Michelle Phillips Is Ready to Talk About It

She spent her youth redefining the sound of pop with the Mamas and the Papas — and the next 50 years looking for something she could call her own. Now, she’s finally telling her whole story, on her own terms

- ANGIE MARTOCCIO

THERE’S A MODEST HOME in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Cheviot Hills, with a stucco roof, a jacaranda tree out front, and a 1989 Mercedes 560SL in perfect condition resting in the driveway. Beyond a front porch with wind chimes and a couch pillow that reads “This is our happy place,” past a kitchen with copper pots hanging above the sink, you’ll find a living room with a floral stained-glass lamp standing in a corner. It’s the very lamp that Michelle Phillips seized from her Bel-Air mansion in 1969, when she decided to leave her husband behind. “I walked out with three things,” Phillips, 78, says. “My daughter, her crib, and the Tiffany lamp that I had to go back and steal, because I was so afraid of John.”

John Phillips — the cruel and domineering yet charismatic and gifted figure who dubbed himself L.A.’s “Wolf King” — has loomed large in her life ever since they met in the early months of the Kennedy administration, when Michelle was still a teenager. In the years that followed, they had a whirlwind romance and formed the Mamas and the Papas, scoring six Top 10 hits and redefining pop with their sunny, tight harmonies. When average Americans pictured hippies, these were the four people they saw, thanks to their frequent TV appearances.

Michelle was 24 when the group imploded, along with her marriage, leaving deep scars. She went on to a long career as an actress, working on everything from Knots Landing to Star Trek: The Next Generation, and a series of Hollywood romances (not to mention an eight-day marriage to Dennis Hopper). “She swore to herself that she would never, ever be in a position again where she would be dependent on a man,” says her daughter, Wilson Phillips singer Chynna Phillips. “She’s a determined woman.”