by Rupert Smith
But there were other, more immediate repercussions. They began the morning after my expose in the News, a paper that my parents had begun to read every day There was a deafening bang on the front door of the squat, so hard that the old door finally fell off its hinges, smashing the rainbow fanlight in its descent. A second’s silence, then the unmistakable sound of my father’s voice raised in anger.
‘Marc! Marc! Come down here this minute, boy, or I’ll break every bone in your body, so help me God!’
I sprang out of bed. I could vaguely hear my mother gibbering in the background, pleading with Dad to calm down. I had to think quickly. I pulled on a pair of trousers and a T shirt, dragged a comb through my hair and slapped myself round the face. I checked myself in the mirror, practised my biggest smile and bounded on to the landing.
‘Mum! Dad! You’ve heard already! That’s brilliant!’
‘Heard ? I should bloody well say we’ve heard, you disgusting little pouf!’
‘Please, darling, don’t shout at him . . .’
‘Oh, Dad, you’re not talking about that crap in the papers again, are you?’
‘Crap? I should say it’s crap, boy! We’ve had dog shit through our letter box thanks to you and your filthy ways! Now come down here so I can belt you.’
It was a bizarre scene. I almost wanted to laugh. My father, no longer a young man, was rolling up his sleeves to punish me, when I could have flattened him with one blow.
‘I’ve told you before, Dad, that’s just stories that the papers make up to publicize the show. But that’s not what you’re here for, is it? I thought you must have heard my good news!’
That stopped him in his tracks. His brow furrowed, he looked confused. A pitiful light dawned in my mother’s face.
‘Good news, Marc?’ she stammered. ‘What’s that, darling?’
‘Haven’t you heard?’ Just then, Anna stumbled out of her bedroom, wearing only a T shirt with a huge female symbol painted on the front in vegetable dye. I grasped her in a bear hug and planted a huge kiss on her lips.
‘We’re going to be married, of course!’
CHAPTER FIVE
We decided to make a big splash with our engagement, and offered the exclusive to a number of newspapers. A frenzied auction ensued, with bid succeeding unbelievable bid as editors raced to cash in on the story. Finally – sweet irony ! – we signed with the London Evening Standard, deadly rival to Pinky’s Evening News. He had sown discord; now his enemies would reap the harvest.
I discussed the situation in detail with Anna. I’d undervalued her in the past: now I realized that this was a woman I could work with, an astute business head as well as a warm and spontaneous human being. When I’d shocked my parents with the announcement of our impending nuptials, Anna took the news without missing a beat; she simply stood there and beamed, accepting their faltering congratulations and even kissing them both as they left. What I’d stumbled on as an escape from an awkward jam proved to be an astute career move. Accident or intuition? Again, I just don’t know
We made a brave decision: we’d speak frankly about our plans for an ‘open’ marriage, our interest in other lovers – of either sex. It was unheralded, unprecedented, and it worked. We invited photographers into our home, where we posed as a loving couple, kissing in the kitchen, snuggling up in our king-size bed (‘There’s always room for a friend!’) and walking hand in hand in the garden. The photographs were sweet and innocuous, but the copy that would accompany them suggested a world of carnal pleasure just beyond the frame.
‘Yes, I’ve enjoyed male lovers,’ admits Marc. ‘I don’t know any man who hasn’t – or who hasn’t wanted to.’ And how would he feel if he came home one night and found his beautiful wife in bed with another bird ? ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ he laughs, caressing Anna’s hair, ‘as long as they let me join in!’
The Standard sold out as soon as it appeared. The phone rang so much that Anna and I had to take it off the hook – as soon as we’d negotiated a five-figure sum for the Standard’s coverage of our summer wedding.
Bisexuality isn’t such a big deal today, but in 1972 it was front page news. I was the first major star to admit to being anything other than 100 per cent straight, and others were quick to follow my lead. An unknown singer called David Bowie suddenly popped up in the music papers claiming that he too (and his wife, for that matter) swung both ways, and the floodgates opened. Records, plays, books and even films – Cabaret, The Rocky Horror Picture Show – took my basic idea and turned it into gold. All I’d intended, as usual, was to be honest and to help other people live their lives more openly. What I’d achieved was a unique expression of the spirit of the age.
I looked around me and saw the lifestyle I had instinctively pioneered in the last ten years turn into the fashion of the day. So why not go along with it? I was hardly jumping on a bandwagon – I’d been riding that wagon over rough and smooth for as long as I could remember. Anna was quick to spot the potential. ‘You’re famous all over again, babe,’ she said. ‘But this time you’re not going to blow it. You’ve got to cash in.’
I shuddered. What was all this talk of cashing in – or selling out, as we would have called it not so long ago ? There was a new consciousness abroad, one that would take the fragile, crazy beauty of the sixties and turn it into hard currency Looking back, I see that perhaps I should have resisted, remained true to myself and the grass roots whence I’d come. But at the time, destiny had the stronger pull.
Our wedding was a media circus. We’d kept the guest list small, inviting only a dozen or so friends and family (including Mum and Dad, of course) to witness a simple civil ceremony at Chelsea Register Office. Anna and I exchanged our vows in matching white trouser suits, tailored at the waist with wide lapels and cuffs, and, of course, huge flares (very few people could wear that style without looking ridiculous; Anna wasn’t one of them). We both had the same accessories: a red carnation, a red handkerchief in the top pocket and, for going away, white broad-brimmed fedoras with red satin hatbands.
As we prepared to step out of the Town Hall and face the world, we stopped and looked at each other. Anna kissed me. For a moment, I really felt that I loved her. I owed her so much. Maybe this crazy marriage wasn’t so crazy after all. Maybe we could make a go of our lives together. ‘Let’s go get ’em, babe,’ she whispered, leering and winking. She threw open the door and we descended the steps into an artillery of flashguns. It took a terrible, exhilarating half hour to make our way to the waiting car (paid for by the Standard). In that time we’d been interviewed and photographed by every major newspaper, magazine, radio and TV programme in the country.
The press coverage was astonishing, not so much for its volume but for its enthusiasm. Those papers who withheld their blessing simply ignored us altogether; conspicuous among these was the News. For Pinky it had not been a happy ending; his editors, stung by the fact that they’d missed out on the biggest story of the decade, had sacked him. Now he could rant and rave as much as he liked, and nobody would listen.
If something as simple as a wedding could cause such a ballyhoo, why not go one step further? Anna and I spent night after night (when the nation assumed we were enjoying a wild honeymoon!) plotting our next move. How could we ensure my continued success? What was the ‘product’ that would fit the ‘brand’ ? The best answer, as usual, turned out to be the simplest. I would return to my first love – rock & roll. That was, and always had been, the medium in which I felt most at home.
Now those years in the underground wilderness paid off. Since 1968 I’d met no end of would-be musicians, producers and promoters, most of them struggling along like the rest of us, living from hand to mouth and enjoying themselves too much to concentrate on their careers. Four years on, many of them had fallen by the wayside, but some of them were bona fide successes. It was time to call in favours. Anna had a phenomenal memory and an address book to match it, and within a few days I was booked into a top London studio with a
band and a producer to cut my first single.
It took two days, and there was magic in the air. I don’t know what it was; I was off drugs, clean and sober, with both feet on the ground. But sitting in the studio singing my heart out, I felt as high as a kite. It all happened so quickly: the song was written, the band rehearsed and recorded, I ‘laid down’ the vocals, the whole thing was mixed and cut in a flash. Voilà, pop immortality, ‘the first and still the best bisexual novelty record of the seventies’ (Melody Maker) – the unforgettable ‘Bi Bi Baby’.
We knew we had a hit on our hands. ‘Bi Bi Baby’ (‘Don’t be a cry bi baby, Be my bi baby/Bi bi baby tonight’) had the lushness of Phil Spector, the sexuality of Elvis Presley. Even the engineers and session musicians, jaded professionals to a man, whistled it as they went about their work. All we needed now, said Anna, was the right image to launch the song. She was all for bringing Moska in to direct my stage appearances, but I put my foot down: Moska was yesterday’s man. The keynote of my new image must be simplicity, the quality possessed by all truly great pop. I went back to basics: a leather jacket, tight silver trousers, ‘bovver boots’ and a greasy, slicked-up, larger-than-life rocker haircut. I was clean-shaven and bare-chested, with male and female symbols drawn around my nipples in lipstick. An icon was (re)born.
And of course ‘Bi Bi Baby’ was a hit, a huge hit, the one by which other‘overnight sensations’are measured. If only they knew the long, hard slog, the pain and loss that it had taken to get there! But pop music is about celebration, not about soul-searching, and I was glad to be doing something upbeat and happy for a change. Everyone, from kids to grandparents, loved me, whether they understood the message or not. It was just like the old Bran Pops days. The only ones who voiced disapproval were the underground press, my champions when things had been going badly and when my work dealt in blood, slaughter and pain. Now that I was happy and successful they turned their back on me. It was their loss.
The excitement surrounding ‘Bi Bi Baby’ reached a climax when I made my debut on Top of the Pops. Remember that this was the first time people had had a chance to see me on television (apart from the news footage of the wedding) since I was the Regular Guy, that clean-cut, smart-suited ‘ace face’of the Swinging Sixties. How long ago and far away that all seemed! There were kids buying the records who had never heard of the Regular Guy But for those who remembered, there was a delicious irony, a dangerous sexual charge that made the record irresistible. My performance on Top of the Pops brought all that together in one devastating package. There was the band, pounding out the beat. There was Anna on bongos and backing vocals, almost as much of a star with her new skinhead crop as I was. And finally there was me: ‘five foot ten of leather, lurex and sweet, sweet sin’ as one overwhelmed journalist described me.
The record went straight in at number 35. In those days, a hit was a hit – record sales were enormous, and you could become rich overnight. But success was never to be mine without controversy as its bedfellow. The BBC was inundated with complaints about my ‘lewd performance’ and its ‘dangerous threat to young minds’. That was how Middle England responded to an anthem of love and freedom! And so I was banned, never again to appear on Top of the Pops. ‘Bi Bi Baby’ slid down the charts the following week, but despite the best efforts of the censors it was to stay in the all-important top 100 for months to come. You don’t get that kind of lasting success without working hard for it, and boy, did I work.
Life became one long round of promotional activity: interviews on the radio (Woman’s Hour was fascinated by the details of our unconventional marriage), TV spots, personal appearances at night clubs, and finally a full-scale rock & roll tour. It was the kind of work that I was born to do, and the audiences were always there rooting for me. Some of them came out of curiosity, expecting to see a freakshow, but they left as fans. A whole new generation was discovering my work and was eager to find out more. I gave interviews to the press whenever possible, stressing that I was no flash in the pan like some of my pop contemporaries: I had a background, a pedigree. Journalists who had done their homework were quick to draw attention to my earlier incarnation in TV commercials, but I pointed them towards my distinguished career in the theatre, my championing of the avant-garde, and most of all my crucial role in bringing rock & roll to British ears in the first place. I spoke affectionately of the tiny London clubs where I’d done my first gigs, and hinted at an early association with Brian Epstein and the Beatles.
My hard work paid off. The cheques started to roll in, and, as any celebrity knows, success breeds success. I was in demand everywhere, happy to lend my image to advertisers, to speak at formal dinners and even to open supermarkets (what memories that brought back!). After a few months, Anna informed me that we had enough in the bank to move to somewhere fit for stars to live’. We’d been hanging on to the squat, eager to conserve our meagre capital for the necessary expenses of my career, but now we were in a position to reap the rewards of careful financial management. Anna insisted that we should move to Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, an expensive enclave favoured by the seventies rock elite. At first I was horrified: how would we afford such staggering prices ? But, as Anna reminded me, to stay a star you have to live like a star, it’s what the public expects. So Chelsea it was.
We defrayed some of the cost by allowing a Sunday supplement to photograph us moving into our new home, but still there was the monthly rent cheque to consider. And I had other expenses: I had engaged a top show-business lawyer to negotiate my way out of a legal misunderstanding with Nick Nicholls, who (thanks to his ungenerous and over-literal interpretation of our ‘divorce’ contract) was still creaming off a considerable amount of my earnings. The thought of Nick taking twenty per cent of my money galled me excessively; every time I stepped out of the house that parasite was gaining by it. My lawyer assured me that he would get a result, but that negotiations could be lengthy – and expensive. There was nothing for it. I needed another hit.
The follow-up to ‘Bi Bi Baby’ proved problematic. Pop’s a wayward will o’ the wisp; there’s no magic formula for a hit. All the signs were right: we’d reassembled the same team of producer, engineers and musicians, and we had a cracker of a song, the moody ‘Swing High, Swing Low’, which I still think is the better number. But this time, the magic just wasn’t there. I poured my soul into making that record, I travelled tirelessly round the country promoting it to anyone who would listen, but the backlash had set in. We got radio play, and the fans loved it, but Top of the Pops had closed its doors on us, and the record failed to dent the top forty. Now, of course, ‘Swing High, Swing Low’ is recognized as a classic. But at the time I had the depressing feeling that we had a flop on our hands.
It wasn’t such a serious blow. Anna had arranged our affairs so successfully that money just kept rolling in: enough, at least, to maintain our lifestyle in Cheyne Walk, where Anna loved to entertain friends old and new. (She regularly held her women’s ‘consciousness-raising’ groups there, pioneering the feminist revolution that was about to sweep the nation.) But there wasn’t quite enough money for all our needs. Reluctantly, I had to drop legal proceedings against Nick Nicholls when I realized that it would cost thousands of pounds to annul the contract I had been bamboozled into signing. I was philosophical: if Nick could live with himself as a leech, good luck to him. It was a small price to pay to be free of him. Free of him! Little did I know . . .
My career was ballooning out of control. I’d have been content with success at home, I’d never really considered markets outside the UK. But DJs in America had picked up on ‘Bi Bi Baby’ months after its release in the UK, and suddenly it was a hit all over again. Friends reported that it was played in the hippest clubs in Manhattan, that my posters were on every street corner, that Marc Lejeune was the talk of the town. It felt strange: thousands of miles away, people were talking about me, listening to me, fantasizing about me. An ‘interview’ (cobbled together from my British press) appear
ed in Rolling Stone magazine, stating that ‘THERE’S A NEW BRITISH INVASION – but this time he wants to get inside your pants!’ ‘Move over, David Bowie,’ said the ill-informed journalist, ‘there’s a new Queen of England after your crown!’ There was only one thing for it: I’d have to go to America to set the record straight.
Anna was excited by these developments, keen for me to get out and ‘develop new markets’. She arranged everything: my flight, currency and accommodation, a string of interviews and appearances, and a showcase performance at the prestigious Rascals club in Greenwich Village. She drove me to the airport in ‘our’ new car (I had never learned to drive, so in effect it was hers) and kissed me goodbye as a crowd of waiting photographers captured an intensely private moment for tomorrow’s front pages.
I must confess, I was glad to be travelling. Life with Anna, although exciting and creative, had also been claustrophobic. She’d never pressed her conjugal rights, thank God, and there was a genuine, frank affection between us, but like so many others in my life, she wanted more from me than I could give. She wanted me always to be working, working, working. I knew that she was right to drive me hard, that it was good for my career, but I knew too that she was busy feathering her own nest. A break would do us both the world of good.
