Felix Dennis

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand seven.

Presenter0:28

My castaway this week is the publisher Felix Dennis. For the past thirty years his talent has been spotting a niche in the magazine market and launching a title to fill it, but he is far from your typical sober suited corporate hotshot. His life is lived in vivid technicolour, an apparently chaotic explosion of success, excess and outrage.

Presenter0:49

He blossomed among the Flower Power generation, finding fame as one of the defendants in the Oz magazine obscenity trial, charged with conspiring to corrupt the morals of the young.

Presenter0:59

It fired his loathing of the establishment, but instead of dropping out, he opted in, and beat them at their own game, becoming one of the richest men in Britain.

Presenter1:07

He's twice faced life-threatening illness. After the first, he developed a rampage in crack cocaine addiction. After the second.

Presenter1:15

He started writing poetry.

Presenter1:17

An engaging monster full of contradictions and reeking of sulphur. That's what they said about you in the Times. A little harsh, maybe. Is it about right?

Felix Dennis1:26

One hates to say so, Kirsty, but um I don't think they're too far off the mark.

Presenter1:31

Uh the contradictions then. I mean, uh there there's something of the hippie, there's something of the yuppie. How do you see yourself?

Felix Dennis1:41

Well, I try not to think about it. At best I'm tremendously loyal and very generous. I know that. At worst, I'm

Felix Dennis1:48

Bad-tempered.

Felix Dennis1:50

But usually I'm bare tempered because somebody's forgot to iron my shirt. If uh we've just lost, you know, twenty million bucks.

Felix Dennis1:58

I'm not bad-tempered at all. It's um

Felix Dennis2:01

Anything serious I don't get angry about at all. It's just the little things that drive me nuts.

Presenter2:07

Can I ask you for a moment? I mean, we'll concentrate on it hopefully in more detail later on, but when you stood in the Dock of the Old Bailey back in 1971 alongside your two co-editors.

Presenter2:16

What did you identify most strongly with? Was it the voice of the counterculture or the voice of the free marketeer saying we should be able to publish what we like if people want to buy it?

Felix Dennis2:25

I'm not sure we were free marketeers. We were certainly up for free speech, that's for sure. There's a lot of um revisionist history goes on about uh the counterculture, which are now supposed to be, you know, the most evil thing that ever happened to Britain.

Felix Dennis2:41

But it's just not true. The first time that I ever really understood the dialectics of women's liberation was through working in the Underground Press.

Felix Dennis2:51

I have experience of it because I was brought up by a wonderful mother.

Felix Dennis2:54

on her own, who brought up my brother and I. The first time I ever heard the word conservation was reading the Underground Press. The first time that I met a bunch of gay guys and felt comfortable with them was when I was working with them on the Underground Press. I don't uh and that counter that whole counterculture revolution

Felix Dennis3:14

I don't think that's such a bad record, you know.

Presenter3:17

Tell me about your first record.

Felix Dennis3:19

This will always remind me of uh

Felix Dennis3:22

Fourteen St Kilda's Road. My first bed sit, Harrow on the Hill. I'm fifteen years and ten months old.

Felix Dennis3:31

To my mother's enragement, I have left home.

Felix Dennis3:35

And I haven't got a job. And the truancy officer.

Felix Dennis3:38

is chasing me and trying to get me to go to school, which I'm never going to do again.

Felix Dennis3:43

And this wonderful album comes out.

Felix Dennis3:45

I couldn't afford it.

Felix Dennis3:47

But a friend of mine.

Felix Dennis3:48

Still, my friend, only the L P

Felix Dennis3:51

And to thank him.

Felix Dennis3:52

I put it on my dance eportable and wore it out, and this is the great track from it.

Speaker 34:00

Down the street the dogs are barking and the day is getting dark

Speaker 34:06

As the night comes in a falling, the dogs lose their bark.

Speaker 34:13

And the silent night will shatter from the sounds inside my mind.

Speaker 34:19

Isn't one too many mornings in a thousand miles.

Presenter4:23

Yeah.

Speaker 34:24

Yeah.

Presenter4:27

Bob Dylan, and one too many mornings, and memories there, you say, Felix Dannis, of being aged fifteen years and ten months, in your first bedset on your own. Now that was some age to be in a bedset on your own. Your mother was furious.

Felix Dennis4:38

She was absolutely furious, because by dint of tremendously hard work she'd taken us from a working class background into the lower middle classes and then into the middle middle classes.

Felix Dennis4:51

And I'd gone to grammar school and now I was going to throw it all away.

Presenter4:54

Um what were the circumstances of your very early childhood then?

Felix Dennis4:58

I had a wonderful childhood. Very early on I stayed with my grandmother and grandfather, who were wonderful, in a little two up, two down, one of those tin baths hanging in the coal shed outside Loo.

Felix Dennis5:13

But my mother's career blossomed.

Felix Dennis5:15

And um my mother was a wonderful woman. Obviously she had to be very tough. In those days, even though she earned more than her brothers and sisters because she was a chartered accountant, if she wanted to buy a three piece suite or anything,

Felix Dennis5:28

On the higher purchase.

Felix Dennis5:30

She would have to get a man. It would have to be her brother. It would have to be her father.

Felix Dennis5:36

To sign the higher purchase form. That's how far we've come. That's just how badly the counterculture did for you.

Presenter5:43

How extraordinary. And your father wasn't around. They they had broken up when you were very young.

Felix Dennis5:47

They didn't break up so much.

Felix Dennis5:49

What happened was he went out to Australia to start a new life for us.

Felix Dennis5:54

And they never got together.

Presenter5:56

After that. And did you have any relationship with your father subsequently, or that was that was it?

Felix Dennis6:00

Sadly, no. I always felt that if I had he did occasionally try to make contact it would have sort of been a betrayal.

Felix Dennis6:09

And then he died, and it was too late.

Presenter6:12

And so your mother was there with these two little boys and and she was being helped out by her mother and father and

Felix Dennis6:17

She was in the beginning, though she didn't need that help for long.

Presenter6:20

She was a chartered accountant, as you say she was.

Felix Dennis6:22

She became one. She became one by going to night school and

Felix Dennis6:25

I don't know how she did it.

Felix Dennis6:28

I mean, to earn the money and to go to night school and to be done, I just don't know how she did it.

Presenter6:34

Tell me about your second record.

Felix Dennis6:36

Well, after I'd uh found my feet, I discovered uh that I had a talent for uh playing the drums and singing. So I was playing in a lot of R and B bands. And uh of course I started to listen to a hell of a lot of blues music, and I had done even when I was living at home with my mother and uh stepfather, and he used to encourage me actually to listen to this stuff as long as my mother had gone to bed. And uh I remember when I first heard this this next artist.

Felix Dennis7:04

All the hair on the back of my head stood up.

Felix Dennis7:08

You know it still does.

Speaker 47:11

A woman I love.

Speaker 47:14

Took for my best friend.

Speaker 47:17

Some joker got lucky.

Speaker 47:20

Turn her back again.

Speaker 47:23

E better come on.

Felix Dennis7:23

Better come on.

Speaker 47:26

In my kitten.

Speaker 47:28

It's hard to be branded. I don't

Presenter7:36

Robert Johnson and Come On in My Kitchen.

Presenter7:40

I've read that you've said that you knew you were going to be rich. Is that true?

Felix Dennis7:47

Well, it sounds terribly big headed, doesn't it?

Felix Dennis7:50

But yes, I always did. When my friends used to drive me round in their jalopies.

Felix Dennis7:57

I never even applied for a driving licence. I just used to bum lifts off of them. And they'd be joshing me, you know, Y you gotta learn to drive for this, come on, you know And I'd say, You you don't understand. I was born to be driven.

Presenter8:11

Is that true for this?'Cause I'm never quite sure when you're toying and playing and and making it up. That's true.

Felix Dennis8:14

Yeah.

Felix Dennis8:15

That is true and plenty of my friends they'll tell you the same.

Presenter8:19

Did you have an idea of how you would make the fortune?

Felix Dennis8:21

Absolutely not a clue in the world.

Presenter8:24

You're writing poetry now. Let's talk about that. It seems something of a contradiction. A rich, powerful poet. It doesn't work really well.

Felix Dennis8:32

I mean it does work.

Felix Dennis8:35

It sort of is.

Felix Dennis8:37

I didn't start writing poetry until the year two thousand.

Felix Dennis8:41

I write for three hours every day, no matter what.

Presenter8:44

Must you write?

Felix Dennis8:45

Yes, I must now. And um I was astonished when A Glass Half Full came out, which was the first book of poetry. I just couldn't believe it. They just kept selling thousands and thousands and thousands of copies and and I started to tour and I toured with the Royal Shakespeare Company, who read a lot of my poetry. It's a hell of a rush to have someone like Anton Lesser and Cherry Morris and Sean Bean r reading your poetry. And they taught me too how to deliver live on stage.

Felix Dennis9:15

They were very helpful and they were very kind.

Presenter9:17

They're very orthodox, your poems. I mean, they they subscribe to, you know, rhythm and rhyme and tradition. Do you think that's one of the reasons they're so successful and popular?

Felix Dennis9:27

Yes, and because I'm writing using stanza forms that have served English poetry for the last four or five hundred years, these days I worry less about form because I've become a craftsman. I've become almost not a master craftsman yet, but I've become a craftsman anyway. I know that my craftsmanship will solve this problem, and so I'm more

Felix Dennis9:50

Dealing today with the emotional impact of a poem, and whether readers will love it or not, and whether it helps me to understand the world or not.

Presenter9:59

You've agreed to read one of your poems for us today. Uh this is a very popular one when you're on tour.

Felix Dennis10:03

This is very, very popular. I wrote it for my mother, who has lived by this creed all her life. Never go back.

Felix Dennis10:11

Never go back.

Felix Dennis10:13

Never go back.

Felix Dennis10:14

Never return to the haunts of your youth Keep to the track, to the beaten track.

Felix Dennis10:21

Memory holds all you need of the truth.

Felix Dennis10:25

Never look back, never look back, Never succumb to the gorgon's stare Keep to the track, to the beaten track No one is waiting, and nothing is there

Felix Dennis10:38

Never go back, never go back Never surrender the future you've earned. Keep to the track, to the beaten track.

Felix Dennis10:48

Never return to the bridges you burned

Felix Dennis10:51

Never look back, never look back, Never retreat to the glorious past Keep to the track, to the beaten track.

Felix Dennis11:02

Treat every day of your life as your last.

Felix Dennis11:05

Never go back.

Felix Dennis11:07

Never go.

Felix Dennis11:09

Never acknowledge the ghost.

Felix Dennis11:11

On the stair

Felix Dennis11:13

Keep to the track.

Felix Dennis11:17

No one is waiting.

Felix Dennis11:19

And nothing.

Felix Dennis11:21

is there.

Presenter11:23

Thank you. Tell me about your third choice.

Felix Dennis11:26

This is one of Britain's greatest musicians, a man I met a few times in those counterculture hippie days. Indeed, for a little while I managed to stay at his apartment in the King's Road. I managed to creep in there and hang around and listen to him occasionally. And this is probably the greatest guitar solo by white bluesmen in the last fifty years.

Speaker 412:19

Have you heard about my baby?

Presenter12:24

John Mayle and the Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton and Have You Heard?

Presenter12:28

So, Felix Dennis, you ended up at Oz Magazine. How did that happen?

Felix Dennis12:32

Um I sent um a tape recording in to the editor Richard Neville.

Presenter12:36

A tape recording of what?

Felix Dennis12:37

A type recording of My Critique of the Magazine.

Felix Dennis12:40

I had a realtorial grundig, my proudest possession, apart from my drum kit, and I was about to sell it. To be honest, I was selling it because a young lady had to get an abortion, and in those days there was only one way chump.

Presenter12:54

So this would have been a backstreet abortion at that point.

Felix Dennis12:56

Yeah. Yeah. That's what it was like.

Felix Dennis12:59

And um I sold it. I sold everything I had.

Felix Dennis13:02

I sold the drum kit, I sold the reel to reel, I sold everything I had.

Presenter13:05

How much did it cost?

Felix Dennis13:08

I think I handed her over something like about a hundred and fifty pounds, and that was we're talking way, way back.

Felix Dennis13:15

But anyway, the last recording I made on that Real to Real tape recorder was this critique of Oz magazine, and I sent it to Richard Devil, forgot all about it, and about five months later I'd changed my address and I was living uh truly with six very beautiful young girls, and I was the only male in the Fulham Road.

Felix Dennis13:33

And um we had some wonderful times there and one of them shouted and said, You're you know you're on the you're on the telly, you're on the telly.

Felix Dennis13:40

and I thought it was one of the bands I played in or something. I came rushing and I heard my voice. It was a B B C.

Felix Dennis13:46

They were using this tape that I had sent Richard Neville, the editor of Oz.

Presenter13:49

Just to be clear, they they were doing a sort of documentary.

Felix Dennis13:51

They were doing a documentary about Oz.

Felix Dennis13:53

So I rushed round to Woz and banged on Richard's um basement door, and I said, Okay, you must have got some money from the B B C. Come on, man, you must have had some money. Come on

Felix Dennis14:01

They got him his summit. He said, Yeah, they gave me twenty five quid.

Felix Dennis14:05

I said, Well, where's mine?

Felix Dennis14:06

You must have a fiver.

Felix Dennis14:09

No, I wasn't joking at all. What did my f Ivor.

Presenter14:11

So it wasn't just a foot in the door, no.

Felix Dennis14:13

No.

Felix Dennis14:14

Do I

Felix Dennis14:15

I was I

Felix Dennis14:17

Did he get I'm born to make money, you know? I'm a money making machine, you know. And um and uh he didn't have uh five quid, he didn't have five pence. And so he handed me two big bundles of magazines, I think it was about issue three or four or something.

Felix Dennis14:31

And I said, what am I going to do with these?

Felix Dennis14:33

It's all sell'em, and you can keep the money.

Felix Dennis14:36

They returned sixpence each.

Presenter14:37

How many did you sell?

Felix Dennis14:39

Yeah.

Felix Dennis14:40

Those first two bundles I I sold within an afternoon.

Felix Dennis14:44

And uh then I went back and got two more.

Felix Dennis14:46

And then I went to get, you know, four more, and he said

Felix Dennis14:50

From now on it's fifty-fifty.

Speaker 414:52

Yeah.

Felix Dennis14:52

And so we used to split the money, and I was making fantastic money selling Oz magazine on the streets of the Kings Road.

Presenter14:59

So you went from selling it to writing on it at at one point you?

Felix Dennis15:02

Inch by inch. Then I started a music section and began writing and editing in the magazine. That was very easy to do in these underground magazines.

Presenter15:11

You've said of that time you could almost taste the freedom in the air.

Felix Dennis15:15

You could.

Presenter15:15

Paint us a picture of of how life was then.

Felix Dennis15:19

We we we honestly believe we were changing the world.

Felix Dennis15:22

And I know we get mocked for that now that, you know, we're aging baby boomers. I understand that. I understand mockery. I think it's fine. You know, mock away, son.

Felix Dennis15:31

Just remember.

Felix Dennis15:33

That if you're a

Felix Dennis15:34

Hardworking businesswoman to day.

Felix Dennis15:37

You do not have to get your brother to sign the hire purchase form.

Felix Dennis15:42

And if, unfortunately and it is a terrible misfortune

Felix Dennis15:45

You decide you have to have an abortion, you don't have to go to a backstreet abortionist. And if you want to save the world,

Felix Dennis15:52

Then, my goodness, there are enough organizations that you can go and join now, and you might just be able to save it.

Presenter15:58

One question before we go to the next piece of music.

Presenter16:02

commonly banded about these days that it all came at a price. Your contention, it would seem to be, was that the price that was paid was absolutely worth it given what it was that the subsequent generations were given in terms of their freedom.

Felix Dennis16:16

I I I know the price that was paid. I myself went through ten years of idiocy and madness.

Felix Dennis16:22

And I've been to enough funerals.

Felix Dennis16:25

Many of them died young.

Felix Dennis16:26

Not just Jimi Hendrix, not just Janice Joplin.

Felix Dennis16:29

You know, was the price worth it?

Felix Dennis16:33

Yeah.

Presenter16:35

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Felix Dennis16:37

This next piece of music is a is a lovely piece of jazz. I was introduced to it. Once again going back to that little bed set, there was a guy in the next room. I didn't know much about jazz at that time.

Felix Dennis16:48

But my goodness, I started to play these on my old dancette portable.

Felix Dennis16:53

It blew me away. I just absolutely loved it and I still love it today. And this is just a fantastic track.

Presenter17:55

Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Felonious Monk, Buddy Rich, and Bloom Dido. So then, in nineteen seventy one, Felix Dennis, you were raided by the Obscene Publications squad. Uh what was your crime?

Felix Dennis18:09

We were raided by the Dirty Squad. Before we talk about them, I think it's worth remembering that the Dirty Squad only a few years later that it was disbanded and that a score of them were sent to prison.

Presenter18:20

Because they were taking backhanders from the people who were producing a lot of obscene material that could be bought in several.

Felix Dennis18:24

They were taking all the money from the Soho pornographers. And so they had to show their bosses why they still had a sub you know, an obscene publications uh squad, a dirty squad, when they weren't arresting anybody.

Felix Dennis18:37

And then their eyes lit.

Felix Dennis18:40

On this hippie magazine, and they thought, at last, we can actually prosecute somebody.

Felix Dennis18:45

And of course Oscar magazine wasn't about pornography. I mean if you saw Oz issue number twenty eight today.

Presenter18:51

This is the infamous issue, the one that's

Felix Dennis18:52

The infamous yeah, the infamous school kids issue. It was written and edited by school kids.

Presenter18:57

Um you and your co-editors then, Jim Anderson and Richard Neville it was, that stood with you uh on trial and you were found guilty. I mean, how much of a shock was that to you?

Felix Dennis19:03

I'm sorry.

Felix Dennis19:07

Well, first of all, we weren't found guilty. The most important charge was a charge that hadn't been used for a hundred and forty years. It was a conspiracy to corrupt and deprave the morals of the young of the realm. They tacked on two little charges, for which no one had been sent to prison for well, since living memory. And one was sending indecent material through the post.

Felix Dennis19:27

i.e., sending out copies of Oz to our subscribers. And that's the one.

Felix Dennis19:32

in the end, that the jury found us guilty on. But the conspiracy charge, the jury marched right in, looked the judge straight in the eye, dear old Judge Argyll, and said, Not guilty.

Felix Dennis19:43

And outside, thousands of our supporters, and not just hippies.

Felix Dennis19:48

you know the members of parliament

Felix Dennis19:50

Thousands of people w were marching in the street. It was the only time that John Lennon ever went on a demonstration. He marched down Oxford Street with tens of thousands of people to free the Aus Three.

Presenter19:59

Tell me about your next piece of music, Felix.

Felix Dennis20:03

Right, I I have to get something clear here.

Felix Dennis20:07

I have an excellent relationship with my mother, but this is not about my mother, even though it is.

Felix Dennis20:12

Called Mother.

Felix Dennis20:13

After the OS trial I stayed with John Lennon. He was very, very kind to us. After the trial he let me come and stay with him in his fancy country home, because there was a media frenzy. And I took my girlfriend. I had a great time there watching him lay down the bass tracks to imagine one of the great moments of my life.

Felix Dennis20:29

And one night

Felix Dennis20:31

When he stopped working.

Felix Dennis20:32

He did an acoustic version of this song.

Felix Dennis20:36

And it was just terrifying.

Speaker 420:41

Are you ready?

Speaker 420:45

But I never had you

Speaker 420:55

I wanna hear you.

Speaker 421:00

One man

Presenter21:08

John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band and Mother. So, not long after Oz folded then, and you found that your road to riches, this road that you always knew was there somewhere, came in the form of um well, the pointer to it was a kung fu star called Bruce Lee. That seems rather unlikely. Uh tell us what happened.

Felix Dennis21:28

My pal Donatio and I, both of us totally penniless, we had the idea of writing a biography of a man who wasn't famous, particularly famous at that time.

Felix Dennis21:39

And as we were writing the book, Bruce Lee became more and more and more famous. Hollywood snapped him up. He became even more famous. And before we finished the book, he died. It was the best career move, you know, that any young star can ever make.

Felix Dennis21:52

And uh we finished the book at high speed and we put it out there and we had a number one bestseller biography called Bruce Lee, King of Kung Fu.

Presenter22:00

And you published a Kung Fu magazine.

Felix Dennis22:01

And then from the back of that I did a lot of magazines. I started to do poster magazines.

Felix Dennis22:06

Then I began to sell foreign rights. I was learning how to be an entrepreneur. Oz had taught me something about that. But I was now an entrepreneur. I now realized that it it you don't have to have empathy with what you're publishing if you're publishing in the commercial world. You just have to do a really great job.

Presenter22:23

You used a curious phrase a few moments back when you said, I'm a money-making machine. Oh, I am.

Presenter22:29

So you you learned there that actually all you need to do is spot a potential market and exploit it for all it's worth.

Felix Dennis22:29

I so you learn

Felix Dennis22:38

You you've got to believe that the market's much bigger than anyone else thinks it is.

Felix Dennis22:42

You have to commit there's no half measure. I committed everything I owned, everything I had, every penny that I'd got from writing the book.

Felix Dennis22:50

On these terrible risks.

Felix Dennis22:53

And it's true that they all worked out, and that within a year

Felix Dennis22:57

From having absolutely nothing and not being able to pay the rent, I literally had sixty thousand pounds clear in the bank.

Felix Dennis23:03

Clear.

Presenter23:05

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Felix Dennis23:07

This next one, uh she's one of my favorite artists and I just think she has a beautiful heartbreak for it.

Speaker 423:14

You know the folks in San Louis

Speaker 423:18

Know all about it.

Speaker 423:22

But don't forget, I'm from Missouri too And baby

Speaker 423:33

You've got a long way to go.

Speaker 423:36

Go!

Presenter23:43

Peggy Lee, you came a long way from Saint Louis. You've said there is a sliver of razored ice in the heart of every self made man and woman. What do you mean by that, Felix Dennis?

Felix Dennis23:55

It's just impossible to make ridiculous sums of money.

Felix Dennis23:59

by accident. And the only way you can do it is really, I'm afraid, by denying it to others.

Felix Dennis24:06

There's only so much pie to go around.

Felix Dennis24:10

And also

Felix Dennis24:12

The self-made men and women

Felix Dennis24:14

have completely screwed up.

Felix Dennis24:16

social lives and emotional lives.

Felix Dennis24:18

Because they're spending sixteen, eighteen, literally, hours a day.

Felix Dennis24:24

Making money.

Felix Dennis24:26

And it's just a self fulfilling prophecy. In the end you have to grow this sliver of razor dice, and it becomes a kind of carapace against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Presenter24:40

And this uh this carapace that you have then, is it is it enough of a compensation for the other things that you don't have? I mean, you don't have children, you've never had a wife.

Felix Dennis24:49

You're right. I've never had children, much to my regret.

Felix Dennis24:53

I've got a lot of godchildren.

Presenter24:55

You got twenty-two. Is it twenty-two?

Presenter24:58

Did did you did you decide not to have children? Was there a point at which you thought it's not compatible with the eighteen hour days and the fast living?

Felix Dennis25:05

No. No, if if somebody had come up to me and said you've made me pregnant I would have um I'd have been happy with that.

Felix Dennis25:11

I don't think I was that calculating about it. It's just the way things worked out. Um I'm not happy about it. I was fooled.

Felix Dennis25:18

And it's my fault. Hey, come on You know, I had a pretty good I'm still having a hell of a time, but I do regret not having children, and I'm very glad that my brother had two lovely kids, and I'm very pleased with my twenty two godchildren that I can hand back when they start being a nuisance.

Presenter25:34

Let's talk about the hell of a time, because that doesn't even begin to cover it, does it? The hell of a time. Tell me about the eighties, or tell me about the bits of the eighties that uh you feel are appropriate and you can remember.

Felix Dennis25:46

Well, it's the usual sordid and tedious tale.

Felix Dennis25:50

Um of somebody

Felix Dennis25:52

Who really really?

Felix Dennis25:54

Does come into too much money.

Presenter25:56

Can you quantify it for us?

Felix Dennis25:58

Well, I can't tell you what my personal worth is, I don't know.

Felix Dennis26:02

Hundreds of millions.

Felix Dennis26:04

I don't know, hundreds of millions.

Felix Dennis26:06

I just went completely off the deep end.

Felix Dennis26:08

You know, we're talking about Rolls-Royce's, we're talking about crack cocaine, we're talking about 14 mistresses, quote unquote, you know, who'd follow me around the world.

Felix Dennis26:19

W we're talking about madness. We're we're talking about a descent into complete madness, just madness. I thought I was king of the world and I could do anything I want, and I spent tens of millions of dollars, scores of millions.

Felix Dennis26:35

And wasted it. It was great fun. Don't be wrong. It was absolutely.

Felix Dennis26:40

Fantastic.

Felix Dennis26:42

But I was losing it the booze and the drugs.

Felix Dennis26:45

They were winning, I was losing.

Presenter26:48

I heard three or four thousand dollars a day on the drugs at one point. Can that be true?

Felix Dennis26:52

Oh, mons.

Felix Dennis26:53

I can I can sit here and absolutely promise you.

Felix Dennis26:57

that there were days when when there were a lot of so-called friends around and you're having a hell of a time.

Felix Dennis27:03

Or I'd think of nothing of handing over $25,000 to a dealer. Nothing at all.

Presenter27:07

For crack for crack cooking.

Felix Dennis27:08

Yeah, I wouldn't even think about it.

Presenter27:08

Yeah.

Presenter27:09

It drives you nuts though, crack cocaine, doesn't it? Where you're gonna get it?

Felix Dennis27:11

Yeah, it drives you mad, yeah.

Felix Dennis27:13

It may not sound like it to you or to our listeners, but

Felix Dennis27:17

I'm actually a pretty sens sensible guy and I'm I have a hugely strong metabolism.

Felix Dennis27:25

And I couldn't beat it. That's all I can tell you. And if I couldn't beat crack cocaine, if I could not master crack cocaine, there isn't there isn't a single person on this planet can master crack cocaine. Certain drugs will kill you.

Felix Dennis27:39

and drive you mad, and one of those is crack cocaine.

Presenter27:42

So how did you get off it?

Felix Dennis27:43

I just went cold turkey.

Presenter27:45

By yourself.

Felix Dennis27:45

Yeah.

Presenter27:48

Tell me about your seventh piece of music.

Felix Dennis27:49

Ah, the seventh piece of music. Well.

Felix Dennis27:53

This is probably one of their greatest lyricists in rock and roll.

Felix Dennis27:57

Not perhaps the nicest man who ever walked the planet, but certainly one of the finest wordsmiths. It's the first song ever to appear on the radio about divorce.

Speaker 428:14

Help me information more than that I canna dad Only that I miss her And all the fun we had

Felix Dennis28:21

No, this

Speaker 428:23

But we were pulled apart because our mom did not agree And tore apart our happy home in Memphis

Presenter28:32

Tennessee

Presenter28:34

Chuck Berry and Memphis, Tennessee. For the past few years, then you've shared your life with Marie France. Does she find you, well, shall we say, a difficult person to live with?

Felix Dennis28:44

Like many French women, she is not even remotely obsessed with who I have slept with in the past, who I might sleep with in the future. And this is not an obsession in France, it's just a part of life. But I do think she finds me sometimes a bit difficult to live with, because anyone who works all day trying to make money and then spends three hours every night trying to write serious poetry is not going to be a very easy person to live with. She's self-sufficient.

Speaker 429:11

Uh

Felix Dennis29:19

She solos in the choir. She doesn't need me.

Felix Dennis29:22

to get on with her life.

Presenter29:24

You've said of yourself and this is the last quote I will throw at you

Presenter29:27

I am not a very nice man. What did you mean by that?

Felix Dennis29:33

You can't have spent forty years becoming one of the richest guys in your country from a standing start and be a very nice person. You can be a very generous person and I can be, and have been and will continue to be. But if I send a business opportunity, then nothing, nothing on this earth will stand between me and that business opportunity, added to which I will risk everything that I have already made.

Felix Dennis30:00

On one throw.

Felix Dennis30:02

And if you think any one is standing in my way, then you'd better think again, Kirsty.

Presenter30:08

Tell me about your last record.

Felix Dennis30:10

This last one is um

Felix Dennis30:14

I'll be singing away on this on the desert island, that's for sure. Uh this is when uh Frank Snatcher was a young man.

Felix Dennis30:21

And he had a wonderful voice. It was Frank's world, and we just lived in it.

Speaker 430:25

Get my jacket and my pants all pressed I follow the swallow right back to my nest Don't you whim wham worry if my choo-choo's late Gonna shim sham shuttle on a frim frame freight Cause your bim bam babies coming home tonight

Speaker 430:43

Cause the bam bam baby is coming home tonight Oh that door baby cause he aka

Presenter30:55

Frank Sonata and Bim Bam Baby. So we give you the Bible. We give you the complete works of Shakespeare. What other book, Felix, would you like to take to the island?

Felix Dennis31:03

Well, um I'm going to take uh all the volumes I think there's about forty eight or fifty of them of the uh the Dictionary of National Uh Biography.

Felix Dennis31:14

Because it'll take me months and months, years to read them and

Felix Dennis31:19

And then I'd be able to start reading them all over again, and I could also use them to sort of build a wall or to.

Felix Dennis31:25

Wipe my bottom with

Presenter31:26

And a luxury.

Felix Dennis31:27

Yeah.

Felix Dennis31:30

I want a very long

Felix Dennis31:31

Stainless steel shaft, about fifteen or twenty feet.

Presenter31:37

For what purpose?

Felix Dennis31:39

Yeah, well, quite frankly, I suppose I should tell you. It's um it's in the hope of uh encouraging um underwater mermaid pole dancing.

Presenter31:49

That sounds useless enough. You may have that. And if I was to force you to choose one record from the eighth, what would it be?

Felix Dennis31:59

It would be Bob Dylan and One Too Many Mornings.

Presenter32:02

Felix Dennis, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Felix Dennis32:05

Thank you.

Presenter32:13

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.