Sixty-four-year-old, Donna Loren, was still in her teens when she signed a seven-year contract to become the face of Dr. Pepper in 1963. The angelic young starlet subsequently fronted numerous advertising campaigns for the popular soft drink throughout the decade and also appeared on icon TV shows, such as Shindig, Batman and The Monkees.
In 1968, at the age of 21, with two years still remaining on her Dr. Pepper contract - and with 14 years of professional experience behind her - Donna decided to call time on her successful career in order to raise a family.
Apart from a brief flurry of musical activity in the early 1980s, the reclusive star remained largely out of the limelight - living the quiet life in Hawaii and running a chain of clothes stores with her second husband, Jered Cargman - until circumstances persuaded her the time was right to make a comeback.
Donna Loren: A Glorious Return
"I’m newly returning to live in California after being in Hawaii for 15 years," explains Donna, her lovely soft voice unravaged by time. "Life is a real journey, so in Hawaii, about two years ago, I started writing some songs and I hadn’t written songs for many years.
"It kind of coincided with a piano that I’ve had for a very long time - probably as long as I’ve been retired - and when I brought it to Hawaii, the elements started corroding it and it almost became firewood until I had an opportunity to send it back to New York and have it completely restored.
"Upon its return, some feelings came up and they started coming out in the form of songs. I decided to do something about it, so I took action and after so many years, I went into the studio and recorded one after another - and it was a process over several months."
Donna Loren: Love it Away
Donna Loren's latest album, Love it Away - featuring eight original self-penned tracks - was recorded in Hawaii and California in 2009. It was produced by the lady herself and released in January, 2010. Critically-acclaimed and featuring contributions from renowned session musicians like Bob Glaub and Carol Kaye, it was Donna's first album of entirely new material since 1965.
"So ultimately, I had the music all together and I wanted to do a tribute to Hawaii," she reveals, "and so a great photographer – probably the most noted photographer in Hawaii - named Mark Arbeit, came over from Oahu to the big island to shoot all day and capture the beach where I was living at the time and just glorify paradise, at least my paradise.
"Then we put it together and Love it Away I wrote as an inspiration from what was going on in the Middle East. That was breaking my heart and now at last, there’s been some openings, and some correction in the direction, which is amazing.
"Literally, I was singing Love it Away and then in Tahrir Square, several months ago, we saw the liberation of Mubarek and now Gaddafi. It’s like the Cradle of Civilisation is where it seems that liberty is beginning to manifest itself in a very difficult way, but that’s where my mind was at.
"Then in tandem with that, living in Hawaii, which is a very spiritual place to live - especially as long as I did - I tended to go in and contemplate quite a bit and connect with the land and connect with nature and the idea of raising the frequency on this planet became a very important issue with me.
"I discovered a book that talked about the actual changes in our universe that astrologists and astronomers are following and they are actually saying that the frequency is raising and that there is beginning to be a new vibration and that it’s where the old frequency was resting.
"All of the experience that I’ve felt - the dominant patriarchal hierarchy in charge that is basically focused on war and corruption - and it’s just lies. Basically a very dark energy that now with this raising of the frequency is opening the heart and it’s registering with the heart, rather than with that lower warrior mentality.
"So anyway, those philosophies and those ideas and ideals mean so much to me and so that’s kind of where my head is at and that's why my dedication is to making music now and having the opportunity to reconnect with the public at large and just come out after so long. I seriously haven’t met anyone who took such a hiatus and decided to get their feet wet again. I’ve heard of people taking 10 years off, 15 years off, 20 years off, but not 40!"
Donna Loren: Beach Blanket Bingo
Suite 101: So this your first album since the ‘60s?
"That’s right. I had an album called Beach Blanket Bingo and that was my one and only album. I had many many recordings during my career and from the age of nine to 21, I was recording - but not until 2009, did I go back into the studio seriously.
"In the ‘80s, I did have access to Amigo Studios at Warner Brothers because I was part of the Warner Brothers family. During my divorce from my first husband, songs were coming out and that was sort of my therapy, which turned into another album called Magic and that’s a collection of songs that I never thought anyone would ever even hear!"
Doren Loren: Shakin' All Over
The second track on Love it Away, is a reworking of the Johnny Kidd and the Pirates classic, Shakin' All Over - a number Donna memorably performed on Shindig in 1965 and one she recently sang online via Stage it.com. Why did she decide to revisit the song and how did it initially feel singing it again after so many years?
"Oh, I loved that," she enthuses. "I just loved that process. I remember how I felt on Shindig when I sang it and I remember that it was a very cultural experience for me being a female and having a sense of sensuality, not sexuality because at the time I was too young, too inexperienced.
"I chose what I wore and the network didn’t really care for wanting to project that image in 1964 or 1965, whenever it was, and so I was put on a pedestal to isolate me from having any contact with any of the dancers or any of the musicians that were on the set.
"It was like their way of saying, 'You know, this is a little taboo'. I remember the feeling I had when I was put up on this very tall pedestal singing it and feeling a little isolated. All these years later, I met a wonderful pianist and I said, 'I don’t want to do it the Johnny Kidd way – I don’t want to do it with the guitar; I’d like to do it with piano'.
"He started playing and all that sensuality started coming back and then, of course, with all my life experience, it was just a whole new sort of cleansing and purging of what had happened in the past, a little bit of shame if you will, like, 'Ooh, you shouldn’t have those feelings' and this time, I just let it all go. 'Screw it; I’m gonna go with it!' and it was actually quite rewarding."
Suite 101: Was it your idea to intersperse the new video with clips from the ‘60s?
"Yes it was. I met this fellow from New Jersey who had some pristine footage of the Shindig show because so much of the footage that’s floating around is what they call a kinescope from the video and it's a mystery as to where the original videos vanished to.
"This fellow proved it to me that he does have these very pristine videos, so that’s when I had the opportunity to intermesh the new with the old and just kind of bridge that gap. I got the idea from Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole, when she did Unforgettable - when she used her dad’s footage and then superimposed herself into that video.
"That always impressed me, so I became my own child or something! If it was more high-budget, it would be a whole lot better. I admire Gwen Stefani’s video work, but I know that her budget is many more zeros than mine right now. I would say that my videos are crude compared to how they could be."
Donna Loren: A Star all Over Again
Suite 101: How does it feel being a star this time around?
"I think when I first stepped out, it was like coming out of a cocoon and I kind of stepped out of my comfort zone, so it’s hard for me to say. I really feel that it’s taking me a little time to adjust after living in a very remote situation for so long.
"Part of my process is that I’m writing a book as well and I’m talking about my career and about my childhood, which was rather unusual, and then my time in Hawaii because Hawaii, for me, was tremendously healing. Things happened in my childhood that I wasn’t aware of until much later, so it’s quite a creative process that I’m in and I'm enjoying that completely."
Doren Loren: Ageless Beauty
Older, wiser and clearly more at peace with the world following a difficult childhood and early adolescence, Donna Loren - after years in the creative wilderness - certainly seems to be enjoying her second shot at stardom.
At an age where many artists have long-since faded away - gracefully or otherwise - the '60s pin-up is enjoying a second lease-of-life, rejuvanated and raring-to-go, with an uncalculated spring-in-her-step and a keen anxiety to get back to doing what she does best.
Comments of You Tube, left by fans and well-wishers, have also been encouraging. "Age is just a number. Wow she is in her 60s! Still look sexy Donna and your voice is so sweet - you rock. AGELESS BEAUTY!" reads one. "Not this many women look this good in their 60s," reads another. What does Donna make of remarks such as these?
"Well, I really appreciate that because, my goodness, I left my career when I was 21 and all these years later...It’s been 43 years and I do appreciate the idea that a woman of my age and my experience is sort of in vogue now.
"When I look at Gloria Steinem and when I look at people like Jane Fonda and Barbara Streisand – people who have the integrity to maintain a certain youthfulness - as well as maturity and self-acceptance - and the ability to keep generating that energy, it's just a beautiful thing for me to feel like I can be a part of that now."
Adrian Peel - Adrian is an English freelance writer and journalist currently living in Mexico. Over the past eight years, he has had articles, features ...
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