Charles James was a dear friend of mine when I was a little boy - 17, 18. He was mad as a hatter. I had no idea how famous he was.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I first got to know Charles in the late seventies when I wrote an article and then a book about him and I think at the time he came across as quite appealing, it was probably the height of his popularity.
When I was a kid, I always looked up to people like B.B. King and Ray Charles.
In the sixties, everyone you knew became famous. My flatmate was Terence Stamp. My barber was Vidal Sassoon. David Hockney did the menu in a restaurant I went to. I didn't know anyone unknown who didn't become famous.
Johnny Mercer was my father's best friend and became mine as well. And Harold Arlen, whom I would call Uncle Harry, and Harry Warren: those were ones who I really became close to.
I was enamored with Charles Dickens as a kid, and his names blew me away.
I met Ray Charles at 14, and he was 16. But he was like a hundred years older than me.
A good friend of mine was Lucy Ball. Her mother and my mother were best friends.
I was a James Brown junkie as a kid.
James was my given name, but I was a junior; so I was Jamie as a kid.
I discovered John Fante when I was 17 years old - strangely, not through Charles Bukowski, but through William Saroyan, who was his drinking buddy.