Bebe Buell : Rock n Roll Groupie

Bebe Buell born on July 14, 1953, in Portsmouth, Virginia is an American model and singer, groupie and well known for dating and marrying a long series of rock musicians.

After her mother, sent her pictures to the Ford modeling agency, the agency gave notice that they were interested after only three days. So at 17 she began modeling professionally, and moved to New York City. There she met and dated rock star Todd Rundgren for several years.

Playboy magazine’s Playmate of the Month for the November 1974 issue; her centerfold was photographed by Richard Fegley. She was one of the first top-line fashion models to pose for Playboy, and it cost her the contract with Ford modeling. However she was promptly signed by Wilhelmina in the USA and Models One in the UK. Even after the Playboy issue affected her career in the US she remained in demand in Europe appearing in British and French Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Cosmopolitan to name a few.

Buell maintained and open relationship with Todd Rundgren and she became attracted to the Glam and budding New York Punk scene and shared intimacy with many other famous musicians, including Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Jimmy Page, and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. Thus the moniker “Americas Most Famous Groupie” .

Buell is the mother, of actress Liv Tyler, born July 1977. Liv was keep in the dark about her real father and was led to believe that Rundgren was her father until the late 80s, as Tyler was still deeply addicted to drugs at the time. Buell then moved on to Rod Stewart and Stiv Bators, and in 1978, she began a tempestuous affair with the married but separated Elvis Costello which continued on and off until 1984.

In 1981, Buell recorded a four song EP on Rhino Records, produced by Rick Derringer and Ric Ocasek, with The Cars serving as her band on two tracks. In 1984 then-boyfriend John Taylor of Duran Duran fame pulled some famous friends together to provide backing for another of Buell’s musical efforts.

She founded another band called the Gargoyles in 1985, and released a few singles. There was some record company interest, but Buell withdrew from the public eye when the paternity of her daughter Liv became known. For the next six years in the 1990s, Buell managed her daughter Liv, helping to launch her career as a model and actress.

Buell married musician and sometime actor Coyote Shivers in 1992, but they divorced in 1999 and returned to music to record a solo effort with producer Don Fleming in 2000.

In 2001, she wrote her autobiography with the help of Victor Bockris entitled Rebel Heart: An American Rock and Roll Journey. It was a New York Times Bestseller list and the paperback was then issued in 2002. She is currently working on a second book and another record.

Buell married musician Jim Wallerstein of Das Damen and Vacationland fame in 2002, and returned to modeling in 2003 signing with the IMG Agency in New York City.

Cameron Crowe has said he based his Penny Lane character in the 2000 movie Almost Famous on two women he met during the early 70s Bebe Buell and Pennie Trumble aka “Penny Lane”.

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One Response to “Bebe Buell : Rock n Roll Groupie”

1. Mary C. says:

   March 22, 2010 at 9:14 pm

   Hahaaa. Bebe Buell did NOT “withdraw from the public eye when the paternity of her daughter Liv became known”.

   Instead, Buell, who was already a washed up groupie that nobody cared about anymore, USED her daughter’s paternity to get herself mentioned in press articles, and spent the next decade giving interviews to ANYBODY who’d listen about how she had sex with Steven Tyler.

   Also, Bebe was never a “top-line” fashion model. She was a complete failure and to this day blames her failure on Playboy, saying the Ford agency fired her for posing nude, but the Ford agency says different, that nobody wanted to book Bebe, and they would have been happy to keep representing her if she was capable of bringing in any money, but Buell wasn’t good enough.

   Check your facts, your just repeating Buell’s revisionist history.