The massage therapist to the rock stars

Dr. Dot keeps musicians loose

Dorothy Stein, also known as Dr. Dot. Story Tools RELATED • Dr. Dot official site  YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS Massage Therapy Music or Create your own Manage alerts

NEWARK, New Jersey (AP) -- She's had her hands all over the naked bodies of the biggest names in music. But she's no groupie.

Meet masseuse Dorothy Stein, aka Dr. Dot. She's worked her magic on the necks, arms and lower backs of Mick Jagger, Sting, Eminem, Justin Timberlake and a legion of other tensed-up artists.

Stein's digital prowess first got her into a Def Leppard concert in Hampton, Virginia, in 1983. Now it has blossomed into a full-time job paying up to $400 an hour -- cash only, please.

Whenever The Rolling Stones start it up on tour, they fly in Dr. Dot for weeks at a time. She spent two weeks on the road with Eminem, and counts members of Kiss, Aerosmith, Van Halen and many others as repeat customers. Next month, members of Iron Maiden will visit The Doctor when their tour stops in New York.

Her scrapbook boasts a stream of testimonials from satisfied customers like Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler, who wrote: "Ew-La-La! You rub me the rite way!"

"When you're out on tour for months at a time, there's always a muscle that needs to be pushed back into place or rubbed, so you get a massage to help you relax," said Kiss bassist Gene Simmons, who got his first massage from Stein in Germany in 1999.

"I remember it was very quiet, music playing on a boom box, the lights down low," he told The Associated Press. "She was very professional. She also didn't talk a lot, which I particularly liked."

She prefers to let the stars do the talking -- and boy, do they talk.

Courtney Love gave Stein a detailed appraisal of the physical endowments of various rock and movie stars. Simmons prattled on about how women should be glad their men cheat on them. And many male rock stars are only too glad to dish about which female rock stars they've (allegedly) had sex with.

'I wanted to hang out'

Born in Manchester, Connecticut, and raised by "hippie parents" on a steady diet of Beatles, Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead and Frank Zappa, Stein had seen the Dead in concert more than 20 times before she was 10 years old.

Her first brush with a rock star was outside a concert hall in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1981, where several members of The Cars quickly scrawled autographs on the back of her jacket -- and immediately disappeared.

"I was like, 'Hey!' " she recalled. "I wanted to hang out."

So Stein and two pals hatched a plan to meet Def Leppard: Get there early; look older than her true age of 15 by using makeup, heels and a short skirt; and dangle something other than sex.

Around midday, they spotted guitarist Phil Collen in the arena parking lot, and walked up to him.

"He said, 'Elo, girls!' " she recalled, deftly mimicking his British accent. "Say, do you know where there's an Army-Navy store around here? Someone nicked our clothes."

Stein and her two friends piled into a car with Collen, and as Stein directed him to a store, she made her pitch. She and her friends were soon on the tour bus as Stein massaged the band.

Her one rule: No sex, please.

"If I gave in to what they wanted, they'd have no respect for me, and never want to see me again," says Stein, 35. "Men need to yearn, to want something they know they can't have. That way, they'll pay for it, over and over again."

Many stars have tried to put the moves on her -- males and females alike. She says she only gave in once, to "Die Hard" movie star Bruce Willis, with whom she had a brief fling after he split up with Demi Moore.

"That was the biggest mistake I ever made," she said. "It embarrassed my daughter and put a doubt over my ability to be a professional masseuse. I'm only human. But that was a mistake."

A good business

Though she was winging it at first, Stein eventually took professional classes and worked at a massage clinic in Germany. It was her idol, Frank Zappa, who first called her "Dr. Dot" during a massage in 1988. She liked it, and started using it herself.

Stein estimates she got into more than 3,500 concerts for free. Stones drummer Charlie Watts was her first paying customer during a 1994 session in Toronto.

"He said, So how much do I owe you?' I said, 'You're joking. It was an honor to massage you.' He's like, 'No, really, That's bloody silly, Dot. Nobody's going to take you seriously until you take their money.' Massaging had always been a hobby, a way to get something for free. It became a business that day."

Sting remains her favorite customer.

"He tells jokes the whole time," she said. "He's just so charming. He's himself, and he can be hilarious. He does yoga and shows me his yoga moves. He also definitely has the nicest butt." (Another customer, Lauryn Hill, wins Dr. Dot's award for Best Female Butt.)

Blondie singer Deborah Harry is another favorite.

"She tells dirty jokes, and she'd jump off the massage table, naked, and start to act out the jokes," Stein said.

Stein is peddling an English-language version of a book she had published in Germany, titled "Butt-Naked and Backstage." She also hopes to someday land a gig as a love/relationship adviser with a TV talk show, a kind of Dr. Phil meets Dr. Feelgood.

Also in the works: a how-to DVD, including the "bite method," in which she kneads large lumps of back flesh in her mouth.

"People don't pay me to pet them," she said. "I'm very aggressive."

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