Ringo Starr in the Afternoon

Ringo has never been one for getting together only with himself. “With a Little Help from My Friends” is his past, present and future theme song; a large circle of musical acquaintances turned his post-Beatles recordings into supersessions. His new album, Can’t Fight Lightning — the label and release date of which are being negotiated — boasts contributions from Stephen Stills, Ron Wood, Harry Nilsson, George Harrison and Paul McCartney. Ringo and Peter Sellers remained friends long after the film in which they starred (The Magic Christian, 1970) was forgotten. And Ringo hit it off so well with Mae West during the filming of her ill-fated comeback in Sextette (1977) that the reclusive sex symbol made a rare appearance at one of his parties.

Ringo smiles at the recollection. “She walked pretty slowly, but she came. And all these mad rock people just began kneeling around her, going, ‘Wow! It’s Mae West!’ Everybody got off on her. I mean, if you don’t get off on Mae, who can you get off on?”

For several years, partying was a way of life for Ringo. While Lennon settled into a quiet, private life in New York City, Ringo gravitated toward L.A.’s music colony. Following his 1975 divorce after ten years of marriage to Maureen Cox, he began carousing with Keith Moon, Alice Cooper and Harry Nilsson and went through a period that one of his friends refers to as “the mad, mad days. He was a real lost soul there for a while. Barbara’s definitely been a steadying influence on him.”

Ringo first met the thirty-one-year-old model-turned-actress from Long Island a little more than a year ago when she was assigned to play his love interest in Caveman, his latest cinematic venture. By the time shooting was completed, Ringo’s interest extended into real life. Barbara soon accompanied him on a trip to London, where, one fateful rainy day, he demolished his Mercedes 350SL. Miraculously, he and Barbara emerged from the wreckage unharmed, and they say they’ve been inseparable since then.

“Last spring, we were on the Caveman set in Mexico for two and a half months just as friends,” he says. “Then suddenly one Sunday evening — flashes of light! It clicked, and we’ve been together ever since.

“Caveman is my first leading role,” he continues. “I haven’t been in a movie in years, cause I’d had enough of just coming on a set for two or three days, doing vignettes like the ones in Lisztomania and Sextette. So I really enjoyed the chance to go from a weird weakling to the king of the castle in Caveman. I’m the hero, you know. And believe it or not, it’s a family movie. There may be one or two scenes where we get a bit rough, especially when I’m trying to rape Barbara, but it’s done in a comic way. I get a knee slap in the head and things like that. And I also get to punch the hell out of John Maruszak [the football-star-turned-actor] — all 280 pounds of him! It’s very slapstick, and there’re only fifteen words in the vocabulary. So there’s a lot of miming and grunting. They’ll be able to understand it even in China!”

Ringo’s bow in what he calls “the first silent talkie” may fulfill — almost two decades and thirteen films later — the promise of his much-acclaimed acting debut in the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night (1964). It wasn’t the first film designed to capitalize on music idols’ popularity, but it was probably the best. Critics who had yawned and snickered through Elvis Presley’s parade of flimsy Hollywood vehicles raved about the film’s inspired whimsy and hailed Ringo as the Charlie Chaplin/Harpo Marx of the Sixties. Just as Lennon was dubbed the writing Beatle upon publication of In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works, Ringo soon became known as the acting Beatle. It was all a fluke, according to Ringo, and he claims he never consciously pursued acting to compensate for his relatively low profile as a creative contributor to the Beatles’ music.

“When we were asked if we’d like to make a movie, we said, ‘Are you kidding? Of course we’d like to. Doesn’t everyone want to make a movie?’ I just happened to be the one who enjoyed movies the most,” he explains. “I used to get to the set early, and I’d say, ‘Put me on camera, man! Put me in front of it. I have a good time here!’ But they only put me up front in the next one [Help!] because of how I came across in the first one. I sort of became the one who always got into trouble. You know, kids never forgave me for pressing the button that shot me out into the Sea of Holes in Yellow Submarine.”

While Ringo is speaking, the sound of a child crying grows louder from an adjacent room, and Barbara enlists his help in dealing with a little domestic crisis. It seems that earlier in the day, a stray cat infiltrated the compound and killed a pet bird that belonged to Barbara’s eight-year-old son, Gianni. Now he’s become attached to the feline intruder and refuses to let the housekeeper take it away. Barbara dispatches Ringo to make peace.

“To me, Ringo is definitely Richie,” she says during his absence. “Ringo is the public figure, and Richie is the man I live with. You see, I really knew very little about the Beatles. I didn’t follow them. My favorite musicians were Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin, but music just wasn’t my thing.”

Ringo reappears; his diplomatic mission has not been successful. “Will you go talk to him for a minute?” Ringo asks Barbara, who starts for the other room. “He doesn’t understand the cat’s not staying. I told him if he keeps making a noise, I’ll put him upstairs or in the music room. Ah,” he sighs, his voice full of sweet sarcasm. “Kids are so wonderful.”