Groupies. If you are a rock star you’ve got to love them. While good looks and randomness can momentarily get a groupie into celeb wonderland, to remain there, it takes plenty of hard work. Back in the day when models became bed fellows, and then stars in their own right and sometimes even parlaying it into a political activist type of career. I’m not sure where Uschi Obermaier ranks in terms of popularity when comparing to Warhol subjects Nico or “Edie” Sedgwick (on which Factory Girl was based upon) or when comparing to musician arm candy like Pattie Boyd and Bebe Buell (Liv Tyler’s mom), but apparently her story was a profitable biopic at the German box office. Eight Miles High sees actress Natalia Avelon (who’ll next appear in an Uwe Boll project called Far Cry) play the Obermaier. Dokument Films releases in NYC and then L.A. before hitting other cities.
Obermaier was a teenage runaway from a small village who, after achieving early notoriety as a nude cover model for Stern (one of Germany’s leading magazines), became the it-girl of the Munich club scene. She soon joined Germany’s legendary and much-romanticized Kommune 1, famous for its strident anti-bourgeoise way of life. This touch of radical chic worked wonders for her profile: Obermaier and boyfriend Rainer Langhans, leader of the commune, became the pin-up couple of the revolutionary left; Germany’s own John and Yoko. The hippie nymph and successful model never let business get in the way of pleasure, flaunting her romances with the likes of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Jimi Hendrix.
