We like 'em young!
Posted on 01/12/2008 7:33:41 PM PST by blam
Buddy Holly's widow in fight to stop book
By Ben Martin
Last Updated: 2:48am GMT 13/01/2008
The widow of Buddy Holly, the late American rock and roll pioneer, is trying to prevent the woman made famous by her husband's hit song Peggy Sue from publishing a book about the music legend.
Maria Elena Holly has instructed lawyers to oppose the publication of Whatever Happened to Peggy Sue, an autobiography of Texan woman Peggy Sue Gerron, after whom the song was named.
Mrs Holly, 62, claims the book is unauthorised and will harm Holly's name, her own reputation and that of her company, Holly Properties, which collects royalties and governs use of the musician's image.
"It's very interesting that this woman makes up all these stories," Mrs Holly said from her home in Dallas, Texas. "He never, never considered Peggy Sue a friend."
But Mrs Gerron, 67, who insists that Holly was a close friend, claimed "every right to write my book - that's why we live in America". She says material for the 238-page memoir is taken from about 150 diary entries that she made during the time she spent with Holly.
Mrs Gerron defended her right to recount her relationship with Holly, saying: "I wanted to give him his voice. It's my book, my memoirs."
The relationship between the two women has long been strained. The fame that followed Holly's death in a plane crash in 1959 when he was 22, dominated both their lives.
Were it not for the collision of love and tragedy, Mrs Gerron might still be a little-known woman from the little-known town of Lubbock, Texas.
Peggy Sue, considered one of the iconic songs in rock history, was originally titled Cindy Lou, after Holly's young niece. But Jerry Allison, the drummer in Holly's band, the Crickets, asked Holly to change the song's lyrics to reprise the name of the young woman he was trying to woo at the time.
The plan was a success, both romantically and commercially: Allison married his lover in July 1958 and Peggy Sue shot to number three in the charts.
It also meant that Peggy Sue, the small town girl, was branded with a name that is instantly recognisable to millions of music fans.
In June 1958, Holly met the woman who was to become his wife: Maria Elena Santiago, then a budding dancer from Puerto Rico, working in New York. He invited her on a date and proposed to her within hours. Two months later, they were married.
Jerry and Peggy Sue Allison, best man and matron of honour, accompanied the newly-weds on their honeymoon to Mexico and - despite tensions between the women - the men remained friends.
The fairy tale ended on February 3 1959, when Holly and fellow rock stars Ritchie Valens and JP Richardson - known as The Big Bopper - died in a small plane crash, an event that became known as "the day the music died".
Stricken by the death of her husband, Mrs Holly went into mourning, emerging 20 years later having married again.She has since made a career of protecting her late husband's legacy. Mrs Holly said she would sue if manuscript excerpts, which she claimed were untrue, were included in Mrs Gerron's book: "I don't understand why people do that, especially when she knows that people know the truth."
Peggy Sue's own marriage collapsed, but the redoubtable blonde forged ahead. The song made her name synonymous with the quaint 1950s ideals of innocent beauty and unrequited teenage love.
If it was a burden to be Peggy Sue, Mrs Gerron has barely shown it, making a career out of her association with Holly. She conducts interviews, gives speeches and maintains a website which is testament to her self-promotion skills.
She uses the site to describe her relationship with Holly, who, she says, was well aware that the fame of being Peggy Sue was hard for a young girl to take. "He tried to help me laugh it off by giving me a nickname," she writes. "He called me Song."
Mrs Gerron also recounts a dance in her home state soon after Peggy Sue became a hit, when an enterprising young man sold "tickets" to dance with "the real Peggy Sue".
"It took me a while to find out what was going on," she writes. "Unfortunately, as has been the case for much of my life, it didn't occur to me to ask for a cut of the action."
“Mrs Holly, 62”
So Mrs Holly was 13 when her husband died?
And I thought Jerry Lee Lewis was bad.
We like 'em young!
I’m confused—its sounds like her “relationship” was with Allison, not Holly. If true, the book is going to be a yawner.
She was born in 1935, so that makes her 72. Boneheaded British reporters can't do their math.
Give it a rest Mrs. Holly. The man has been dead nearly half a century. His legacy is clear. It is ridiculous to deny Peggy Sue the right to speak and say what she wants to say.
Print the book. Let the market decide its importance. Peggy Sue knew Holly as long as his wife did, which was a really short time.
>>>>“Mrs Holly, 62”
>>She was born in 1935, so that makes her 72. Boneheaded British reporters can’t do their math.
I am absolutely convinced that the vast majority of MSM reporters are flat out innumerate.
That’s what it sounds like. Holly was a frined of her husband. “...and one time, my husband said that his friend Buddy Holly ...” Who cares?
Not to diminish her loss, but talking about milking a short time relationship. She’s marries a musical icon, never lives with him long enough to be part of his inspiration, and after his untimely death, she inherits his legacy. Now she wants to prevent someone from telling their side of the story 50 years later? Goodluck on that given the US libel laws.
Good catch. The math doesn’t work.
Actually, I don’t think Mrs. Holly has a legal leg to stand on here.
I think my give-a-damn's busted.
Why should we care? What serious consequence to world history and impact have these people made? None-
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