By Jacquelyn R. Nicholson

"I came from the streets and from a street gang. You had to be in a street gang to survive. Every argument was always solved with a little punch-out. That was the sort of general rule I lived by then."

 Roger Daltrey, rock superstar of the sixties, film idol of the seventies, flashes a brilliant smile and raises a clenched fist that unfolds gently into a sort of salute to the "old" Roger Daltrey. The street fighting man/boy of the foppish Edwardian finery of then Teddey Boys ("we were England's original rebels against the older generation") and went out to kick ass- imagining his fist landing a swift upper-cut to the collective stiff upper lip of the English Establishment. That's all gone now, he says, Mellowed out as well, the unforgettable Daltrey of the Who, the group who made ultra-violence an art from, smashing their instruments on stage nightly demons, sang and shouted his audiences into the frenzied celebrations chat left them stunned, exhausted, drained of their anger. The Who sparked no Altamonts. "We pulled the violence right out of them,"　says Daltrey.

 Now he sits sprawled in a deck chair, poolside at the Beverly Wilshire hotel, claiming to have made peace with himself. He looks relaxed, head thrown back in the sunlight, legs dangling over the arm of his chair. Daltrey wears blue jeans and a work shirt open to the navel. Around his neck hangs a large silver cross that glints in the sun. There is a long dangerlous -looking scar on his stomach. "Nothing exciting, no big rumble. I swallowed a nail when I was a kid - it got stuck and rested," he says a bit sheepishly.

 His eyes are that clear transparent blue of movieland heroes, his hair a tangled mass of golden curls. At thirty-one, he looks like a streetwide English choir boy, half -punk, half-angel. People turn to look at him, even here at Beverly Hills' chicest inn to the famous, where the celebrities often seem to outnumber the "civilians." Two starlets look up from their watery Margaritas and quietly gawk. A group of middle-aged businessmen, huddled over their briefcases, peer briefly from behind lowered sunglasses. They can't quite place him, but they know, with that unique Hollywood sixth sense that instantly divides people into Somebodies and Nobodies, that this rather unkempt hippie type person is Somebody.

 

 Daltrey reminds obviously to the mild stir he causes. He talks rapidly, swallowing whale syllables, sometimes shouting over the din of the intercom that summons the Chosen to the Important Telephone Call.　In what amounts to one long breach, he talks about working on Tommy, his new film, Lisztomania (I'll drive the Catholic Church bananas, and don't take your mum"), how much he likes Ken Russell, who is "a genius and a sadistic bugger," the anxiety that sometimes grabs him despite his new "calm. "With a wink and a pat on the hand, he reassures me, "Don't worry about getting any of this down, luv - just relax and make it all up if you want."

Roger Daltrey grew up in Shepherd's Bush, a tough, working class neighborhood.　His family was poor. He worked for a time as a construction worker, then later as a sheet metal worker. Fifteen years later, he drives a vintage Rolls Royce and lives outside of London in a rambling seventeenth century manor house where he raises over two hundred head of cattle.

But his conversation is still laced with Cockney expressions (men are "mate", women "luv"), and despite his new-life style as country squire, he can still rattle off the strange rhiming slang like any good West End bloke. "Whistle and flute is suit, rosie lee is teea, Hampstead Heath is teeth," he intones patiently. ---------- *snips*

Daltrey is married to a beautiful American fashion model named Heather Taylor. ( At home, he calls her "Green, short for "Jolly Green Giant.")---------- *snips*

 Now he is trying desperately to remember how many children he has. 

"Three children, no, four children no, no, five children." He smileswith wide-eyed innocence. "but they were all very wanted, luv. -----------*snips*

He believes in couples living together before marriage, although his own live-in arrangement was hardly planned. It just happened.

"Actually, it was a funny thing. I met her at a club in England and took her home to see my electric train collection," he lees. "I have quite a collection, you know. betas etchings. So she just came home and stayed on. Now, I guess we have a pretty traditional marriage. We do everything together. -------------*snips*

 Women adore Daltrey - from twelve-year-old teenies who cherish their Tommy T-shirt loke pieces of the true cross, to older women who respond to his mischievous street urchin quality. One wonders what sort of women attract him? ------------*snips*

Artfully, I change the subject. "So many of your countrymen - Rod Stewart, John Lennon - have moved to America. Would you ever consider it?"

 He suddenly grows serious. "I have such a love-hate thing with America. But I do love the people. They're so free - they know how to enjoy themselves. England is getting pretty gray. What's so bad about our problems, England's problems, is the tremendous apathy of the people. It's all right that all these people leave because of the tax situation, but if everybody leaves, who's going to change it? Well, I'm going to try and change it, so the taxes at least become reasonable. And the only way you can change it is to stay. Look, I'm not a millionaire, because of taxes, but I probably will be someday. Right now I have enough to live on and that suits me. But, in every interview I do, I go on complaining about what's happening there. I believe if you keep shouting long enough and loud enough people will start getting together and things will change." He shakes his head. "It's terrible, the creative drain from England. It's just like a flood, and what's that going to do to the morale of the people? We're going to be left with a nation of laborers.

 "I've become a farmer myself. I've taken it up seriously in the last four years. I had some money to do it. Most people buy up blocks of flats and charge people rent. The day I have to make a living out of charging somebody for a place to live will be the day I give up. 

 "Any mug can come along and buy land and sit back and ignore it until it turns into wilderness, but if you buy it and really try to make it productive - that's a challenge. It's not easy., but something I'm trying I'm trying to do. Like, I spent a lot of time fixing up my house and it's really a great place to live now. Everuone thinks I did the whole flash thing, spent a lot of money to live very high. Actually, I bought a big old house that was falling down and it needed me."

 "Do you keep touch with friends from the old days? Do they come visit you at the firm?" 

"Oh, yeah," He brightens. "I have a lot of friendships from that time. Like Mick Jagger. I like Mick socially, but I'm not very good at being in with the in crowd. I'm okay like this, one to one, but I go to parties and immediately think, 'What the f**k am I doing here?' and leave. I don't know why I'm like that."

 "Besides your farming and more albums, what other plans do you have for the future?"

 He speaks quickly, with excitement. "I'm going to do my own movie; not actually produce it, but put up a lot of the money. I feel good about putting some of my money from Tommy back into the British film industry, which is really on its last leg. I've got this story, a great true-life story about an English criminal who I'll play. In a funny way, his story is very similar to the lifestyle I've led, me sort of longing for some sort of recognition. I channeled his through crime. If you come from the streets, you've got how many ways out? You can either work in a factory and become an ordinary geezer. Or," a shade of bitterness creeps into his voice, "if you've got any spark of wanting to be a total individual, you can become one of four things - a footballer, a boxer, a criminal, a pop singer." A sudden bright smile, whoop of a laugh, "I guess that's why I'll still be rockin'in my wheelchair. Rock and roll was my savior.

  Woman adore daltrey - from twenty-year-old teenies to older woman who respond to his street urchin quality