Cleo Odzer
Encyclopedia
Cleo Odzer was an American writer, author of books on prostitution in Thailand
, the hippie culture
of Goa
, and cybersex
.
, New York City
and attended Franklin School (now Dwight School
) and Quintano’s School for Young Professionals, graduating from the latter in 1968. At about that time, she began writing about the music scene for a small Greenwich Village newspaper. She met Keith Emerson
, then member of the rock band The Nice
and later of Emerson, Lake & Palmer
, and they were briefly engaged. According to Odzer, Emerson broke off the engagement when he saw a Time Magazine article that published her photo and described her as a "Super Groupie
." Thereafter she recorded an album called The Groupies, produced by Alan Lorber
, which was essentially a 1969 recording of interviews with Cleo and some friends describing their adventures meeting (and sleeping with) rock musicians.
, Goa
in India
. Her experiences there, including heavy use of cocaine
and heroin, the international drug smuggling used to finance the stay, and her subsequent two-week incarceration, would later form the basis of her second book, Goa Freaks: My Hippie Years in India. (1995, ISBN 156201059X) For a time she followed the teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
in India.
in anthropology
from The New School for Social Research
in New York City with a thesis on prostitution in Thailand
. Beginning in 1987, she had spent three years in Thailand to research this topic. In her dissertation, she describes case studies of 17 people connected to the sex industry in Patpong
. She concludes that the economic opportunities provided by sex work do not translate into a higher status of women, because of persistent stigma and ideas about gender inequality in Thai society. Her experiences in Thailand were described in her first book, Patpong Sisters: An American Woman's View of the Bangkok Sex World (1994, ISBN 1559702818) In this work she describes the Thai prostitutes she got to know as quick-witted entrepreneurs rather than exploited victims, sometimes revered in their poor home villages. She also relates her own problematic affair with a Thai pimp boyfriend.
Following publication of the book, Odzer worked at Daytop
in New York, a drug rehabilitation organization.
From 1995 to 1998, Odzer produced several dozen episodes of her show Cleo's Adventures for Manhattan Neighborhood Network
Public-access television
. Her third book, Virtual Spaces: sex and the cyber citizen (1997, ISBN 0425159868) deals with cybersex
. She appeared in episode 1.21 of SexTV
in 1999, with a segment on cybersex.
some ten months after her death that her body had lain unclaimed in a morgue in Mapusa
for more than a month until finally she had been buried in Mapusa without a funeral, and that she had had AIDS. Saldanha also reports having seen Odzer use cocaine during an interview he had with her sometime before her death.
The 2002 documentary Last Hippie Standing
by Marcus Robbin covered the Goa scene and featured some of Cleo Odzer's old super-8
footage from the 1970s. She was interviewed for the film in Goa shortly before her death:
The film is dedicated to her memory.
Prostitution in Thailand
Prostitution in Thailand is illegal, although in practice it is tolerated and partly regulated. Prostitution is practised openly throughout the country. Local officials with commercial interests in prostitution often protect the practice. The precise number of prostitutes is difficult to assess;...
, the hippie culture
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
of Goa
Goa
Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...
, and cybersex
Cybersex
Cybersex, also called computer sex, Internet sex, netsex, mudsex, TinySex and, colloquially, cybering, is a virtual sex encounter in which two or more persons connected remotely via computer network send each other sexually explicit messages describing a sexual experience...
.
Childhood and being a groupie
She grew up in a wealthy Jewish family in ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and attended Franklin School (now Dwight School
Dwight School
The Dwight School is an independent, college preparatory school located on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Dwight offers the International Baccalaureate curriculum to students ages two through grade twelve. Approximately forty countries are represented among its student body.-History:Founded in 1872...
) and Quintano’s School for Young Professionals, graduating from the latter in 1968. At about that time, she began writing about the music scene for a small Greenwich Village newspaper. She met Keith Emerson
Keith Emerson
Keith Noel Emerson is an English keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of the Keith Emerson Trio, John Brown's Bodies, The T-Bones, V.I.P.s, P.P. Arnold's backing band, and The Nice , he was a founder of Emerson, Lake & Palmer , one of the early supergroups, in 1970...
, then member of the rock band The Nice
The Nice
The Nice were an English progressive rock band from the 1960s, known for their blend of rock, jazz and classical music. Their debut album, The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack was released in 1967 to immediate acclaim. It is often considered the first progressive rock album...
and later of Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Emerson, Lake & Palmer, also known as ELP, are an English progressive rock supergroup. They found success in the 1970s and sold over forty million albums and headlined large stadium concerts. The band consists of Keith Emerson , Greg Lake and Carl Palmer...
, and they were briefly engaged. According to Odzer, Emerson broke off the engagement when he saw a Time Magazine article that published her photo and described her as a "Super Groupie
Groupie
A groupie is a person who seeks emotional and sexual intimacy with a musician or other celebrity. "Groupie" is derived from group in reference to a musical group, but the word is also used in a more general sense, especially in casual conversation....
." Thereafter she recorded an album called The Groupies, produced by Alan Lorber
Alan Lorber
Alan Lorber was the leading arranger in the USA in the early 60s having created hits for many of the top artists of the day which amounted to 60 million dollars in sales. He is also a prolific music producer and composer. He was especially active in the 1960s and produced a wide variety of music....
, which was essentially a 1969 recording of interviews with Cleo and some friends describing their adventures meeting (and sleeping with) rock musicians.
Hippie years in Goa
In the early 1970s, Odzer traveled in Europe and the Middle East and worked as a model. She spent the late 1970s in the hippie culture of AnjunaAnjuna
Anjuna is a village in Goa, one of the twelve Brahmin comunidades of Bardez.Its church, St. Michael's Church, Anjuna, founded in 1595, is dedicated to S. Miguel, and celebrates the feasts of S. Miguel and Nossa Senhora Advogada . There are three large chapels in the parish: the one to S...
, Goa
Goa
Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...
in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. Her experiences there, including heavy use of cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
and heroin, the international drug smuggling used to finance the stay, and her subsequent two-week incarceration, would later form the basis of her second book, Goa Freaks: My Hippie Years in India. (1995, ISBN 156201059X) For a time she followed the teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
Osho , born Chandra Mohan Jain , and also known as Acharya Rajneesh from the 1960s onwards, as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh during the 1970s and 1980s and as Osho from 1989, was an Indian mystic, guru, and spiritual teacher who garnered an international following.A professor of philosophy, he travelled...
in India.
Return to U.S.; research in Thailand
After her return to the United States in 1980, Odzer underwent drug treatment. She entered college, then graduate school, and eventually obtained a Ph.D.Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
from The New School for Social Research
The New School
The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...
in New York City with a thesis on prostitution in Thailand
Prostitution in Thailand
Prostitution in Thailand is illegal, although in practice it is tolerated and partly regulated. Prostitution is practised openly throughout the country. Local officials with commercial interests in prostitution often protect the practice. The precise number of prostitutes is difficult to assess;...
. Beginning in 1987, she had spent three years in Thailand to research this topic. In her dissertation, she describes case studies of 17 people connected to the sex industry in Patpong
Patpong
Patpong is an entertainment district in Bangkok, Thailand, catering mainly, though not exclusively, to foreign tourists and expatriates. While Patpong is internationally known as a red light district at the heart of Bangkok's sex industry, it is in fact only one of numerous red-light districts...
. She concludes that the economic opportunities provided by sex work do not translate into a higher status of women, because of persistent stigma and ideas about gender inequality in Thai society. Her experiences in Thailand were described in her first book, Patpong Sisters: An American Woman's View of the Bangkok Sex World (1994, ISBN 1559702818) In this work she describes the Thai prostitutes she got to know as quick-witted entrepreneurs rather than exploited victims, sometimes revered in their poor home villages. She also relates her own problematic affair with a Thai pimp boyfriend.
Following publication of the book, Odzer worked at Daytop
Daytop
Daytop, or Daytop Village, is a drug addiction treatment organization with facilities in New York and New Jersey. It was founded in 1963 by Dr. Daniel Casriel M.D along with Monsignor William B. O'Brien a Roman Catholic priest and founder and the president of the World Federation of Therapeutic...
in New York, a drug rehabilitation organization.
From 1995 to 1998, Odzer produced several dozen episodes of her show Cleo's Adventures for Manhattan Neighborhood Network
Manhattan Neighborhood Network
Manhattan Neighborhood Network is a non-profit organization that broadcasts programming on four public-access television cable TV stations in Manhattan, New York and provides a community media center that enables individuals and groups to produce shows for its network.-History:It has operated...
Public-access television
Public-access television
Public-access television is a form of non-commercial mass media where ordinary people can create content television programming which is cablecast through cable TV specialty channels...
. Her third book, Virtual Spaces: sex and the cyber citizen (1997, ISBN 0425159868) deals with cybersex
Cybersex
Cybersex, also called computer sex, Internet sex, netsex, mudsex, TinySex and, colloquially, cybering, is a virtual sex encounter in which two or more persons connected remotely via computer network send each other sexually explicit messages describing a sexual experience...
. She appeared in episode 1.21 of SexTV
SexTV
SexTV is a Canadian documentary television series which explores many issues about human sexuality. The show premiered in 1998 and spun off a television channel called SexTV: The Channel in 2001....
in 1999, with a segment on cybersex.
Return to Goa, and death
Disappointed with life in New York, in 1999 Odzer returned to Goa, where some of the remaining old-time hippies disliked her because of the publicity her book had brought to the scene. She died there in 2001. A search of the Internet reveals various purported causes of death including brain tumor, stroke, brain hemorrhage, AIDS, drug overdose, and "female internal organ problems". A good friend of hers who had been corresponding with Odzer during her final stay in India, "Cookie" (with whom she recorded The Groupies), reports that Odzer's doctor (who had been away when she died) said she probably died of a stroke related to very high cholesterol and serious circulatory problems that she was being treated for during her final year, and that her body had been cremated after a small service. But a researcher, Arun Saldanha, who interviewed members of the Goa community about Odzer, reports being told by a psychiatrist at the Goa Medical CollegeGoa Medical College
Goa Medical College is a medical college and hospital in Goa, India. It was built by the Portuguese in 1842 as the Escola Médico-Cirúrgica de Goa . It is the oldest Medical College in Asia...
some ten months after her death that her body had lain unclaimed in a morgue in Mapusa
Mapusa
Mapusa also spelt at Mapuca, Mhapsa or Mapsa is a town in North Goa, India. It is situated 13 km north of the capital Panaji. The town is the headquarters of Bardez Taluka. It is located on the main highway NH-17, linking Mumbai to Trivandrum...
for more than a month until finally she had been buried in Mapusa without a funeral, and that she had had AIDS. Saldanha also reports having seen Odzer use cocaine during an interview he had with her sometime before her death.
The 2002 documentary Last Hippie Standing
Last Hippie Standing
Last Hippie Standing is a 45 min. documentary by the German filmmaker Marcus Robbin about Goa, India. The film compares the sixties and seventies hippie era with the situation in 2000....
by Marcus Robbin covered the Goa scene and featured some of Cleo Odzer's old super-8
Super 8 mm film
Super 8 mm film is a motion picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement of the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format....
footage from the 1970s. She was interviewed for the film in Goa shortly before her death:
- I don't know what the future brings, but I know what I don't want: New York is what I don't want, that culture is what I don't want; it's not right. I don't know what is right. I don't think our old life was right. I don't see a new culture that is right, but we have to continue trying, that's the best we can do, that's the best any of us can do, to keep trying. To make something that is peaceful for everybody, that makes people happy, that is fair to everybody. And that's all I want.
The film is dedicated to her memory.
External links
- Cleo Odzer's website
- Yahoo discussion group about Cleo Odzer
- Marcus Robbin, Interview with Cleo Odzer, January 2000, Goa, India. Overview, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9
- Excerpts from Patpong Sisters. Urban Desires, Volume 1, Issue 1, December 1994
- Cleo Odzer: Culture Shock. Urban Desires, Volume 2, Issue 2, June/July 1996. Interview about infidelity, especially in Thai society.
- Last Hippie Standing, complete documentary with interviews with Cleo
- Last Hippie Standing, preview clips, soundtrack, summary of the documentary
- Excerpts from album The Groupies