'In way over my head': Rolling Stone's first female writer recalls her wild early years at the iconic magazine

With a box full of writing samples and chocolate chip cookies — she didn't bother with a resume — Robin Green landed her first assignment at Rolling Stone.

She had sent the box to publisher Jann Wenner, expecting that maybe she would end up answering his phone.

• DAY 6 | Sex, drugs and rock 'n roll: The life and times of Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner

That would've been a "lucky" break, since Rolling Stone was the place to be, she said.

"I devoured the magazine," Green told Day 6 guest host Gill Deacon. "All I cared about in those days was really listening to the music, and hearing what the artists had to say."

It was 1970 and she had left New York City for California.

With her assignment, she was the first female writer to find her way into the boys' club at the iconic counterculture magazine.

Green worked at Rolling Stone for three years — years she describes as the best and worst of her life — and it's all detailed in her book The Only Girl: My Life and Times on the Masthead of Rolling Stone.

It's an unflinching memoir about her life of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll — and as a writer.

'Pen is mightier than the sword'

Green's break came from an interview with Dennis Hopper, the actor best known for Easy Rider and a folk hero of the 1970s.

The magazine had sent her and photographer Annie Leibovitz on a press junket for his new documentary The American Dreamer in Taos, New Mexico.

At Hopper's home, the writer set up a tape recorder for the interview. It was one of her first and she didn't get very far.

"I was in way over my head and he was at his worst. He was just really mean, and mean to the people around him," Green said.

"He was drugged up, what can I say?"

As a journalist, Green asked few questions. Instead, she observed her subjects and let them tell their story.

But with Hopper, who was imbibing heavily, she didn't get the story she expected. As she writes in her book, among other bizarre behaviour, the actor made lewd comments toward his publicist, asking him to leave his secretary at his home overnight.

Green left Hopper's house hours later, but she got the last word.

Her audio recording became a 5,000 word story — largely a transcript of the conversation between Hopper, his colleagues and other reporters in the room. And she earned her place in the magazine she admired.

"That's what writing is all about. The pen is mightier than the sword," she said.

Novelty in the office

Despite becoming a fixture at the magazine, Green was never offered a permanent job at Rolling Stone. The thought didn't occur to her, she said.

The magazine's office was made up of "newspaper men" who were used to full-time work and "earning a living." A former waitress and secretary, Green didn't know she could be placed on retainer.

"Looking back I probably should have," she said.

I think people who are pioneers and trailblazers are too busy coping to think of themselves that way.- Robin Green, on being a 'feminist crusader'

Still, she was added to the masthead as a contributing editor as more and more of her stories were printed. During her years at Rolling Stone, she was the only woman featured on the list of contributors.

Eventually part of the boys club, Green says her gender wasn't a barrier to her work at the publication.

"There were a lot of macho guys around that office but the girls were just as bold as the men," she told Deacon.

"I never felt anything but really welcome and I was sort of a novelty I think."

Sleeping with a Kennedy

Green left the magazine in 1974 after crossing a journalistic line, which she felt made it impossible to report what might have been her biggest story.

She was assigned to write about the children of the late politician Robert F. Kennedy, but she scrapped it.

"I ... went to bed with one of them; one of the boys," she said. "He was an adult, but it wasn't a good thing to do."

"Because I always prided myself on writing the truth of what had happened, I couldn't write it."

Unwilling to submit copy to Wenner, he told her she would have to leave the magazine.

While she admits she acted inappropriately, she doesn't regret leaving Rolling Stone. Green went on to become a television writer and producer, known for her work on The Sopranos, and more recently, cop drama Blue Bloods.

When asked whether she feels like a "feminist crusader" for her work as a woman in a male-dominated industry, she's modest and honest.

"I think people who are pioneers and trailblazers are too busy coping to think of themselves that way," she said.

"I just was doing the best I could."

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