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Samantha Juste
Samantha Juste (left) with David Jacobs on Top of the Pops (BBC TV, around 1964)
Born
Sandra Slater

(1944-05-31)31 May 1944
Manchester, England
Died5 February 2014(2014-02-05) (aged 69)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Other namesSamantha Dolenz
Spouses
​
​
(m. 1968; div. 1975)​
Tony Shipp
​
(m. 1988)​
ChildrenAmi Dolenz

Samantha Juste (born Sandra Slater; 31 May 1944 – 5 February 2014)[1][2] was a British model and television presenter who appeared in the mid-1960s as the "disc girl" on the BBC television programme Top of the Pops. In 1968, she married Micky Dolenz of the Monkees. Their daughter is actress Ami Dolenz.

Life and career

[edit]

Sandra Slater was born in Manchester, England, to Leslie Slater and Phyllis, a dressmaker, and studied textile and dress design at Rochdale College of Art. The long-legged blonde soon became a teenage model and took the name Samantha Juste.[3]

Top of the Pops was a weekly half-hour programme of current popular music, initially conceived and produced by Johnnie Stewart. It was first broadcast from Dickenson Road Studios, a converted church in Rusholme, Manchester, on 1 January 1964.[4] Samantha Juste was assistant to Cecil Korer, the programme's assistant producer.[5] After the first few episodes, Juste replaced Denise Sampey. For three-and-a-half years, she sat alongside the host – initially disc jockeys Jimmy Savile, David Jacobs, Alan Freeman and Pete Murray – to place records on a turntable and apply the stylus as the artist was about to perform.[6] Simon Dee, who first introduced the show in 1966, recalled that "I got my introduction right [and] didn't get too distracted by the luscious Samantha Juste, my lovely co-host".[7]

Some viewers found Juste's ritual incongruous, since the artists were ostensibly there to perform. However, they were miming, something of which the BBC made little secret.[8] On one occasion, a record by The Swinging Blue Jeans was played at the wrong speed.[9]

Juste appeared briefly in the 1965 Swinging London film The Knack ...and How to Get It, directed by Richard Lester, and also released a single the following year. She was one of two British women signed to Strike Records – whose first single and only "hit", Neil Christian's "That's Nice", was issued in February 1966 – and its subsidiary Go. (The other was Jacki Bond, a secretary with Strike, who like Juste, had little musical experience.[10])

Juste performed No One Needs My Love Today, written by Phil Phillips, on Top of the Pops on 24 November 1966. The record was produced by Miki Dallon. The backing music was provided by an orchestra conducted by Ken Woodman, who had worked with Chris Andrews and Sandie Shaw, and is best known for "Town Talk", which became the theme tune of The Jimmy Young Show when BBC Radio 1 launched in 1967. "No One Needs My Love Today" was not a hit, but it was featured as a climber by the offshore "pirate" station Radio London in the week beginning 20 November 1966.[11] One critic commented that "any vocal shortcomings on this single are outweighed by her charming delivery".[12] Both "No One Needs My Love Today" and its B-side, Pierre Tubbs' "If Trees Could Talk", were available on compilation discs and to download forty years later.[citation needed]

During Top of the Pops, Juste met artists who contributed to the British rock boom of the mid-1960s. In January 1967, the American group The Monkees, formed for an eponymous television series, reached the top of the British charts with "I'm a Believer", written by Neil Diamond. The drummer Micky Dolenz[13] (b. 1945) recalled (in the third person) that he spotted Juste as he passed a studio cafeteria:

She is tall, blond[e], beautiful, and wearing an emerald green outfit that ends up in a short skirt (very short) which tops off her unbelievably gorgeous legs ... She holds his glance briefly then looks quickly away with that haughty sophistication that only the British can do so well.[14]

Micky Dolenz at the Tribeca Film Festival, 2007

Juste and Dolenz began a relationship, prompting such headlines as "Samantha traps Monkee" and "Pops girl goes ape".[14] Dolenz appears not to have realised that Juste was a celebrity and the publicity took him by surprise. "Monkeemania" was such that some of the Monkees' female fans resented Juste – "she even showed up one day with ink stains on the emerald green dress" – and Dolenz claimed the couple spent a week in her London flat.[14] For much of 1967, Juste and Dolenz spent time together in England and the US. Ric Klein, Dolenz's friend and best man at his wedding, described a holiday with him in England, during which Juste acted as "permanent guide", travelling with them to Stratford-upon-Avon in a rented Triumph car. Then, a few days later, savouring "Swinging" London:

Micky and I went to the Carlton Towers to see Samantha Juste in a fashion show and she looked outasite. After the show, we took off for Carnaby Street again and we went crazy buying clothes ... Micky really dug all the clothes at Biba's and Susan Lockes and practically bought out the stores. He also bought a dress for Samantha. It was the same dress that Sam wore in the fashion show and it looked fantastic on her.[15]

Juste wrote articles for the teenage magazine 16 about her time with the Monkees.[16] She gave up Top of the Pops and moved with Dolenz to California, where they lived in Laurel Canyon in the Hollywood Hills. In June 1967, they attended the Monterey Pop Festival.[17]

Peter Tork [of the Monkees] and Micky turned up at the pop fest in Monterey, Peter acting as one of the emcees [masters of ceremony], Micky wandering around the grounds dressed as an Indian with a lovely British [woman], Samantha Juste, at his side.[18]

Juste and Dolenz were married in July 1968.[19] Dolenz's stepfather, Dr. Robert Scott, officiated. The couple's daughter, Ami Bluebell Dolenz, became an actress.[20] Dolenz and Juste hosted parties attended by musicians and celebrities; Ringo Starr of the Beatles once dubbed Juste "Earth Mother" for her having made him a chip butty and eggs when he arrived after a "rip-roaring all-nighter". Their friend, the songwriter Harry Nilsson, invited Dolenz and Juste to travel with him to Ireland to lend credibility (in Dolenz's words, "Samantha maybe ... but me?") when he met the parents of a woman he thought he might marry.[14] Juste's father, Leslie Slater, helped Dolenz construct a studio used for "jam" sessions by John Lennon, Brian Wilson and Alice Cooper.[2]

The Monkees disbanded in 1971, and Dolenz's self-indulgence took its toll on his marriage. Juste and Dolenz divorced in 1975, Juste retaining custody of their daughter, although they were reconciled as friends by the early 1990s.[14] In 2002, Juste was photographed with Dolenz at Ami's wedding in Beverly Hills to actor and martial artist Jerry Trimble.[21]

Business interests

[edit]

While in California, Juste began her own fashion business, which she moved to Acapulco, Mexico, in 1976. She taught design in Ireland, then returned to the United States, where she and her daughter, Ami, began an online jewellery business,[22] Bluebell Boutique. [23]

Death

[edit]

Juste suffered a stroke in her sleep on 2 February 2014 and died on 5 February 2014 in Los Angeles, California.[2]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Samantha Juste – obituary". The Daily Telegraph. 10 February 2014. Retrieved 4 March 2014.
  2. ^ a b c "samantha dolenz Archives". Retrieved 21 February 2019.
  3. ^ "Samantha Juste: 'Disc maid' on 'Top of the Pops' who wrote for teenage". The Independent. 19 February 2014. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
  4. ^ "Been and Gone: Doctor Who's longest-serving director and Top of the Pops disc spinner". BBC News. 4 March 2014. Archived from the original on 30 April 2014. Retrieved 26 May 2022.
  5. ^ OFF THE TELLY: Interviews/Cecil Korer Archived 10 December 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 7 December 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link). Juste is on the far left in this photograph, next to Pete Murray.
  7. ^ Richard Wiseman (2006) Whatever Happened to Simon Dee?
  8. ^ See The Independent, 4 May 2005, quoting the Radio Times
  9. ^ Johnnie Stewart - Obituary, The Independent, 4 May 2005
  10. ^ Sleeve notes for CD, Backcomb 'n' Beat: Dream Babes, Volume Three (2001)
  11. ^ "Radio London - Field's Fab Forty - 20th November 66". www.radiolondon.co.uk. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
  12. ^ Keiron Tyler, October 2001 (sleeve notes for CD, Backcomb 'n' Beat: Dream Babes, Volume Three)
  13. ^ "Micky" is spelt thus (as on Dolenz's official website and in his 1993 autobiography), although the form "Mickey" often appeared at the time of the Monkees' fame in the 1960s and has done so since (e.g. in the Oxford Companion to Popular Music (1991) and the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles).
  14. ^ a b c d e Dolenz, Micky; Bego, Mark (2004). I'm a Believer: My Life of Monkees, Music, and Madness (1. Cooper Square Press ed.). New York: Cooper Square Press. ISBN 0815412843.
  15. ^ "Never Enough..." The Official Micky Dolenz Website
  16. ^ For example, 16, November 1967, reporting on the Monkees' European tour
  17. ^ Lisa Law (1987) Flashing on the Sixties
  18. ^ Mitchell Cohen, March 1986 (notes for Arista CD, The Best of The Monkees)
  19. ^ "MICKY & SAMANTHA: A YOUNG LOVE TO BE REMEMBERED!Tribute Micky & Samantha Dolenz". Archived from the original on 27 October 2009. Retrieved 19 October 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  20. ^ Ami Dolenz website; accessed 11 February 2014.
  21. ^ Ami Dolenz Wedding Archived 24 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  22. ^ Baker, Richard Anthony (17 February 2014). "Samantha Juste - Obituaries". Retrieved 21 February 2019.
  23. ^ "www.AmiDolenz.com - The Official Website of Actress Ami Dolenz". www.amidolenz.com. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
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