Bebe Buell

It was the rocking Seventies and everywhere the eye could see were rock stars on stage, enthusiastic groupies waiting for them by the backstage door and rock girlfriends keeping an eye on them and their men. No name is more synonymous with the term ‘rock girlfriend’ than Bebe Buell who dated several of rock music’s greatest including Todd Rundgren. “Sometimes being the girlfriend of a very visible rock figure can be bothersome,” explains our Playmate of the Month. “One night, some guy with a Playboy in his hand came running up to Todd and me, pointing to a picture, screaming, ‘Is this you, Bebe? Is this you?’” The busty blonde from Portsmouth, VA moved to New York City after closing a modeling deal with Eileen Ford who put her up in a nunnery. From saint to sinner, Bebe’s life changed when she began to hang out at a hot spot known for its fabulous drag queens and before she knew it she met musician/songwriter, Todd Rundgren. “At the time, Todd had just released his second album. But, I had no idea who he was,” recalls our tall Playmate of the Month who was eventually kicked out of the nunnery for breaking curfew. “Todd and I talked, went out a couple of times and soon we were living together.” The Utopia musician and producer of Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell fell madly in love with Bebe and wanted her to join him on tour, but she had other plans. “I model because I like to accomplish things. It would be easy for me to just hang around with Todd and do nothing, but blab on the phone all day while shining the furniture and his four gold records lying around our house,” explains our Miss November 1974. “But, I like to be independent. I want to have my own career, my own identity.” Not only does Bebe have her own identity, but her rock girlfriend status made her the inspiration behind director Cameron Crowe’s Penny Lane character from his hit movie, Almost Famous. When Cameron first met Bebe in the Seventies, he learned how Bebe and Todd supported each other’s love affairs including hers were with legendary musicians like David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Elvis Costello and Steven Tyler. Our Playmate of the Month was the most desired rock girlfriend from New York City to Hollywood, a fact she can’t even fathom. “Sometimes, when I see my picture in a magazine or watch Todd play at a concert for thousands of people, I almost have to pinch myself when I realize that less than three years ago, I was just a nobody from Virginia Beach who didn't even know that there was a Todd Rundgren or such a thing as rock culture and the lifestyle that goes along with it,” gushes our grateful Miss November 1974. “For instance, Eric Clapton was in town for a concert. Todd and I were invited backstage, at which point Eric asked him to sit in. Then Mick Jagger walked into the dressing room, and later, when Todd was onstage, Mick and I talked and he said, 'Why don't you and Todd come over to my place tomorrow?' His place turned out to be Andy Warhol's summer cottage out on Montauk Point. And since then, he's phoned several times from London just to find out how we are.” However, no love affair is complete without its share of drama and that came in the form of a family secret for Bebe. At the peak of Steven Tyler’s drug addiction, she found herself pregnant with his child, Liv Tyler, and feared for her daughter’s future. She and Todd Rundgren decided to raise the baby as their own, with Liv only finding out the truth when she was eleven years old. Bebe has moved on since then and is now well on her way of going from rock girlfriend to rock star with her latest album, Hard Love.