We All Shine On: John, Yoko, and Me

From the moment he interviewed Yoko Ono on his late night radio show in September 1971, Elliot Mintz’s life would never the same again. That phone call would lead him to an intense and revealing friendship with Yoko and her husband, John Lennon, until John’s untimely death in 1980, and beyond, to the present day. In 1971, then the talk host on American airwaves, Elliot Mintz was talking to all of the major figures in the burgeoning West Coast music scene when he was asked whether he would interview Yoko about her new album. Their talk quickly lead to other private calls and then to John Lennon, with whom he quickly formed a firm bond. Those conversations became hours-long epics, to the extent that Elliot had another phone line put in, for which only two people had the number - John and Yoko. The aftermath of The Beatles’ breakup ushered in a tumultuous decade. Elliot witnessed it, or heard all about it, at close hand including the unbearable cost of such fame when John and Yoko separated for what became known as his ‘lost weekend’. There was joy when their son Sean was born and the creative rebirth that was the multi-platinum selling triumph, Double Fantasy. But then there was unimaginable tragedy too when John was brutally murdered in December 1980.