TRIBUTE TO CHYNA BY DR MIKE LANO
- 04/21/2016 (10:20:13 pm)
- Bob Mulrenin
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Tribute to JoanieBy Dr Mike Lano
I think we can all agree that the last 24 hours have been pretty brutal in terms of deaths of notable people. First Joanie Lauer, then Prince and soon after confirmation Prince had been found dead at his Paisley Park, MN home and studio; wrestling got word that a longtimer had passed in Ruth Silverstone. Many of you may not recognize Ruth's name but she helped her husband Dean for years promote a major outlaw wrestling promotion in the Pacific Northwest that encompassed Washington State with some shows in Oregon, etc using names like Lumberjack Luke, Paddy Ryan and more in the 70's and 80's. Ruth was also the gracious host and welcomer at the Silverstone's annual Pacific Northwest Wrestling Reunions held at their beautiful home right on the water in Isaquah, WA. She fell 22 days ago and fell into a coma and never regained conciousness, passing away this morning with loving husband Dean and her sister at her hospital bedside. Dean was so distraught about the time that she went into the hospital, he also reportedly off a ladder and it was feared he'd received a concussion.
On to Joanie. I first heard of her and took some pix at one of her earliest shows in front of people after a Kowalski training session near Boston, MA. Later on, I photographed her in a singles match plus a battle royal(one of her earliest times in front of people) about 1994 in Vegas at a Moolah and Mae takeover of Therese Thies(she was Ray Stevens wrestling wife who broke him into the biz with Frankie "Great Memphisto" Kane), Betty Clark and Penny Banner's LIWA annual reunion. The three later female worker legends formed Ladies Int'l Wrestling Association to raise money for a planned wrestler retirement home and hall of fame. When Moolah/Lil and Johnnie Mae Young came in and aggressively took it over for a few yrs, they changed everything about LIWA and eventually closed it down soon after Vince/WWF signed them to a legends/appearance deal circa 1996-7. No one ever found out what happened to all that money raised since 1989 but green indie workers like Joanie would trans themselves to this annual women's convention/thing, pay their own hotel bill, food, etc besides donate their time to the night 1 wrestling show which kind of was the predecessor to it's linked cousin in Cauliflower Alley which wasn't yet in Vegas, and was still simply a one night awards banquet versus Moolah's 2-3 day event. None of the female green(like Joanie) workers or veterans(Mae Weston, Donna Christenello, Donna Day, Candy Devine, etc) ever got paid to wrestle on Moolah's shows nor did they get reimbursement for Lil and Johnnie Mae charging cash-paying marks who "paid to dance with the girl wrestlers." I remember Joanie standing up for herself at least, and refusing that year she went to do any dancing or any thing other than wrestle and go to the two dinners. Of note was Buddy Roger's widow and son who came that year. Paul Boesch's widow Valerie came out to manage Lillian but really didn't know how to draw heat since she's such a sweet lady everyone loves.
Joanie had short orange-dyed hair and small. She had a ripped physique but looked normal and down to earth. She saw my Ribera's baseball cap shooting ringside pix and asked if I had Japan connections. She really wanted to go to Japan and try to actually learn how to wrestle saying she "learned all I can learn at Walter's(Kowalski) but I need better training." I called her weeks later with some contacts but don't think she got a bite from JWP or All Japan Women as a foreigner. Most of you know the purported story of how HHH brought her into WWF and by then she'd bulked up, grown her hair long and dyed it black. Back to the Vegas years, she complained about being "flat," and asked if she'd need a boob job to get hired anywhere. I said she looked fine. Before I forget, she had the odd Nicole Bass voice even then already. But again, was a sweet kid asking a lot of questions.
In 1998 I believe the year was, I was shooting ringside at a WWF RAW in San Jose and was backstage pre-show. I'd brought some of my earliest Joanie pix and showed them to her, Waltman, HHH, etc. HHH wanted my earliest ones of her and teased her saying those were "blackmail photos." Waltman said "wow--she looks like the girl next door!" Then she grabbed my early 70's shots of Jerry Lawler who was there as well, showed them to him and Jim Ross and Jerry said "hey, that was before I learned how to shave my back and chest!"
Fast forward to her last year there and I snapped some shots of she and Trish sitting in makeup seats with the lead WWF ladies making them up...to a few yrs after Joanie had been let go. She'd contacted me saying she was living down near Hermosa Beach(Redondo Beach where she died y'day was further north from there on the San Diego 405 freeway) but asked if I had any contacts for a stage, one woman show she wanted to do and have her fake brother who played guitar, accompany her. She lamented that she'd just appeared on Howard Stern's show and he was already playing on a loop, her kind of out of it, improvise-singing as she put it "and not making a whole lot of sense." She called a few weeks later and I gave her some L.A. contacts at Doug Weston's Troubadour and a few less famous places but none were interested when she called me back. I then hooked her up with Nick and Darlene Bockwinkel who'd recently moved to Vegas who actually said they found her some showrooms and promoters who'd let her do two nights and would give her a split on concessions but not any possible gate of paying people as they didn't expect too many to come. Joanie tried to follow through, but her demons began kicking in and Nick said she stopped returning his calls and he got angry.
Zoom up to 2007 and that Cow Palace Wrestling "fan fest" that is the worst ripoff for fans and performers I've ever seen since first working for the newstand magazines in '66. This was the infamous husband and wife Salisbury aka Cramer aka Kramer couple who claimed to be former cops shot in the line of duty. They claimed their dream was to put on a big multi-day wrestling fan with shows at SF's famous Cow Palace where they claimed to have watched wrestling in the 80's. I was the guy living here in the area who ended up calling Daly City, South S.F. and S.F. proper district attorneys and police on the husband/wife con artist duo when on the 2nd night of 3 at this "thing," they took the pro wrestlers and MMA's cashbox and fled across Nevada state lines. Anyway, Joanie and Steve Austin were scheduled for the very next day. I met them at the entrance vehicle gate and warned both what had happened. Steve was guarantied his money by a mark S.F. eye doctor who previously had held money-losing autograph signings with WWF stars at his office in the Hispanic Mission District but continued doing them and this was the clown who was transing Steve in and paying him thankfully separate from the husband/wife duo. But Joanie wasn't as lucky, knew going in she wouldn't get paid for doing an all day autograph/poloroids thing, but said the fans had paid to see her, so she put in her day knowing she'd be out the trans from L.A., the hotel room, everything out of her own pocket.
The last two years, I received some 2 am phone calls that I let go to voice from Joanie(and I'm sure many probably got far more and were much closer to Joanie the Chyna as I called her to her face when she spread the rumor she'd legally changed her name to Chyna Doll or was it China Doll on paper? The same type voicemails I also saved from Sherri when she too was not doing well and the same ones from beloved Mark Curtis/Brian Hildebrand who had no substance issues. As well as one phone voice message my friend since 1970 in Eddie Gilbert had left days before he died in Puerto Rico. I'll save them because they're physical, audible reminders of friends. Kind of heart-breaking. Early this morning I got photo requests from a ton of agencies wanting any of my early-early, pre-WWF Joanie shots. I began sending them and about 10:20 am PDT, they said "stop--send us any Prince shots from the two Oakland Oracle Arena recent concerts you shot." So as has occurred with wrestlers before, Joanie's far too young death gets a bit of short shrift by the death of a perceived bigger icon in Prince.
Joanie, stuff and all; you will be missed by many in the biz. Your wanting to try to get booked in Japan(I had little clout and ask Cornette--I first gave her my Gong editor Wally Yamaguchi's contacts beyond those for Onita, JWF and All Japan Women which all went nowhere for Joanie. But she eventually wore that spectacular Mil Mascaras Aztec headress as her entrance gear for a big Tokyo Dome New Japan show after leaving The Whiff. Joanie finally got to Japan, got fluent in Nihongo and thankfully, eventually started an entirely new and quiet life for herself when she'd later move there(near Shibuya Station where one of the two Ribera's Restaurants is located) for about a year and change to teach ESL. She seemed very happy in a postcard she sent describing what she was doing there--"I'm giving up on American men. They blow," she wrote on it. But girl, you were far too young to be taken from this world. You were just 45 going on 46. Will some of you others please learn from this sad lesson? Please?
Joanie, your passing will not go in vein. Even with Prince dominating the news, you got your own full segment on CBS' The Talk tv talker show today and mentions on all the network news morning shows like the Today Show and GMA and The View.
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