Monday, July 21, 2008

(part 95) ME, JIMMY GEORGE, ED DURSTON, AND DIANE




Corner of Sunset Blvd. and Horn Avenue in West Hollywood with Shoreham Towers in background

My friend Terri reminded me to tell the reader how old I was when this happened, and I agreed that was something I needed to do. It was 1969, and I'd started making records in 1963 with "Let's Surf/Please Little Girl Take This Lollipop." It's only about a six year period I have covered so far.

I was 19 years old when I recorded "I'm So Lonely/I Wanna Love You" for Tony Alamo, so I was just a kid. Five years later I felt a hundred years old, and was still only 24, and a full bore addict alcoholic.

I went up to the apartment on Horn Ave. to talk to Ed Durston after Timmy Rooney told me Ed was in the apartment when Diane jumped from her 6th floor kitchen window. I also wanted to see Jimmy George, who lived below the apartment where Nancy and I had lived with Ed.

From what I'd learned, Jimmy had actually been outside his apartment, and seen Diane falling to the pavement below. At first he'd thought someone was playing a practical joke and had thrown something out the window, but then realized it was a person.

He didn't know at first it was Diane, and he'd seen her hit the ground. He was in shock, but ran over to where the person hit the pavement, and that is when he realized it was Diane. He told me he could not do anything for her, and it made him feel like an asshole.

He said she was still alive when he reached her, and that she looked up at him but couldn't speak. He said she was bleeding a lot from her head, and he wanted to help her, but didn't know what to do. I knew Jimmy, and he was a happy go lucky guy, but on this day he was broken in a way that is hard to describe, just broken.

I tried to tell him there wasn't anything he could have done, but how do you tell somebody that, after what he'd seen. He was the only one on the planet who had seen it; how the hell did I know how he felt, or what it was doing to him? It was the last time I ever saw him, and to this day I still don't really know how that may have altered his life.

When I got to Ed, he was doing better than Jimmy, but he still looked like he'd been through the ringer. I asked him, "What the fuck happened Ed, what the fuck was going on?" He looked up at me from where he was sitting and said, " I don't know man, I really don't know. We were just there, the two of us," he said, "talking a long time about life. You know, like half the night, and everything was OK. Then she just started acting crazy."

"Whatta ya mean Ed, crazy how?" I asked. "Well, we were sitting on the couch, and she got up and went out on the balcony, and just started climbing up on the railing like she was gonna jump off. I ran out there and drug her off, and pulled her back into the living room, and pinned her down on the floor and said "What the fuck are you doing Diane? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Ed was ringing his hands as he told me the story. He was having a lot of trouble going over that night. "So did she tell you what was wrong?" I pleaded. "No," said Ed, "She told me she was just screwing around and everything was OK and to let her up because it was just a joke." Ed kept rubbing his hands together like he couldn't get them clean. He just kept rubbing them together.

He continued on, "I made her promise me that if I let her up she wasn't gonna do anything crazy, and she said, "I promise." "I let her up, and she said she was going to go in the kitchen and get a glass of water, and I said OK." Ed looked like he might start crying at any second, and I didn't blame him, because it was too awful to comprehend.

"She walked into the kitchen and I turned around to watch her and she just climbed up on the countertop by the window over the sink. I ran in the kitchen and tried to grab her, but she just went out the window before I could get there." He paused for a moment, as if to get his courage up and said, "I had a hold of her ankle man, I had her by the ankle, but I couldn't hold her, I just couldn't hold her man."

I stood there in front of Ed with this crystal clear picture of Diane's kitchen in my head, with her going out the window, and Ed trying to hold her by the ankle. I just broke down and cried like a little boy. I just couldn't believe that it had happened. I stood there in front of Ed crying, for I don't know how long. I just sobbed, because there wasn't anything I could do about it either.

22 comments:

  1. Wow you sure have been through a lot of ugly stuff.

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  2. Did Ed ever say to you that Diane was on drugs at the time? I know they say it wasn't in her system, but I have heard stories supposedly from Ed, that she was. I have also heard a different story about the balcony eruption. I have never heard of him trying to grab her ankle, I have heard of belt loops before. Can you remember anything else he said, or anything else that happened?

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  3. Wow! That is so unbelievably sad. That poor sweet baby. It makes me wish I could give Diane a big hug wherever she is. I guess a psychic hug will have to do. Thanks again for sharing all of these gut wrenching memories. Must be so hard. It's powerful stuff. This one is especially difficult to read and think about. I have a feeling you will feel a lot better when you've finished writing all of this and get it all out of your system, as much as that is possible. It's a healing, therapeutic process that you must need to complete or I'd imagine you wouldn't be doing it.

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  4. Keep this blog out there, i.e., online. It might be good source material for a historian writing about the 60s/Sunset Strip, etc.

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  5. with all due respect...and I like your music sir...but being involved in 2 different deaths is NOT coincidence. sorry.

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    1. I agree, 100%. To blame LSD was very convenient, in those days, for those left behind - both this particular 'boy' friend and law enforcement.This is lazy criminal investigation, imo. Write off the death of two women as drug induced suicide and not nail the sales man?

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    2. Also gotta agree. There are no coincidences of this type. How did this scumbag get away with two murders?

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  6. With all due respect Mr. Hutch. I think your statement is out of line.

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  7. Unless you are talking about this and NOT Bobby- and even this is worth questioning. http://www.thedealis.com/2008/11/26/ed-durston-a-date-with-death/

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  8. awfully strange that this ed durston was with carol wayne when she died in 1985 in manzanilla, too.

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  9. Please tell me whatever happened to Ed Durston as u would think he must have some sort of depression with 2 people dying in his company? Please let me know as I fight depression and only one person died while I was there. I cant imagine two

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  10. as for the latest comment, by another jerk anonymous, i hope you take note that your comment is posted...what i don't understand is why you don't take better advantage of the comments and say something intelligent about this subject. i believe i know who this is, so say something new, something that lends itself to the discussion of this tragedy...accusations against me or ed durston don't really mean anything...if you think you know something, spit it out!

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  11. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  12. Having lived long enough and worked in a research psychiatric unit, I've seen where drugs can damage the brain to the point that a person can seem sane one moment and then go off the deep end the next. Our DNA determines how each of us reacts to outside substances. Therefore, I have seen someone who abused drugs not even be on drugs when they went off the deep end.
    The story told does seem plausible and chances are good that Diane Linkletter had the money to buy drugs at an early age and kept it from her dad's knowledge. It's a tragedy for all parties involved.

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  13. I grew up in that general area. What is strange is that actors Jack Cassidy and Sal Mineo died in that same area in, I believe, 1976.

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  14. Had been in Europe, hadn`t seen Diane in 2 years. But I knew her well. She would not do suicide. Her family lived just down the street. Popular,bright, beautiful,a prodigy. Something fishy! Assulted hollering 4 help? A framed drug story by tabloid press!

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  15. Could it be that ed was the one that administerd the drugs to both diane and carol he was probably their dealer

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  16. Bobby you were an important witness to this terrible incident it was brave of u to post this.. However, as far as Ed is concerned his story may be true, but it does seem odd/suspicious that he was there at/near the very mysterious deaths and extremely tragic deaths of two beautiful women...

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  17. Hi Bobby, are you still active on this blog? I'm trying to find an email for you so I can reach out to you about something important.

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  18. Hi Bobby, are you still active on this blog? I'm trying to find an email for you so I can reach out to you about something important.

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