KIM FOWLEY DIES

Kim Fowley, hustler, impresario, producer, songwriter, Svengali to the Runaways and numerous less successful groups and one of the great Hollywood characters of the last half century, has died following months of cancer treatments. He was 75. The son of actors Douglas Fowley and Shelby Payne, Fowley grew up in L.A., graduating from Uni High School and diving headlong into the bustling 1960s music biz, working with Paul Revere and the Raiders and The Seeds, among others, as well as putting out records under his own name. By the time he formed the Runaways in the mid-’70s, he’d co-written with KISS and Alice Cooper, as well as working with acts as diverse as the Modern Lovers and Helen Reddy (!). Post-Runaways, he obsessively tried to duplicate that formula but never again grabbed the brass ring, while cultivating his outrageous, Warhol-like persona. Even after being hospitalized last year, Fowley continuerd hosting his radio show for Little Steven's Underground Garage on SiriusXM. Village Recorder owner Jeff Greenberg, a classic Hollywood character himself, nailed Kim’s quintessence in his Facebook tribute, writing, “I watched Kim put a dog collar and leash on Rodney [Bingenheimer] so Rodney could go sniff girls Kim wanted to meet. Always looking for the next ‘Teen age Dogs—t’ band. Larger than life for all time. RIP KF.” (1/16a)