I didn't want a big thing made about it. Rock historian Beverly Mandheim says there's no question Valens was involved with Fox-Coots, but that she wasn't his only infatuation. "It was horrible. Her response? "Of course," she says, "no one believed them. When Fox-Coots reminisces about Valens it can seem as if a teen-ager is talking through an adult body. I was not sweet and innocent, I was more of a hell-raiser. "I don't want to talk about it," she says. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. "The studio told me they'd take them out, and I said I need some kind of guarantee. I wouldn't even get on a plane until I was 27 years old.". It was a nice, easy date.". Valens’ hit records included ″Come On, Let’s Go,″ ″Donna,″ and a rock version of a traditional Mexican folk song, ″La Bamba.″, Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. She was only 16 when Ritchie died. And whenever she laid her head on his shoulder, he always smelled so clean, like soap and water. ", "He wanted to know all about Ritchie," recalls Fox-Coots, who accompanied Presley to a penthouse party at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. "I remember the scene where Ritchie and I go to a drive-in," she says wistfully. Hoping to capitalize on the brief romance, her father arranged for her to sing two songs, "Lost Without You" and "Now That You're Gone," on the Pop label. The absurdity of Fox-Coots' situation doesn't escape her. I was a kid. Donna Ludwig Zodiac Sign is , Ethnicity White & religion Christian.. Donna Ludwig Net Worth 2018. "Originally they had Ritchie as this Chicano toughie ... Ritchie wasn't like that at all. ", Fox-Coots remembers meeting Olson at the funeral. I loved my mother and sister and brother.". She and six of her friends were cruising the main drag in downtown San Fernando, in the white convertible her daddy had bought her, top down, radio blaring. Suddenly a new song lilted over the airwaves and almost made her run off the road. "God, it was so long ago," she says. I liked Ritchie a lot, I really cared, but I can't say I loved him. Once I dreamed Ritchie came and sat on the foot of my bed and said, 'Everything's okay.' He didn't swear. Although she had lived in Watsonville since 1962, Valenzuela sometimes spent time in the San Fernando Valley house north of Los Angeles that her son bought for her with his music earnings in 1958, Amezquita said. "It was a 360-degree shift from the first draft," she says. Age 75 Years old. The record, which never became popular, remains an acute embarrassment to Fox-Coots. It was just very, very touching. This guy {from Columbia Pictures} says, 'Trust me.' "Ritchie deserves one. ", For almost 30 years now people have been asking her if Valens was the love of her life. she says, totally absorbed. Looking back on it now, Donna is frequently asked if Ritchie was the "love of her life." In reality, Fox-Coots says, "I was something of a little rebel. "I was attracted to him because he was such a nice man, er...I mean, because he was a nice boy. So he had a girlfriend. She feels strongly that Valens' recording company took financial advantage of the family after his death. He called out of the blue one evening and drawled, "Ya wanna go with Elvis tonight? Her independent streak gave her the gumption to date Valens against the vehement opposition of her father. "I have to tell myself, 'No, Donna! It just upsets me too much." ", Sometimes even she has trouble believing it ever happened. I didn't want a big thing made about it. I liked Ritchie a lot, I really cared, but I can't say I loved him. Did he write his own songs? ", In the wake of "La Bamba," some people have questioned just how big a role Fox-Coots really played in Valens' life. I hung up the phone and called my attorney. It was the same song Valens had sung to her over the telephone a year before, after they had decided to date other people. Donna told The Post that he would even allude to them getting married someday. He didn't swear. CITRUS HEIGHTS, CALIF. -- The first hint Donna Ludwig had that she might become a rock 'n' roll legend came on a bright October day in 1958. Unfortunately, Ritchie never had the chance to propose. "We used to argue about that. Ritchie Valens was born in 1941 and skyrocketed to stardom at an incredibly young age. Her son, born Ricardo Valenzuela, grew up in Central California farm camps and worked as a laborer in the orchards of Campbell. He didn't get drunk." "I remember Ritchie saying he'd written this song for his girl, Donna," says Bob Keane, his former manager, "but I never heard anything else about her.". I loved my mother and sister and brother." Donna's father didn't approve of the relationship, because, remember, this was the '50s:  Donna was white, and Ritchie was Latino. Elvis Presley, whom she had never met, had one of his bodyguards arrange a date with her so that he could ask her all about Valens. She had cried hearing it then, not because she suspected he would ever make her famous by recording it, but because she was 15 years old and to have a boy sing a song he'd written about her, even late at night when no one else could hear, seemed enough like a dream come true. The world didn't learn that a real-life Donna had inspired the classic teen-age lament, which sold almost a million copies in the late '50s, until five months later when the 17-year-old Valens died in the same plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper. "I really can't believe this is happening again," the 45-year-old business executive says. Trust me! The woman, Diane Olson, showed up at Valens' funeral and told his family they'd been engaged. Big deal. The teen-ager probably dated while on tour in Hawaii, and he was apparently involved with a mystery woman from New York at the time of his death. "Could he read music? I was devastated. I don't. Since then Fox-Coots has married twice more. She flips over a few pages to another photograph. On Feb 2, 1959, 17-year-old Ritchie died in a plane crash, along with Buddy Holly and J.P. "The Big Bopper." "I liked it better that way.". They would date other people, but whenever he was in town they would be together. Only this time they're a little different. The men in her office describe her as just one of the boys, a down-to-earth career woman with a ready, throaty laugh. Not only were the steamy encounters between her and Valens deleted, but he is portrayed by actor Lou Diamond Phillips as a sensitive, caring young man who is constantly teased by his older brother Bob about his sexual innocence. The Music Legend's Love Life Was Complicated, Natalie Wood Remarried the Same Man Twice – Get to Know Her Marital History, Olivia DeJonge Will Play Priscilla Presley in an Upcoming Elvis Biopic, Nicki Minaj Announces a New Single With a Never Before Seen Pregnant Pic, Dove Cameron and Thomas Doherty's Relationship Is Still Going Strong, 'Morganville Vampires' Author Rachel Caine Passes From Cancer, There's Going to be a Third Season of 'You' and We've Got the Details. She has two daughters who grew up bragging to their friends that their mother was the actual Donna. In the mid-1950s, the family moved to the Los Angeles suburb of Pacoima, where the teen-ager attended high school and began playing in a rock band. Donna Ludwig estimated net worth in 2018 is Under Review.Here we also added Donna Ludwig previous years Net Worth, Income, Salary & Property details. She received more than 8,000 lettersafter a fan magazine printed her address. Whenever he'd be back in town, they'd get together. Yet hardly anyone in the Valenzuela family had met her before he died, and one of Valens' former business associates recently stated that Fox-Coots was little more than a casual acquaintance of Valens. "He looked like Ritchie," she says, "but he was not the same kind of person." ", In "La Bamba," actress Danielle Von Zerneck portrays Donna as a giggly, rather demure schoolgirl. You know, things like that. She says she'd love to tell the world what it's like to be a living legend, but says she's never really felt like one. Eerily enough, it was known that Ritchie had a tremendous fear of flying after witnessing two planes collide when he was younger. "I asked if she dated Ritchie and she said yes. They always met between classes in the hallways at school. It's no accident that Fox-Coots doesn't list her father among her dear ones. I ran with a pack of girls and I was their leader.". Born in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles in a neighborhood called Pacoima, he was invited to join a band called The Silhouettes. She worked as a waitress, a farm worker, a bartender and a house cleaner. ", Fox-Coots says she and Valens had "an arrangement" after he dropped out of high school to record music and tour the country. "I was attracted to him because he was a nice man, er ..." She stops herself. She has never forgiven him for his "bigoted" rejection of Valens or for the recording deal he pressured her into after the singer's death. "I was 15 years old, for heaven's sakes," she exclaims. Here she is, a middle-aged woman who worries about her double chin, talking to the media about this kid who will be forever 17. I can remember them so clearly.". Back then, he was known as Ritchie Valenzuela. Although Movie Donna was more demure, according to The Washington Post, who interviewed the real Donna (who now goes by Donna Fox-Coots), real-life Donna had an "independent streak" that led her to date Ritchie.

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