Rock legend and actor, Meat Loaf (real name Marvin Lee Aday), passed away on January 20th at the age of 74. Variety spoke with his "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" duet partner Ellen Foley about her relationship with Meat Loaf and his collaborator Jim Steinman, and how she got involved in singing on what is considered one of the greatest duets ever put to tape. Following is an excerpt from the in-depth chat.

She, Meat Loaf and Steinman first worked together on a National Lampoon tour in the mid-’70s, then on the making of 1977’s Bat Out of Hell, one of the most popular albums of all time. Foley left the camp when she declined to go out on the tour supporting the album, and was replaced not only on the road but in the “Paradise” music video by Karla DeVito (who lip-synched Foley’s part for the cameras). Nevertheless, even if she hadn’t gone on to work with Ian Hunter and the Clash and make her own solo albums, or to act in “Night Court”, “Hair”, and other film and TV projects, she would have gone down in history… just for asking Meat, and us, if we would love her forever. 

Q: What were your feelings upon hearing Meat Loaf had died?

Foley: "It was shocking because it all happened so quickly. There are certain people that you think are always going to be there, like Betty White and Meat Loaf. He was so much a part of my youth, more so than later on in my life, because most of our interaction was when we were young. So when I think of him, I think of myself as this girl who did her first Actors’ Equity show with him in this National Lampoon tour, driving around the country in a blue van. The first record I ever sang on was Bat Out of Hell. It just brings up so many feelings and so many images — it’s joyful, and it’s hard. And the fact that we also lost Jim Steinman is a double whammy. I assume they’re up there negotiating about something at this point in time (laughs)."

Q: When we hear “Paradise,” we hear it as if we’re seeing it on stage, and we imagine this amazing chemistry with Meat Loaf. Did you record it together or did you just piece it all separately, as people generally did by the mid-’70s?

Foley: "We recorded it separately. But I made Meat Loaf come into the booth with me when I was singing. Sat him in a chair and performed it at him. Demanded it — demanded everything from him — until he was the weeping puddle on the floor that you hear on the record."

Q: “Paradise” was put out almost as an afterthought after it got the FM radio traction. But did you think it would be the keeper?

Foley: "Good question. I believed it to be the best, of course, and it offered so much for the imagination. As they say, they threw in the kitchen sink. You got Phil Rizzuto (doing the baseball play-by-play), you got Todd Rundgren (the producer, also playing guitar), you got these performances, and you have a story — really a little suite, or a three-act play. So no, I guess I wasn’t surprised at all. I’m sure I thought — with prejudice! — that it would be that it would be the one everybody would be drawn to, yeah."

Read the complete interview here.