Toni reveals her hypochondriac husband Daryl Dragon wasnt into sex
It wasn't love that kept the 1970s pop duo, the Captain and Tennille together. It was their careers and the chart-topping songs and Grammy winning, Love Will Keep Us Together – all written by Toni -- that promoted the loveless relationship.
The essence of the couple's popularity was devoted romantic love. The public swallowed the dupe and so did Toni herself, now 75, who fell madly in love with the keyboardist Daryl Dragon, 73, and believed that she could win over his heart, writing their hit songs as a subtle plea to him to win over his affection.
They only walked down the aisle after their record label, A&M put out a press release announcing that they had been married on Valentine's Day 1975.
So they hightailed it to Virginia City in Nevada and said their vows in a little chapel in the Silver Queen Saloon.
The essence of the popularity of The Captain and Tennille was devoted romantic love. The public swallowed the dupe and so did Toni herself, now 75, who fell madly in love with the keyboardist Daryl Dragon, 73
'I found at that point that I had to begin what would be a decades-long attempt to keep the reality of our relationship to myself,' Toni writes in her new memoir
The loss of hair that began in his thirties became such an overwhelming obsession for Daryl Dragon that he refused to remove his hat in public – even when meeting a business executive at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel that requires all hats to be removed. He wouldn't take off his hat to go the Vatican City
The sudden fame was dazzling, the adoration of the public intense and bags of fan mail poured in.
'People thought we were perfect "lovebirds" but that was not true. I found at that point that I had to begin what would be a decades-long attempt to keep the reality of our relationship to myself,' Toni writes in her new memoir, Toni Tennille, A Memoir, by Toni Tennille with Caroline Tennille St. Clair, published by Taylor Trade Publishing.
Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Toni learned her love of music from her father, Frank St. Clair Tennille, who had to take over the family owned furniture store in the provincial capital in the racially segregated Old South when his daddy died.
But a childhood incident had serious long-term repercussions for the aspiring singer when she knocked over a wheelbarrow and crushed the tip of her right index finger to a bloody pulp.
It was a secret that I carried with me everywhere and I would know immediately if someone happened to look at my hand.Toni was rushed to the hospital with what was left of the finger in a glass of ice water but gangrene set in and the finger had to be amputated.
Her parents made the 300-mile trip from Montgomery to New Orleans for thirteen reconstructive surgeries.
It was horrifying to the young girl and she feared she'd never be able to play the piano — a childhood dream.
All the surgeries made the finger less ugly 'but it never again was a normal finger'.
'It was a secret that I carried with me everywhere and I would know immediately if someone happened to look at my hand'.
At the time, Frank was on the cusp of a promising music career and had been touring the country playing the Big Band circuit as a solo act and with crooners like Bob Crosby.
He had no option but to give up his dream and according to Toni, it broke her father's heart. But listening to her daddy sing, she absorbed his love for music and carried on the dream.
The furniture store went belly up and Frank ended up getting a job at North American Aviation in Los Angeles and the family of four girls and his wife, Cathryn Wright followed to Newport Beach, California.
Toni had been enrolled at Auburn University, but once tasting the life of a 'California girl' with nut-brown tanned skin, bleached hair, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer, she didn't want to go back for the fall semester.
The Captain and Tenille met President Gerald Ford and Mrs. Ford when they were invited to perform at the White House for the country’s bicentennial in 1976. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were in the audience and Toni saw the Queen nod off clearly bored
President Gerald Ford toasts Queen Elizabeth II at an American Bicentennial dinner in the Rose Garden during a state visit
They only walked down the aisle after their record label, A&M put out a press release announcing that they had been married on Valentine's Day 1975. They hightailed it to Virginia City in Nevada and said their vows
Daryl was a strict vegetarian on a rigid, macrobiotic diet that consisted of mainly brown rice and steamed vegetables – hold the seasoning
Daryl had replacement surgery on both knees and then refused post surgery physical therapy in favor of ringing the intercom buzzer for Toni to empty his urine container
The one-time appeal of 'matching cardigan sweaters and pearl necklaces' of her Auburn University sorority sisters faded once she stepped out onto Balboa Pier in Newport Harbor 'where you could buy a bikini in every color of the rainbow or eat a frozen banana dipped in chocolate'.
Toni and her sister Jane went to work on their suntans, bleached their hair with peroxide and when the sun went down, the two joined the young people hanging around the beach bonfires where they would sip beer, smoke cigarettes and 'sing along to the strains of a badly turned ukulele'.
'My summer in Newport Beach had made me realize just how huge and exciting the world was. California was irresistible'.
'Deep inside I knew there was something special there just waiting for me to find it'.
Toni moved to an apartment in an old house on Balboa Island in Newport Bay and found she was lonely. She started drinking brandy and suddenly it became two brandies.
'There were even times when I wondered if life was worth living at all'.
In her twenties, she was now feeling depressed, something that had been in her family for generations.
Hungry for love she began flirting with surfers.
When she met drummer, Ken Shearer, she jumped into marriage in 1962 knowing she wasn't in love with him and stayed married for ten years until she just couldn't take it any longer. She resumed her single girl lifestyle in the sunny Southland.
Toni and theater director Ron Thronson put together a musical revue, Mother Earth and played their first gig in San Francisco. When the keyboardist couldn't join them for the follow-up dates in Los Angeles, the keyboardist for the Beach Boys, Daryl Dragon, was recommended.
Even on stage Daryl wore his sunglasses to hide his eye condition and his captain's hat to hide his baldness
A young Dick Clark was hired on as the new producer to try to save The Captain and Tennille Show but Daryl was now focused on his eye condition, 'megalophthalmus' – greatly enlarged eyes. He wore sunglasses all the time
Auditioning him, 'there was something about him I found intriguing'.
'When he finished and looked up at where I stood next to him, our eyes met. I felt my heart tighten and pound like a fist beneath my breast. We had our new keyboard player, and his name was Daryl Dragon.'
Daryl was 29 at the time when they met in 1971, two years her junior, and he was dubbed 'Captain' by Mike Love of the Beach Boys because of the surplus store military style hat he wore on stage.
'I felt myself more and more intrigued with the enigmatic young man who said little but watched me with his large, liquid-brown eyes. The quieter he was, the more I was determined to draw him out. This kind of hide-and seek dance would become the choreography of our long-term relationship'.
'Two people could not have been more different. With my long surfer-girl blonde hair and ample zaftig curves nourished by late dinners of San Francisco's famous Reuben sandwiches and cookies from the catering table backstage.'
Toni was fascinated; Daryl was cold as ice.
Daryl was a strict vegetarian on a rigid, macrobiotic diet that consisted of mainly brown rice and steamed vegetables – hold the seasoning.
His recent girlfriend had been a rock 'n' roll groupie who followed rock stars like Jim Morrison on the road.
An obvious druggie, one day she washed down sleeping pills with a bottle of liquor up in the hills in Malibu and her body was found three days later.
Toni fell into the trap of believing she was 'the woman who could 'save' Daryl from all the heartache that he'd experienced in the past'.
It was a delusion.
Toni, at age ten, and her younger sister, Jane sulked when their picture was taken because they were both unhappy with the Christmas dresses chosen by their mother. They reveled in their new life when they moved from Alabama and California
Toni’s mother, Cathryn, drove Toni, 5, and Jane, 3, from Alabama to San Diego to see their father when he was stationed there in WWII. Toni learned her love of music from Frank St. Clair Tennille, who had to take over the family owned furniture store in the provincial capital in the racially segregated Old South when his daddy died
When Toni moved to California she went to work on her suntan, bleached her hair with peroxide and when the sun went down hung around the beach with her sister where they would sip beer, smoke cigarettes and 'sing along to the strains of a badly turned ukulele'
'The man whom I'd thought was my soul mate was in many ways just as remote as a stranger passing by through the fog'.
Their relationship became sexual but she had to initiate all sexual contact and her feeling of isolation in the relationship only increased.
The couple didn't do drugs or drink alcohol and they found themselves outsiders in the social side of the music business that was awash in cocaine and booze.
Music insiders found them boring.
Even Queen Elizabeth found them boring and fell asleep when they performed at a White House concert in 1976 when Gerald Ford was President.
In their isolation at home in the Pacific Palisades with Daryl always sleeping in his own bedroom, his obsessions increased.
He explored draconian diets that consisted of whole-wheat pasta and bland steamed veggies.
He searched the internet to learn what possible illnesses he could have or avoid.
His loss of hair that began in his thirties became an overwhelming obsession and he refused to remove his hat in public – even when meeting a business executive at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel that requires all hats to be removed.
Arrangements to meet elsewhere had to be quickly made.
When the couple traveled to Rome where Toni dreamed of fabulous Italian meals, it wasn't to be. She had to search out ingredients for his food obsessions and eat quietly in their hotel room.
He wouldn't take off his hat to go the Vatican City.
And Toni still believed – after all the disappointment with his barren attitude that he was even capable of intimacy and tenderness.
After one season of doing the ABC show, The Captain and Tennille Show, Daryl wanted out. He hated being center stage and hated cue cards.
A childhood accident had serious long-term repercussions for the aspiring singer when she knocked over a wheelbarrow and crushed the tip of her right index finger to a bloody pulp. Toni was rushed to the hospital with what was left of the finger in a glass of ice water but gangrene set in and the finger
Toni attributed it to his extreme moodiness, his shyness and his difficult childhood with a handsome yet highly critical father who was physically abusive.
Daryl's hair loss finally drove him to decide on hair transplants. It was the mid-'70s and the gruesome now-outdated procedure cut away portions of the hairy scalp and grafted those onto the balding areas.
'I felt myself more and more intrigued with the enigmatic young man who said little but watched me with his large, liquid-brown eyes' Toni writes
The process required multiple surgeries but Daryl gave up after the hair fell out of the small holes that had clumps of hair implanted in each. It was supposed to fall out and new growth would come in.
Daryl was spooked and now looked worse than before.
He refused to take his hat off even at home – in his private bedroom.
A young Dick Clark was hired on as the new producer to try to save The Captain and Tennille Show but Daryl was now focused on his eye condition, 'megalophthalmus' – greatly enlarged eyes – a condition that worsens with age and eventually requires multiple surgeries to remove cataracts and control glaucoma.
He wore dark glasses all the time because his eyes didn't contract properly in bright lights.
But producers insisted the glasses come off and the studio was deluged with mail asking what was wrong with Daryl's eyes.
That was the end of what might have been a second season.
Daryl's food obsessions expanded into food paranoia.
He was getting dietary ideas from a 90-year old guru who lived on a commune in Malibu.
It was always another exaggerated food fad or a feigned illness.
He fell into thinking he had Parkinson's and searched out supplements and cures.
To escape the loneliness she felt in the marriage,Toni decided she'd go on the road without him to get away from his autocratic grip and to earn money because they were freely spending too much money on building lavish homes.
'Daryl was never an emotionally demonstrative man. I can say without exaggeration that he showed no physical affection for me during our very long marriage.
'Occasionally I would go up and hug him, and his body would grow stiff in my arms. He would only respond to my embrace by cupping his hand and giving me a little pat on my back; it was the same kind of awkward, tentative hug you would give to an old aunt that you hardly knew'.
The question is why she stayed so long.
Teaming up with Neil Sedaka, one of many stars Toni enjoys duets with
Toni made an appearance with actor Cary Grant at a Los Angeles Dodgers game in 1978
Daryl's self-diagnosed ailments continued. He had flashing lights in his eyes he attributed to yogurt. He developed something he believed to be extended left arm syndrome. He endlessly explored the internet searching for diseases that might back up his hypochondria.
He had replacement surgery on both knees and then refused post surgery physical therapy in favor of ringing the intercom buzzer for Toni to empty his urine container. He could have emptied it himself but preferred to be waited on.
Daryl had watched his mother suffer a complete mental breakdown and underwent a prefrontal lobotomy to cure her bipolar disorder. Her condition only worsened and her demons intensified.
She was tortured by violent mood swings and deep depression. She went to bed and spent the rest of her life there.
Daryl's younger sister caught the family curse of depression and committed suicide in 2012. He never cried and he didn't attend her funeral.
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ShareToni finally walked out on the Captain, she writes, when he decided to spend $10,000 on a generator because he had read that the government was going to be stealing everyone's electricity.
Advised by their accountants that they had to cut back on spending, she told Daryl they couldn't afford the $10,000 and - she writes - he responded: 'Get out, you f**king bitch'.
Toni walked out for good and filed for divorce in January 2016 – but it had taken 39 years.
She moved to Florida to be with her sister and girlfriends and has never looked back.
'Believing that love could heal anything, I had spent so many of my adult years desperately trying to make Daryl happy while at the same, denying it to myself'.
Toni Tennille, A Memoir, by Toni Tennille with Caroline Tennille St. Clair, published by Taylor Trade Publishing is available on Amazon April 1
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