds, strumming guitars and singing. “Sounds very improper, but believe me it was so proper it was untrue,” said Jenny. Both were young actors playing radio parts and whiling away a Saturday night in a strange town. Now, six years later, Davy Jones, you may have noticed, is the chief heart-throb of the Monkees and Jenny Moss is a star in television’s “Coronation Street” And it was just up the street from the “Rover’s Return”, deep in the heart of Granada Television, that I spoke to Jenny, or as she is perhaps better known—Lucille Hewitt. She had just returned from America, where she spent two weeks with Davy.
An invitation Permalink
Theirs is a friendship that has lasted the ups and downs of show business careers. Jenny, now a veteran of seven years in Sharples land, recently went to America on holiday and Davy invited her to spend a couple of weeks at his Hollywood home.
But their story really began about seven years ago.
“We did a play called ‘June Evening’ for the BBC. That was the first time I met David—I call him David and he calls me Jennifer. At the time he was showing me some photographs. I asked him if they were of his mother and father and he sald ‘That’s me Dad and that’s me Mum, she died last week’. He was the saddest little boy you could possibly imagine. He was much smaller than I was. I must have been four feet, nine and he was four, two or three. When we had some photos taken together he stood on a hill to look the same size as me!
“Davy and I had one particular scene together and he had never worked before but he stole the whole scene from mel I thought then that he was tremendously talented.
“Then he went to Newmarket and he used to ‘phone me up because he had a crush on me at the time. He was very young and people do foolish things at that age! He spoke with a very pronounced Manchester accent which he tried to cover up, and he still remembers how he used to mispronounce words!”
In the past few years Jenny and Davy have, of necessity, rarely seen each other, although they’ve kept in touch by ‘phone and letter.
“He called me one day,” Jenny remembered, “and I said I was going into hospital and that afterwards I was thinking of going to the States for a holiday. He said come over and stay—so I went! Well, it meant I didn’t have to pay for my digs!
“I went to Los Angeles and he met me, but it was all very tense because he had to go in front of the American Service draft board the next day. I stayed with him for two weeks at his house with a swimming pool way out in the Hollywood hills. Marvellous.”
Here Jenny broke off as she was called back on the set for a shout up, in true “Coronation Street” tradition, with another denizen of that “typical” community. Somehow the comparison between Lucille Hewitt’s rather tatty boutique and Davy Jones’ luxury house seemed rather ludicrous. It was interesting to hear Jenny say that she had helped Davy choose stock for his own boutique which he has just opened in New York. It’s called “Zilch”, which ardent Monkeephiles will recognise as the name of a weird, talking track off their LP. “Headquarters”.
Back once more from the set, Jenny continued. “When you meet him, David is a laughing, gay boy, but I think in many ways he’s a very lonely person. He has still not got over his mother’s death. The paintings in his house, for instance, are lonely. They’re paintings of hands, of open sea. Whether he’s consciously lonely I don’t know, I never discussed it with him. There are always lots of people running in and out of the house. It’s like a station! He has a fairly large, mixed circle of friends. Some I liked, some I didn’t like. There are a lot of hangers-on and he’s consclous of it. I was very aware of the fact that he is a rich young man in a strange country, but that’s because I knew him before.
“He’s changed, of course. He’s impatient these days, if you’re working at that pressure you’re bound to be. It was nice in the evenings, when we were just watching television and there was nobody there. He didn’t have to impress anybody, himself included. I found that underneath he was still the same very gentle, kind, rather lonely boy. I still call him a boy and I don’t mean it disparagingly. I mean that he still has some naivity. He has grown up in many ways more than I have, because he has had to be so quick, but he’s missed out on lots of things.
Very moral Permalink
“Davy doesn’t have any particular girlfriend. If he does I didn’t see her, and he’s not likely to have me staying there and then bring various birds back is he? David is basically very moral, he has very high morals, and I know he was worried about going into the army because of the effect it might have had on his father.
“I don’t think he would have minded going into the army to fight, but they wanted him to go into entertainments. He told me he sald to them: ‘I’m not going in to entertain, if I go in I go in to fight’. He’s not a coward, but if you were in his position, making all that money, and you’d just got to the top of the tree, how would you feel? He’s not a violent person anyway.
“David’s a very considerate person. When I arrived in the States, although he was ill and really feeling bad about this draft board thing, he wouldn’t let me make myself a meal, he made it himself. He doesn’t expect people to wait on him hand and foot. He made me the best cup of tea I had in America. Apparently his father sends it out to him with cakes and biscuits. He got me to cook him some things the English way!”
How does this extraordinary young man appear to somebody who has known him and liked him for years?
“I am very fond of David. I would go as far as to say I love David, but I am not IN love with him. I keep saying that he’s kind and generous and gentle, but he IS. One day he’ll make somebody a super husband and father. He’s not interested in marriage yet, he’d be a fool if he was. He’s very career minded and publicity minded. I am more interested in David Jones, person than Davy Jones, star. I find it hard to realise how much he has. He has a show biz veneer, but he’s basically a home-loving boy who loves his father very much. And Mr. Jones is immensely proud of his son.
“David doesn’t like fuss, he hates to be fussed over. He likes to be alone. He’s a very easy-going character. If he was going to the studios and I wasn’t he would make sure there was a car at my disposal and that his secretary was there to go with me. Everything I wanted he would lay on for me. I went out to buy some trousers one day and he said ‘Why the hell have you done that?’ because his trousers fit me. So I’ve brought four pairs of his back with me! No doubt I could sell them for a huge price!
“One thing is obvious now though. He’s got past the stage where he used to trust everybody. Sooner or later he’ll really be able to size people up. He spends a lot of money, too. He would do something like give me a fifty dollar bill and tell me to go and buy some groceries. I would tell him that I didn’t need that much, but he’d insist! He was going to buy a ranch, but now he’s going to buy an apartment house which is a much more sensible idea. He’s also going to be a very good business man. He’s got a new business manager now because there was a lot of trouble with his old one.
“David’s house is decorated very tastefully. He has a baby grand piano in the lounge. I don’t know if he plays it. Micky was the only one I ever heard play it. There are a few guitars around, and some drums in the garage. David told me that Micky’s going to play the guitar and he’ll take over on drums.
“The house has two very large bedrooms, one with his hysterical circular bed in it. I got into it (he’d given up his room to me) and I didn’t know where to sleep on it. I usually like to sleep on the edge of beds, but his was a bit difficult—no edges! On the door is a poster saying ‘War is not healthy for children. Love living things’. All across the paintwork is ‘Make Love Not War’, which is under an ultra-violet light, so when it’s lit up it’s a psychedelic painting. There are clothes galore there. It was a very clean muddle!
“One evening David and decided to have a quiet time watching television. We were sitting reminiscing and the ‘phone rang. It was some girls who had found out the number and they giggled and laughed. David put the ‘phone down but it happened again, two or three times. And he said ‘You answer it and say you’re my wife’. I thought this was a dangerous thing to say. However, I picked the ‘phone up and a voice sald ‘Can we speak to Davy?’ I said ‘Do you want to speak to my husband?’ There was terrible confusion and I heard them saying ‘It must be true because she’s English.’ I said, ‘It’s one o’clock in the morning and you shouldn’t ‘phone this late’. Meanwhile Davy, in the background, was cradling his arms saying ‘Baby, baby’! I said ‘My husband’s had a very trying day and you’re going to waken the baby’, and put the ‘phone down! “While I was with David somebody stole his dog, Suzy. He was very upset. Now he’s got a cat called Tibs. He’s also got a lot of records—more of the Beatles than anybody else.
Davy’s girls Permalink
“When it comes to girls I suppose people make him seem like Mickey Mouse, but he’s not, he’s a normal, healthy boy. When I was there I was treated with the greatest of respect, which was a great compliment to me. If he goes out with a girl it’s for one night only. I mean, how can he differentiate between people who want Monkee Davy Jones and the real David Jones. He doesn’t admit it but I think this worries him. It must worry anybody who’s as sensitive as he is.”
Jenny spent two weeks with an old friend. Both of them have gone a long way since they first met, but they still retain close links. In many respects they are different people from the two kids who sat around singing and strumming guitars in a hotel room. Davy has almost become two people, the star and the person. Jenny is only interested in the star from a professional point of view. She is interested in the person because he is someone of whom she is very fond. As she put it: “He knows he lives in a false world. With phoney people he acts phoney. When he’s with real people he’s real. When we were together he was David Jones.”
[Magazine provided by Senti.]
