It’s 1971 and singer-songwriter Jackson Browne is in London, England staying at an apartment owned by Stephen Stills. Not yet famous, he is still a year away from cutting his first tracks to vinyl. However, Browne had already established himself as a popular songwriter with an eclectic collection of artists, including Joan Baez, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Linda Ronstadt, The Byrds, Tom Rush and Nico, recording his songs. Having endeared himself within the music establishment, there was a lot of excitement about Browne, who was in London to perform some shows and was writing songs which would appear on his debut album.
Well, during his stay in London Browne got a surprise when a beautiful woman showed up at the apartment. A few years his senior, the woman revealed that Stills had also promised her use of the apartment as she began what was to be a long journey to find herself after suffering a broken heart which was so shattered that it could never be repaired. With long auburn hair, a slim figure and a sad look in her bright eyes, Browne and the stranger spent ten days together sharing the apartment, and eventually a lot more. A fleeting moment in both of their lives, the woman eventually left to continue her travels, leaving Browne behind with his guitar and memories of her. Where she was going was unclear. Amsterdam? India? Morocco? Wherever she was going, the woman left one hell of an impression on Browne, who wrote one of his most beautiful ballads about her. The song, ‘Something Fine,” was released on his 1972 self titled debut album, and the woman was Salli Sachse. Salli was a friend of mine, and a few days ago I learnt that she died. Since then, my mind has been filled with memories and thoughts of her.
Now I’m not going to say that Salli was an intimate friend of mine, nor was she someone I knew well. I only met her once. I keep a memory close to my heart when I travelled to her seaside art gallery on Windansee Beach in La Jolla, California, where Salli served me tea and we talked about her life and short-lived film career for an interview I did with her. Although she had a colorful career, it really was a vanity piece for me, because Salli was never one of the big stars of the 1960’s Her career was incredibly niche, and her fans were amongst film buffs who fell in love with her via her appearances in bit parts and walk-ons in many of American International Pictures’ B-grade films of the late 1960’s. This is how I first fell in love with Salli. I was one of those kind of film buffs.
Most famous as a returning member of the “Beach Party Gang” in the popular film series from the mid 1960’s, I first spotted Salli in a scene from 1964’s “Muscle Beach Party,” during the “Runnin’ Wild” musical number where Frankie Avalon, in an attempt to make Annette Funicello jealous, dances with both Salli and her co-star Linda Opie while singing for Lucianna Paluzzi. Salli was immediately recognizable with her long brown hair pulled back in a tight ponytail and her eyes so bright they could outshine the California sun. Once she was on my radar, I began to find her, again and again, in all of the other Beach Party films, which were shown annually every summer on CITY-TV’s Afternoon Movies broadcasts during my youth. Salli became my favorite beach girl. In the years before the internet, I became aware of her presence in the AiP films, although I didn’t even know her name.
Originally from San Diego, Salli spent her youth as a fixture at Windansea Beach in nearby La Jolla and was a teenage model and beauty pageant winner. At age 19 Salli married her sweetheart, folk singer Peter Sachse, who sang in a band called The Green Grass Group, when he wasn’t in college classes studying psychology. Young and in love, Peter and Salli were a good-looking pair with a bright future ahead of them, and things were about to get even more interesting a year into their marriage. One afternoon pals Mike Donner and Lee Teacher, who created the cartoon surf mascot Hot Curl, approached Salli and a group of her friends on the beach and asked, “Who wants to be in a movie?” Working with AiP on a Hot Curl project that never saw completion the artists were approached by producers Sam Arkoff and Jim Nicholson who asked if they knew any real-life surfers and bikini girls. Having had unexpected success with the film “Beach Party” in 1963, the producers were looking to expand the series into an entire franchise of films and were looking for a permanent ensemble of authentic surfside kids to give the films’ stars Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon, two Italian kids from the East Coast, some genuine California beach cred.
“Mike and Lee came down to Windansea Beach and said ‘Hey, who wants to go to Hollywood,’” Salli said to me for during our 2009 interview. “About fifteen of us piled into woodies and drove up to LA. We changed into our bikinis to meet producers Sam Arkoff and Jim Nicholson, and we lined up in their offices at AIP on Sunset Boulevard…They looked at us and said, ‘You, you, you, you…don’t call us, we’ll call you.’ In all they chose eight of us; four girls and four guys.”
Over the next few years Salli appeared in all of the Beach Party movies and their numerous spin-offs, including “Muscle Beach Party,” “Bikini Beach,” “Beach Blanket Bingo,” “Pajama Party,” “Sgt. Dead Head,” “Ski Party,” “How to Stuff a Wild Bikini,” and “Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine.” Zany and fast paced goof ball comedies, AiP’s Beach Party films were surprise successes that featured classic film guest stars and musical performances by some of America’s favorite pop acts and became immensely popular at afternoon matinees and drive-ins throughout middle America. “They were marketed towards teenagers in the mid-west who had never seen Malibu or California,” Salli said to me. “The theater owners did a lot to promote these movies when there were still drive-ins.”
But possibly the film’s most distinctive feature was that they had a titillating yet innocent eroticism to them, featuring beautiful girls and chiseled jaw hunks playing and dancing on the beach, with subtle sexual innuendo being scattered throughout the dialogue. Although they never got involved in the plots, the same background actors were prominently used over and over again and became so recognizable that eventually they got their own fans too. Salli was one of those girls who made up the eye candy on the beach. Often teamed up with real life pal Linda Opie, the pair received the nicknames “the bookends.” Similar in height and build, both girls had long hair and were almost identical when it was pulled back, except Linda was the blonde while Salli was the brunette.
After a few years the popularity of the Beach Party films began to taper off, and the series was quietly retired, but Salli continued to appear in other AiP features that were swaying away from the fun and sun and into darker and more divisive territory. Salli can be seen in AiP’s pair of racing films, “Fireball 500” and “Thunder Alley,” and then appeared in the biker film “The Devil’s Angels.”
But when Salli travelled to Hong Kong to make the spy spoof “The 1000 Eyes of Su-Muru” in 1966, a tragedy struck that would impact her world forever. After three days of filming, Salli received word that her husband Peter had been killed. Peter had been doing some stunt flying in a small airplane being flown by pal Phillip Bent, Linda Opie’s husband, when something went wrong and they crashed into the sea. “They were flying Phillip’s brother’s plane, doing loops and showing off to their surfer friends on the beach,” Salli said to me in a ‘matter of fact’ tone. “Then they stalled out and went down right in front of all their surfer friends. The beach crowd knew whose plane it was, but they didn’t know who was in it. Surfers paddled out to the plane, but my husband drowned with his feet tangled in rope and Phillip hit his head and died immediately.”
Salli immediately left Hong Kong to return to California where she would have to adjust her life to being a 23-year-old widow. Her entire life was changed forever, and her heart was shattered.
But despite her fragility and broken heart, Salli accepted what would become her most prominent film role in 1967 when she appeared opposite Peter Fonda in Roger Corman’s cult classic “The Trip.” Written by Jack Nicholson, the film was an LSD film that followed Peter Fonda through a drug induced journey. Salli, in the role of “The Freak Out Girl,” appears throughout the film painted in psychedelics body paint as Fonda’s drug induced guide. Although she gave a memorable performance in the film, this would be the high point of her acting career. “It was the first time I had a co-starring role, but my heart was just not in it anymore,” Salli told me. “I felt so wounded. I just didn’t have the energy to fight for roles. I was just grief-stricken. It was a difficult time.”
What may be of interest to record collectors, Salli is pictured on the cover of “The Trip’s” excellent soundtrack which was written and performed by The Electric Flag. A dynamic album, it’s one of the better soundtracks to come out of the AiP catalogue and can often been found at record stores and shows. I was excited when I first found my copy, and I would have bought it strictly for the music, but the reason I really wanted it was because Salli is on the cover.
Salli made another notable appearance in 1967’s “Wild in the Streets” (read our Vinyl Story about the “Wild in the Street’s Soundtrack” and it’s theme song “The Shape of Things to Come” here), and made her final screen appearance in a 1969 episode of “Mannix.” But after that, Salli left acting behind, never to appear on film again. “I was grief stricken and I was really searching for stability and spirituality,” Salli told me. “Something to anchor me because I was still in shock.”
Salli eventually found solace in Laurel Canyon, where she became a part of the crowd of musicians that was putting the LA neighborhood on the map as a musical mecca. Becoming the official photographer for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Salli eventually moved into a house owned by Peter Tork which she shared with eight other people. “The house had formerly belonged to Wally Cox, but now it was a hippie house,” Salli said, of life in Laurel Canyon. “There was a big music room, and all the musicians would come over. Crosby, Stills and Nash would come over after their recording sessions, and Joni Mitchell, and The Mamas and the Papas, Jimi Hendrix. There were things going on all the time. It was an amazing scene. They were all recording and bickering and fighting, and it was amazing.”
The music and people of Laurel Canyon was like a temporary band aid on her soul, but Salli was still dealing with extreme grief. In an attempt to heal, Salli became interested in metaphysics and began taking meditation classes. Through this, she met a couple from Europe who encouraged her to leave Los Angeles. The couple had been living in a windmill in Amsterdam, and they were leaving for India and told Salli she could have access to it if she wanted. The invitation was very inviting, and Salli packed a bag and decided she would go abroad for awhile and see what was out in the world for her. Her first stop was to visit some people she knew in Wales, and then she travelled for a stay in London, which is where Jackson Browne came into the picture.
In all honesty, Salli didn’t tell me very much about Jackson Browne, and while Browne has made reference to a woman he met in London, he has never revealed very much publicly about his time with Salli either. But, after their ten days together, Salli was off again. There was some talk about her heading down to Morocco, but Salli ultimately found her way to Amsterdam and that windmill.
After Salli left London, Browne, wrote “Something Fine” about their time together. An emotional ballad, the song is about fleeting relationships that come into your life for a short moment but leave a distinct mark. A year after the London encounter, Browne was back in Los Angeles to record his debut album, and “Something Fine” was included on the track list. Of course, “Doctor My Eyes” became the hit song that launched Browne into being one of the most celebrated singer-songwriters of the 1970’s. However “Something Fine” didn’t go unnoticed and was released as the B-side to the album’s follow up single, “Rock Me On the Water.” A beautifully crafted song, “Something Fine” remains to be a popular deep cut beloved by music fans who recognize its intensity and emotion.
While Jackson Browne was becoming a music icon in LA, Salli spent the next eight years in Europe where she gained an interest in painting, which became her primarily trade throughout the rest of her life. Although time eventually healed her emotional wounds, she never completely got over Peter and never married again. At the end of the 70’s Salli moved back to Los Angeles where she did some more modeling while getting a degree in fine art and eventually worked as an art therapist. Eventually she purchased a little home near Windansea Beach and would set her paintings up on her patio and along her picket fence and sell them to the people who would pass by on the way to the beach.
And that is where I met Salli. Having gotten to know actor Aron Kincaid, who appeared in the AiP Beach Movies alongside Salli, I asked him if he knew who she was. After years of seeing her in AiP films, I still didn’t know her name. Aron knew it had to be one of “the bookends” and concluded it was probably Salli. He still knew Salli from various reunions held by the former AiP actors over the years and put us in contact with one another. I remember I completely gushed when I first spoke to Salli over the phone, thinking it was so odd to be talking to my favorite Beach Party girl, but she must have thought I was alright and arrangements were made for me to go and visit her upon my next trip to California. In the fall of 2009 I took a four-hour train ride down the coast and spent a beautiful afternoon with Salli amongst her art. In her 60s at the time I met her, Salli still had a youthful look to her and was just as beautiful as she was when she was making movies. I only stayed a short while, being careful not to overstay my welcome, before jumping on the next train for the long ride back to Hollywood. Salli was warm and wonderful, and just an incredible lady. She and I stayed in touch for years to come, primarily over social media in which Salli was extremely active. From sharing photos from lunch gatherings with friends, to awe inspiring beach side photographs that captured the romanticism of California’s surf culture, Salli continued to share snapshots of her life with her friends and followers.
But I’d like to share one personal story about an interaction with Salli which meant the world to me. Many years after I met her a photo of myself with pals Martin Boruta and Dan Collins was posted on-line at a film opening in Toronto. A small affair, I can’t even remember the name of the documentary, but I do remember the awkward photo of the three of us dressed up in our finest suits in front of the sponsor backdrop. Well, being tagged on the photo, I remember Salli made a comment where she simply stated, “You look so handsome.” For some people that might seem like a throw away comment, but, in all honesty, I think it was the first time in my life that anybody had used the word “handsome” to describe me. I’m being honest here, and not simply self deprecating, but through most of my life my looks were not my greatest asset. I was interesting, funny, smart, talented, kind, but not handsome. I eventually grew into my looks as I approached middle age. But here she was, the beach girl I saw dancing with Frankie Avalon one afternoon on CITY-TV, telling ME that I was handsome! It was a surreal moment, but a moment that meant the entire world to me.What can I say? Salli Sachse was indeed something fine. Jackson Browne wrote a wonderful song in which we can always remember her forever.
“The future hides and the past just slides, England lies between
Floating in a silver mist, so cold and so clean
And California’s shaking like an angry child will
Who has asked for love and is unanswered still
And you know that I’m looking back carefully.
‘Cause I know that there’s still something there for me
But you said, “Morocco,” and you made me smile
And it hasn’t been that easy for a long, long while
And looking back into your eyes, I saw them really shine
Giving me a taste of something fine, something fine.”
