The Elliot Mintz Interview

By: Bob Andelman

Narrated by: Bob Andelman, Elliot Mintz

Length: 1 hr and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

I'm going to school today, and you’re all invited to sit in on a master class with me. Mintz, to the best of my recollection, first came to my attention for his close ties to John Lennon and Yoko Ono throughout the 1970s and for his continued presence as a media consultant for Yoko following John's murder. He first entered their sphere as a TV reporter for KABC Channel 7 in Los Angeles, where a 1971 interview he conducted with Ono went so well - and was perceived as unusually fair - that Lennon agreed to be interviewed. But while most people who lived through this era will remember Mintz for his Lennon-Ono connection, he was also quite an accomplished journalist, recording conversations with a who's who of the era, including Jack Nicholson, Allen Ginsberg, Mick Jagger, Salvador Dali, Dennis Hopper, Jayne Mansfield, and many, many more.

Oh, and then there is this: he was a student at Los Angeles City College on November 22, 1963, when a guy behind him, future Los Angeles radio personality Roland Bynum, recognized a name and face on the television as someone he knew from the military. “Hot damn! That’s Lee!” Lee? “Yeah, I served in the Marine Corps with him!” No sh!t. His classmate had been up-close-and-personal with Lee Harvey Oswald. That interview - he quickly took his classmate into a recording studio - was Elliot Mintz’s first scoop as a cub reporter. The wild ride was on.

But it’s Mintz’s story; I’ll let him tell it. Key interview moments:

7:13 November 22, 1963, watching news reports of the Kennedy assassination when a Los Angeles County College classmate recognizes Lee Harvey Oswald, with whom he served in the Marines

16:33 Interviewing Salvador Dali (accompanied by John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Gala Dali)

42:43 Hearing of the assassination of his close friend, John Lennon, en route to The Dakota Building.

©2015 Bob Andelman (P)2015 Bob Andelman