Quotes from David Ritz

His moods changed minute to minute, and Jan could change him quicker than anyone. The more he loved her the more mixed up he got. He was such a beautiful man, but so unstable.

It was Frankie Lymon all over again," Marvin said. "Only this kid had mastered James Brown's moves. Michael was like Stevie. From the very beginning, he worried me.

Besides, she likes Judy Garland and knows that if she sings a Judy Garland song, she's gonna sing it better than Judy ever could. That gives Aretha great satisfaction.

In 1996 the Queen traveled to Toronto to catch Diahann Carroll playing the lead in a new staging of Sunset Boulevard. "She didn't realize it wasn't going to be freezing," said Erma, "so she ordered up a mink coat from one of the better department stores. Because the coat was so enormous, she decided it required a ticket of its own. She and her coat sat together on the front row. It was hysterical.

Nearly every Aretha gig that I booked," said Dick Alen of the William Morris Agency, "required that of her total fee, she had to have twenty-five thousand in cash before she went onstage. That was the money she used to make her payroll. She deducted no taxes and made no records. I'd beg her to implement some system of documentation, but she refused. I knew that eventually there'd be hell to pay from the IRS.

don't antagonize the enemy, obligate him.

Feeling inadequate has always been my biggest problem.