The Pop Star & The Girl!

If you were in-crowd or involved in the music industry around 1976 you knew that Rod Stewart played soccer every Saturday at the Coldwater Canyon park in Beverly Hills. He was nuts about his game. Actually, we probably got the original tip from his publicist Tony Toon, an amazing character, but that is another story.

We showed up there every weekend with a long lens and shot away. Rod never seemed to care and we would send our color slides to the teen publications at IPC in London. They purchased them all and demanded more. Soon we were selling the photos to Bravo in Germany and to all of the Japanese magazines of Rod kicking the soccer ball.

Photos of Rod kicking a ball can get a bit mundane after awhile, but if you really wanted to make the dosh, you needed to get Rod with a girl. This photo is just what the London Daily Mirror wanted. Not only did they love the chick in the photo, but Rod with his pint of beer in hand!

During these magical days at the Coldwater Canyon park, not once did anyone say “no photos” or did another photographer ever appear. Today it would be total bedlam to photograph a star of Rod’s magnitude in a public park. Good luck getting those great prices too. Today, even the park is gone. The last time we drove by it looked like some kind of sewage plant taken over by the Department Of Water & Power. Well, it was sure fun while it lasted!

Photo by Brad Elterman/BuzzFoto.com