Fame & Fortune: Mamas and Papas' Michelle Phillips Still California Dreamin' -- 'Life has been good'
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Bankrate: So it was a business decision?

Michelle Phillips: It was. I used to sing in church, but there's a big difference between singing and having the ambition to want to be on stage, of which I had none.

Bankrate: So back in those days, who handled the band's business?

Michelle Phillips: John did. He took care of the business end. In the folk days, before the band, we made money and we spent it. That was the philosophy. By the time of The Mamas and the Papas, we had business managers who were actually taking taxes out of our money. That was a novel idea. They were making investments for us. But overall, the philosophy didn't change much. If it came in, you spent it.

Bankrate: So there wasn't a lot of future planning?

Michelle Phillips: No. But life has been very good. I think we sell as many records now as we did then -- it's just a much larger market. And besides our own royalties and publishing, there are royalties and publishing from so many other groups that have covered our songs. "California Dreamin'," for instance, has been covered more than 100 times. Queen Latifah, God bless her, just had another huge hit with it. I just wrote one of my very first fan letters -- to her.

Bankrate: There's a story about John waking you up to write the song. How long did you actually spend helping John write "California Dreamin'"?

Michelle Phillips: That song was written in one night. I don't thing it was that long. He wrote the first eight bars, then he woke me up. He made me get up, thank God. I actually don't know how long because I don't remember what time it was when he woke me up, but I know that by dawn we had the song finished.

Bankrate: So he woke you up and you wrote it that night, and how much money do you think the song has made you over the years?

Michelle Phillips: I would never reveal that to anybody.

Bankrate: Can you imagine if you had said, "I'm going back to sleep. I'm sure you can finish it yourself."

Michelle Phillips: It would have been a sad night.

Bankrate: There's another story about you saving the band from being stranded in the Bahamas by winning a game of craps. What happened there?

Michelle Phillips: We were actually in Puerto Rico. We had just flown in from St. Thomas and were trying to get back to New York. We only had $27 left and whatever airline it was would not take our bad check. John said that the only thing to do with this is go to the casino. That was John's logic. I had never played craps before, and so I had no idea what I was doing. It was just beginner's luck. I started throwing the dice and I threw 17 straight passes. That's very unusual. I won 17 games in a row. Suffice it to say we all flew back first class.