Adelaide Gail Zappa ( Sloatman; January 1, 1945 – October 7, 2015) was the wife of musician and composer Frank Zappa and the trustee of the Zappa Family Trust. They met in Los Angeles in 1966 and married while she was pregnant with their first child, Moon Unit, followed by Dweezil, Ahmet and Diva. Gail was also the aunt of model and actress Lala Sloatman.
In 2002, Gail Zappa founded the Zappa Family Trust, a holder of the title and copyright to Frank Zappa's musical and artistic products, as well as his commercial image. In 2015, the Trust was given to her son Ahmet shortly before she died of lung cancer.
Early life
Adelaide Gail Sloatman was born in Philadelphia to John Klein Sloatman Jr. (1915–1967), who was a second generation German-American and nuclear physicist with the United States Navy, and Laura Freitas (born 1921), who was born in Honolulu of Portuguese ancestry. She had 7 siblings, including 1 half-sibling from her father's previous marriage to Joan Lou Gatt. She was named after her maternal grandmother, Adelaide Silva. She grew up in Hollywood, and lived with her family in London, where her father was posted in 1959, and attended Marymount International School. She also modeled for photographer Terence Donovan.
She worked at the Office of Naval Research and Development, and then moved to New York, where she studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology in the mid-1960s. After returning to Los Angeles, she met producer Kim Fowley, and recorded a spoken word single with him as "Bunny and Bear". The record is a satire of Sonny and Cher.
Gail Zappa made a very brief appearance with then musician boyfriend Bobby Jameson in the documentary film Mondo Hollywood, filmed in 1966. She met Vito Paulekas and Carl Franzoni, the leaders of what became known as the "freak scene" in Los Angeles, and by her own account became something of a groupie.
Marriage and children
She met her future husband Frank Zappa in 1966 when she was working as a secretary at the Whisky a Go Go nightclub on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. They married in a civil ceremony in New York on September 21, 1967, late in her pregnancy with Moon Unit Zappa, born a week later. The marriage also produced children Dweezil, Ahmet and Diva Zappa. Gail had a fraught relationship with her oldest daughter, Moon Unit, which seemed to have been repaired at the end of Gail's life. But, upon her death, it was revealed that the Zappa estate would not be divided equally among the four Zappa children, leaving Moon Unit and Dweezil in a weaker financial position. “It’s complicated enough to be grieving the loss of a mean mom,” Moon Unit Zappa told the Los Angeles Times in 2016, “and then to find out she was meaner than I could have possibly comprehended... It’s comical, the level of betrayal.” Ahmet Zappa insisted his mother was misunderstood. “She demanded respect and got the respect," he said, "and that’s really unusual." An interview with Gail was featured in the 1987 book Rock Wives, written by Victoria Balfour.
In Frank Zappa's work
Gail can be seen behind Frank Zappa on the sleeve of his album Absolutely Free (1967) and on the original, parody cover of his We're Only In It For The Money album (1968). Frank Zappa also named Barking Pumpkin Records after his wife's chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or smoker's cough. Frank Zappa's relationship with manager Bennett Glotzer ended in 1984. From then on Gail co-managed with Frank, acted as business secretary, and supervised the record labels and mail order business.
Zappa Family Trust
At the time of his death in 1993, Frank urged Gail to withdraw from the music business, but never clarified what was to be done with his publishing catalog. In 2002, Gail founded the Zappa Family Trust, intended to oversee the release of his recordings, including multiple previously unavailable works. The trust holds title and copyright to Frank Zappa's musical and artistic products, as well as his commercial image.