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Ray Columbus: What my older lover taught me

The singer reveals all in his memoir.

Wife wife Linda.

They’re secrets that Ray Columbus could have taken to his grave, but in a tell-all biography, the legendary entertainer has chosen to reveal an attempted gang rape and his passionate romance with an older woman.

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In his new biography, Ray Columbus – The oodfather: The Life and Times of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Pioneer, the 1960s pop star has confessed that he was the target of an attempted gang rape by a group of women, was once himself suspected of rape, waged a battle with alcohol, and at 16 began a secret romance with an older woman.

READ: Ray Columbus has died, aged 74

Ray (68), who is famous for the 1964 hit song She’s a Mod, tells New Zealand Woman’s Weekly that he thanks his former lover, Georgia, for making him the man he is today.

However, Ray’s romance with the then 25-year-old – nine years his senior – was far from smooth sailing. He was once asked to hide in a cupboard when Georgia’s boyfriend showed up.

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Wife wife Linda.

“I never saw him. I only heard him once when I was hiding in the closet,” Ray says.

He’d only just turned 16 and was looking sharp in the teddy boy fashion of that era, when he met Georgia at a nightclub in Christchurch. It wasn’t long before Ray was making secret visits to her house at lunchtime and after work. He fell for her charm after developing an admiration for mature actresses such as Brigitte Bardot and Marilyn Monroe while working at a movie theatre.

“When I met Georgia I was spellbound. I still don’t know why she was interested in me, except that I was a good jiver and quite confident that I could impress her on the dance floor.”

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Georgia helped Ray forget about an attempted pack rape. When he was 15 and working in a dairy, four women ripped his clothes off and attempted, but failed, to rape him before using black shoe polish on his genitals.

Ray believes the experience turned him off sexually aggressive women, and although Georgia was years older than him, he describes her as gentle, loving, caring and smart.

His older lover left town when Ray’s uncle found out about the romance and warned her that she was ruining his nephew’s life – and that she should leave him alone because he had great things ahead of him.

Georgia went to live in Wellington, leaving a note for Ray in her empty room. If she hadn’t ended it with Ray, he believes he could never have let go.

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“I may have followed her to the ends of the earth if she had let me – but she didn’t.”

The last time Georgia agreed to see him again was in Wellington when they met briefly in a bus stop where she told him that she had been pregnant but had lost the child.

“She said, ‘Your uncle was right – I knew you were going to do something special with your life.'”

It turned out to be a fateful trip for Ray in more ways than one. on his way back to his accommodation he was threatened by a group of knife-wielding Hungarians and then woken by the police, who suspected him of raping a woman staying in the boarding house. Ray was cleared of the crime hours later.

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Ray, who has three adult children, believes Georgia helped him become a decent person and he would not have been concerned if his own son Sean (42) had taken an older lover as a teenager.

“I wouldn’t have been worried by it, but I’d have wanted to meet the woman, of course. In my case, she was impeccable.”

In 1990, Ray met Georgia’s daughter in a nightclub. She introduced herself to him and told him that her mother was proud of him. Ray asked to see Georgia again, but was told she wouldn’t meet him.

WATCH: Ray Columbus and the Invaders – Till We Kissed

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Speaking from their home in oatakana, north of Auckland, Ray’s wife of 20 years, Linda (61), says she also has Georgia to thank for her part in Ray’s life.

“I think all young men should have an older woman teaching them. I have a lot to thank her for,” she smiles.Ray blames his long-time former smoking habit for a heart attack, and a stroke he suffered two years ago.

Although he’s always been anti-drugs, in his book Ray traces his family’s history of alcoholism, including his own drinking problem.

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It was because of his survival and recovery from his stroke that Ray felt the time was right to finally reveal his secrets.

“I’m lucky to be alive,” he admits.

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