Bill Wyman: Watch trailer for 'The Quiet One' about controversial Rolling Stones bassist
6 June 2019, 13:35 | Updated: 13 October 2023, 13:55
Bill Wyman is the subject of a new documentary titled 'The Quiet One', which delves into his private vault of photos and videos from his 30-year period with The Rolling Stones and beyond.
None of Wyman's former Stones bandmates appear in the film, but there are new interviews with Eric Clapton, Andrew Loog Oldham, Bob Geldof, and Mary Wilson of the The Supremes.
“It is all of a haze to me,” Keith Richards says in an archive clip in the trailer. “If I want to know what I did in those years, I have to ask Bill Wyman.”
The Quiet One, directed Oliver Murray, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and Montclair Film Festival earlier this year, and will be released at US cinemas on June 21.
The synopsis of the film reads: “Known to the world as ‘the quiet one’ of the group, former Rolling Stones bassist and rock’n’roll renaissance man Bill Wyman kept a detailed diary of every single day throughout his career.
“He also shot hours of film footage, took thousands of photographs and collected a vast private archive of memorabilia.
“Watching his previously unseen footage and hearing his stories is like going back in time to stand at Bill’s shoulder and experience his life first-hand.
“Against the odds, he escaped a bleak future in post-war, working-class London to find himself at the centre of a musical and cultural revolution as part of ‘the greatest rock and roll band in the world.'”
A UK release date for the film is yet to be confirmed.
The film was axed from a UK film festival earlier this year, after complaints arose in relation to his controversial marriage to 18-year-old model Mandy Smith in 1989.
The bassist caused controversy after he met Mandy Smith in 1984, when she was just 13 and he was 47. Prosecutors aimed to bring charges against him two years later, but ended up not taking any action.
Wyman is known to be somewhat distant with the other Rolling Stones today. They invited him to perform at their 50th anniversary gigs in 2012, but only for two songs at two shows.
“They wouldn’t let me do any more,” he said in 2013. “I think maybe they were punishing me for leaving. I thought I’d be playing a lot more. They said, ‘We only want two numbers.’ They wouldn’t even tell me what songs they were to the last minute.”
