Beverle Lorence " Bebe" Buell ( ; born July 14, 1953) is an American singer and former model. She was Playboy magazine's November 1974 Playboy Playmate. Buell moved to New York in 1972 after signing a modeling contract with Eileen Ford, and garnered notability after her publicized relationship with musician Todd Rundgren from 1972 until 1978, as well as her liaisons with several during that time and over the following four decades. She is the mother of actress Liv Tyler (born 1977), whose biological father is Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler. Todd Rundgren is Liv's legal father, as he signed the birth certificate.
In 2001 Buell published her autobiography with St. Martin's Press (with Victor Bockris), Rebel Heart: An American Rock and Roll Journey. The book was a New York Times bestseller. The paperback was issued in 2002.
In 1985 Buell started another band, The Gargoyles, and released a couple of singles. A few large record companies showed interest, but the Gargoyles disbanded when Liv Tyler's paternity became public in 1991. Buell withdrew from performing for six years in the 1990s. She managed Liv's career as an international model and actress. She also represented actress Charis Michelsen.
After Liv left home in 1997, Buell recorded a solo effort with producer Don Fleming, released in 2000. She also performed around New York with the Bebe Buell Band and later with Boston musicians The Rudds and the Neighborhoods' drummer Johnny Lynch, forming a new band for a few shows that also included her husband, James Wallerstein.
In May 2009 Buell released her first recording in ten years, the single "Air Kisses for the Masses". She then recorded a 12-song album that can be downloaded on iTunes or Amazon MP3. Buell played a series of live shows in the New York City area to promote the single.
In September 2011 Buell released Hard Love, an aggressive rock album influenced by grunge and glam rock. It was produced by Wallerstein and Stephen DeAcutis. The 11-track record features original songs alongside covers of Gang of Four's "I Love a Man in Uniform" and "Baby Baby" by the English punk rock band the Vibrators.
From 1972 to 1978, Bebe Buell had a longterm, on and off, relationship with Todd Rundgren. In 1976, Buell became unexpectedly pregnant from a brief relationship with Steven Tyler. On July 1, 1977, Buell gave birth to future actress/model Liv Tyler, but Buell initially named her child Liv Rundgren and claimed that Todd Rundgren was the biological father to protect the child from Tyler's drug addiction. Rundgren and Buell ended their romantic relationship shortly after Liv's birth. At age 9, Liv found out that she was Steven Tyler's biological daughter.
In 1992, Buell married for the first time. She wed sometime-musician and actor Coyote Shivers. They divorced in 1999 after a year-long separation. Fox News: "'NCIS' Actress Pauley Perrette's Endless Nightmare Divorce" By Roger Friedman September 28, 2006 In 2002, she married musician Jim Wallerstein (aka Jim Walters) of Das Damen.
For his film Almost Famous, music journalist and filmmaker Cameron Crowe developed the "band-aid" character Penny Lane as a composite of a handful of girls he saw backstage in the late 1960s and early 1970s at concerts calling themselves the "Flying Garter Girls". One girl who went by the nickname Penny Lane is real-life Pennie Lane Trumbull, born in Portland, Oregon, in 1954. Though they were not in the Flying Garter Girls group, various other women have been described as Crowe's inspiration, for instance Pamela Des Barres and Buell. Buell partially inspired Crowe; he named a lead singer character Jeff Bebe.
Buell lived in New York and New Jersey before relocating to Nashville, Tennessee, in 2013.
with the B-Sides
with the Gargoyles
Two 45 releases:
Cassette EP, "Bebe Buell and the Gargoyles": "Vibrator"/"Lick it and Stick it"/"Take Me to Your Leader"/"Luv Reaction" (1988), FISHTRAKS
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