by George Wayne
GW:
You are one of those rare creatures in that concrete jungle called Hollywood. You really have no enemies. Everyone—and I mean everyone—loves Carrie Fisher.
CF:
Oh, not so fast. I don’t know who you’ve talked to. Certainly there are people who like me, but then there are those who don’t know me who gossip about me. You can’t believe the things I’ve heard.
GW:
What’s one of the most outrageous rumors you’ve heard about yourself lately?
CF:
The most outrageous one of late is that I’ve slipped on heroin. The one great thing I did, in terms of living out here, is that I never found a heroin dealer.
GW:
Well, I am glad you brought up that subject. A friend of yours, a Republican Operative by the name of R. Gregory Stevens, overdosed at your mansion.
CF:
This friend of mine had a very dangerous job. He ran presidential elections in very unstable countries, so for him to have died anywhere else was like Patton dying in a car accident. He did drugs. A lot of people were staying at my house, which is why he was sleeping with me. He came home around midnight, and he and I got up and talked. He was very tired, and he then went to bed. When I got into bed, I put a pillow between us and I woke him up. We watched TV for a little bit. I was woken up in the morning by my friend Bruce Cohen because we were going to have tango lessons. I had planned to make soufflé that morning. And I went around the bed to wake up Greg and he was dead.
GW:
Oh my God!
CF:
And from the first moment I blamed myself. I thought I’d put the pillow on his face. I was in shock for months. I thought I had killed him because it had happened on my watch and I had failed to save him. They say his body was so worn out from drug use that if it hadn’t happened that night it would’ve happened on another one.
GW:
And you live in this legendary Beverly Hills mansion, built in the 1930s, where Bette Davis lived and where also the famous costume designer Edith Head lived.
CF:
Bette Davis lived here. Robert Armstrong built it. He played the filmmaker in King Kong.
GW:
There must be so many ghosts roaming those grounds.
CF:
No . . . no, but we had Greg for a while. I was totally convinced, which kind of made me happy, because I kept thinking, Please don’t go.
GW:
What do you mean?
CF:
Lights would go on and off, and I had this toy machine, that when you touched it it would say, “Fuck you! Eat shit! You’re an asshole!” And it would go off in the night, by itself, in my closet. I was a nut for a year, and in that year I took drugs again.
GW:
Did you have an exorcist come over and clear the air?
CF:
My friends did, and after that things were fine. But you know, he didn’t just die in his sleep, he died in mine. So it’s still not gone, and I don’t think it will ever be.
GW:
Well, now you’re back at center stage again, as it were, with what is probably your Act Five, this one-woman show.
CF:
And I’m singing in it, too, which I haven’t done in thirty-three years. It’s an unauthorized autobiography.
GW:
It’s funny, your mother sat for an interview with me in 1997, your father in 1999. I’ll never forget going to meet your mother at the Essex House hotel and walking in to the room and she was steaming her clothes over an ironing board.
CF:
That must have been a blip. She lives next door to me, to my compound which I call “Kennecuntport.”
GW:
And speaking of Kennecuntport, I found it very intriguing to know that you had a very cute houseguest.
CF:
You mean James Blunt. Yes, he was here for about four months, and he ended up staying in my bathroom a lot because it has a piano in there and the acoustics are good.
GW:
And did James Blunt pay the rent? I hear he’s cute, sensitive, tall, and pale.
CF:
I will never tell and I don’t know if I am that sort of landlady.
GW:
Oh please! If it was moi, I would be like, “All right James, put down the lyric book and show me some bedroom judo.”
CF:
Yeah, like on your knees. No, I have a little more class than that. I am a very decent human being when it comes to other people. I don’t tell.
GW:
Okay, so something happened.
CF:
Absolutely not, but I did become his therapist. He was a soldier. This boy has seen awful stuff. Every time James hears fireworks or anything like that, his heart beats faster and he gets “fight or flight.” You know, he comes from a long line of soldiers dating back to the tenth century. He would tell me these horrible stories. He was a captain, a reconnaissance soldier. I became James’s therapist. So it would have been unethical to sleep with my patient.
GW:
I would be remiss if I didn’t ask how you ended up in Star Wars.
CF:
I slept with some nerd. I hope it was George.
GW:
You weren’t sure?
CF:
No . . . I took too many drugs to remember.
GW:
And that famous swimsuit from the movie, do you own it?
CF:
No, but I will have to borrow it from George sometime when I am really depressed and I want to be even more depressed. I get along very well with George Lucas. He always comes to my birthday party. I also wear the wig from the movie in my show.
GW:
Your poor daughter, Billie . . . she is what, like fourteen going on twenty-four?
CF:
She’s got my mouth and she’s got my brains.
GW:
She should be best friends with Courtney Love’s daughter.
CF:
She is. They are friends. Courtney lived next door to us; Frances stayed over the other night.
GW:
After an eleven-month marriage to Paul Simon, all he left you with was one of his acoustic guitars.
CF:
And nine songs written about me.
GW:
And Dan Aykroyd, with whom you got cold feet at the altar.
CF:
Yeah, because he would have cheated on me for years and years. But it would have been very funny. And he’s adorable and we had a lovely whatever-the-hell-it-was. That was like a rebound from everything else.
GW:
And you’ve hinted that someone you like may move in with you.
CF:
And the funny thing is, since someone died here there have been more people living here than ever before. You kind of expect people to say, “So where did it happen?” No one has ever done that.
GW:
And what does your Dr. Feelgood have you on these days to keep your bipolar disorder at bay?
CF:
Oh, man, name it. I take Tegretol, Seroquel, Lamictal, Topamax.
GW:
But no Percocet.
CF:
No darling, that’s the bad news.
GW:
How many pills a day?
CF:
About seven.
GW:
I guess that’s not bad.
CF:
Talk to my liver about that.
GW:
Is there a day that you can go without taking any pills?
CF:
No, I am a mental diabetic.
GW:
Well, as you have said in the past, “Instant gratification takes too long.”
CF:
That’s right.
GW:
And your new show at the Geffen Playhouse. You and David Geffen are friends, and I know you don’t like to talk about other people, but I am asking: Is it true, as the blogs say, that he is dating actor
Seann William Scott?
CF:
I don’t know, but I would doubt it. That’s just the same as saying he married Keanu Reeves when they had never even met. I was actually with David at the Geffen when he ran into Keanu. He said to Keanu, “Was it as good for you as it was for me?” They had never even met, and all that stuff had come out about them being married.
GW:
Well, count your blessings, Carrie. “The Force” is with you.
MARC JACOBS
APRIL 1987
It had been a full week since the auspicious debut of Marc Jacobs for Perry Ellis and the fashion world was agog. The critics had more than given the ponytailed, just-turned-twenty-seven-year-old fashion designer the benefit of the doubt and were now convinced that he was more than willing, and even more capable of leading the multi-million dollar fashion house of Perry Ellis into the 1990s and beyond.
As we all know it didn’t really turn out that way. But part of the charm and intrigue for my compendium of interviews here is the simple, fascinating fact that they capture a moment in time and that they are timeless, vintage gems. At the time of this interview R.O.M.E. was hailing Marc Jacobs as “the next Calvin Klein” and force of American fashion. Today, through all his trials and tribulations, and his dramatic and roller-coaster personal life—he is still one of the most influential fashion designers in the world.
His office at the showroom/studios of Perry Ellis was chock-full of staff that Tuesday afternoon in 1987 when Marc Jacobs sat for this tête-à-tête with George Wayne. The designer was behind his desk standing, and tugging on the perennial Marlboro Light cigarette and dressed as if he were at some Hamptons summer bungalow in a faded Stephen Sprouse sweatshirt, Levi jeans, and his then-signature square-toed motorcycle boots.
All eyes were on the video monitor. Marc and a sprinkling of his associates were reviewing one of the many post-show interviews, the post-mortem, as it were, after that April 10, 1987, fashion show. The interview in question was being conducted by the most revered and influential television fashionista in history—the one and only—Elsa Klensch of the Cable News Network (CNN). “No one can fully step into someone else’s shoes,” the American enfant terrible of fashion was quipping to diva Elsa. “I can only do my best.” That has long been his principal foil since daring to take over the house of Perry Ellis just a few months previous. He had, since then, been constantly tamping down expectations about his new job and what he planned to do to revive this moribund, blue-chip American fashion brand.
But the mavens loved the show that April, and that had to have given the young designer a boost of confidence, not only to him, but his entire team. “Major!!” was the spin from the Vogue creative director, André Leon Talley. “Fabulous!” was the declarative of another fashion-critic legend, Polly Allen Mellen of Allure. “Exuberant!” was how Frank DeCaro of New York Newsday summed it up. “Marc is one of our most exciting new talents,” offered the well-noted fashion forecaster Bernie Ozer.
Marc Jacobs was very much aware at the time that he could not afford to be mediocre. The expectations were that high. When all was said and done, he was just another young, brash designer backed by the Japanese financiers of Kashiyama, who would have no problem pulling the rug out from under him, if he could not deliver. Time was very much of the essence. It was a catch-22 to say the very least. But he delivered on that debut for Perry Ellis at the Puck Building on Lafayette Street—and without question had catapulted his own personal celebrity to brand-new heights. He has certainly come a long way since selling clothes at Charivari—that’s for sure!
GW:
Did you go to any other shows during Fashion Week?
MJ:
I went to [Ronaldus] Shamask. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really good. I wanted to go to Isaac’s [Mizrahi] show, but I had work to do here and I couldn’t get out. And Friday morning I had to do an interview with CBS and I really wanted to go to Mr. Beene’s show because I go every single season, and I didn’t get to go so I was very upset about that. It’s really nice to go to other people’s shows because, you know, we all get excited by fashion, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it.
GW:
So were you happy with the reaction to your show? Most people seem to believe that you did well for yourself, but that Isaac [Mizrahi] stole your thunder this season.
MJ:
People can think whatever they want. I don’t sit around and think to myself, “God, I created the most incredible thing,” or anything like that. I just do what I do and if people like it, or they don’t like it, there is not much more one can do than that. This whole notion of people feeling that one collection is better, or that one collection is good or isn’t, doesn’t bother me. I mean, there are good things in every collection just as how there are bad things. I certainly am not going to drive myself crazy over any of that kind of stuff. I think that Isaac is an extraordinary talent. But nobody wears only one designer.
GW:
You must feel like the weight of the world is off your shoulders?
MJ:
A little bit. But there is no way I could live up to everyone’s expectations after this first show. Because the pressure was so great, and it was created by people who just wanted this to be the most amazing thing we’ve ever seen. We are all too jaded, and we have all seen too much. And there really isn’t anything new under the sun. You just do what you think is right.
GW:
Do you feel like you’re on firm ground here at Perry Ellis? After all, Patricia Pastor also had a contract and she was fired.
MJ:
Well, nothing is ever carved in stone you know, but I think the people here are happy with what I’ve done. And you know, only the future will tell what happens or what doesn’t happen, and that is fine . . .
GW:
You can live with anything, you go with the flow.
MJ:
Well, what can you do? If I sit down all the time worrying, Am I going to be here? Am I not going to be here? I’ll never get anything done at all.
GW:
What is going to determine the success of this collection?
MJ:
Well, I think in terms of creating or bringing back the energy to this company, because we are already very successful. Sales have been really good. It’s always a different story when you go to shows then see the clothes on the rack. A few of the mavens had a problem with the presentation because some thought it was too outrageous, too Downtown, or whatever. But it’s hard sometimes for these people to see through and to see what the clothes are all about. I basically told those girls to do what they wanted to do, because I hired them because of who they were, not because of what I could make them into. I’m sure that a lot of people would’ve been happier to see a very staged, very simple, quiet presentation. But sales have been good. I mean, we have really good clothes downstairs, and the reaction has been basically very good.
GW:
Your coming to Perry Ellis was like the biggest shock of all! I mean, I remember the night before the announcement, we were dancing the night away at El Morocco! And the next morning I woke up and opened the New York Times to read you were going to head the house of Ellis. Did you not tell a soul?
MJ:
No, I didn’t tell anyone.
GW:
Not one word?
MJ:
Not one word.
GW:
How did this all happen? Did you approach them? Did they approach you?
MJ:
No, they approached me, and it was all very casual at first. They asked if I would be interested and I said yes. And then we sat down and talked about it and they asked how I would define Perry Ellis. And I really remember my feelings about Perry Ellis when I was a student and how amazing I thought this company was because of the spirit and energy that came out of this place. I said my whole image of Perry Ellis was really classic American sportswear, but there was also something there that made it so much more special.
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GW:
So this wasn’t a long, delicate negotiation?
MJ:
No. It all happened very quickly. It was over in a couple of days.
GW:
You must be getting paid a lot of money. Do you have equity in Perry Ellis and all that?
MJ:
No. I mean, I have a nice offer, but it’s not like I sold my apartment and moved into a Fifth Avenue townhouse and bought a country home and a yacht. I’m really pretty simple when it comes to that stuff.
GW:
But how could you not regret giving up your name?
MJ:
I don’t regret it at all. More people really know that I am here behind this collection than when I was just Marc Jacobs doing the Marc Jacobs label. In terms of my ego, it’s no big deal at all. And now I’m having the opportunity to do so many things which in the end makes it that much more rewarding. All the other stuff that comes with this job is really more rewarding for me as a person than anything I could have gotten just having my name on a label.
