by Rupert Smith
First, though, I had to face the terrifying prospect of flying. It’s hard to believe that I’d lived till 1973 without ever stepping on board an aeroplane, despite my international success. But for all my sophistication, I was still a naïve working-class boy in many ways. The idea of flying terrified me. Even to board the plane I had to load myself with tranquillizers, and I took full advantage of the booze trolley as soon as we were airborne. The flight mercifully passed in a daze, but with one unfortunate side effect: I developed a nasty stomach infection, and spent much of my time in New York searching for the nearest ‘bathroom’.
Manhattan was everything I’d dreamed it would be. Who can see that skyline from the plane window without wanting to burst into song? Nothing could dampen my enthusiasm, not even the surly immigration official, a gorilla of indeterminate gender who growled at me but let me through. I took the bus into town (Anna had stressed the importance of keeping expenses down) and carefully filed the ticket stub (the whole trip was tax deductible). I was staying downtown, in an apartment on Bleeker Street, right in the heart of the Village. As I walked from the bus station to my new address, I was ‘rubbernecking’ – gawping at the magnificent buildings that surrounded me on every side. The Village felt more like home – smaller houses, a scruffy elegance that reminded me of London. The apartment itself was tiny: one room served as bedroom, kitchen and lounge, while a converted cupboard in the hall housed lavatory and shower. It was cramped but clean and, to my relief, cockroach-free.
The moment I set foot in the door, the telephone began to ring. Anna had borrowed the apartment from an old boyfriend, and had already given the number to every paper and promoter in town. Within half an hour I had invitations enough to keep me busy for a year, even in the city that never sleeps. New York was ready to eat me alive.
I spent my first afternoon getting my bearings, enjoying coffee on Sheridan Square, watching the world pass me by There were a few curious stares – hip New Yorkers already knew who I was – but for the most part people left me to my own devices. After the insanity of London, this was heaven itself.
But there was little time to relax. I was booked to do my first show that very night. My itinerary had been the subject of serious arguments with Anna, who ignored my plea that I should have time to recover from jet lag. ‘It’s a myth, babe,’ she’d assured me (she who had never been further than the Isle of Wight). ‘Just take a little something if you find yourself dropping off.’ So after a shower and a snack at the apartment, I made my way to the club that had been chosen for my New York debut.
Rascals was an exclusive venue on elegant Christopher Street, a short walk from my front door. The agent had been vague about the details of sound-checking and lighting design, so I turned up at eight o’clock ready to run through my set and consult with the technicians. At least I didn’t have to worry about a band; Anna had provided my backing music on reel-to-reel tapes. I knocked at the tiny street door for a few minutes. Finally an elderly janitor shuffled out into the daylight, looked me up and down and spat.
‘You the cops? He ain’t here.’
‘No, I’m Marc Lejeune.’ I faced the street light so he could get a better look at me.
‘Nobody here of that name. Come back later, fella.’
‘No, you don’t understand, I am . . .’ The door slammed in my face. I had yet to learn that New York operates on a very different schedule from sleepy London town.
When I returned to the club at ten, there was still no sign of life. But by pressing my nose against the smoked-glass window pane I could dimly make out a light and the thud of music. Slowly, the club was coming alive. I banged on the window, much to the amusement of a passing (male) couple who helpfully shouted ‘Honey, you must be desperate!’
The door opened and an anaemic figure in a black shirt and sunglasses peered out.
‘Hey, Marc!’
At last, somebody knew what was going on.
‘Hi! I’m here to do the soundcheck.’
‘No problem, baby! Come on in! You ain’t on for a while. Have a drink.’
I followed him into the dark interior, glad to be off the street. The club was completely empty – at an hour when London clubs would have been bursting at the seams! A barman was casually wiping a few glasses, candles burned in coloured glass shades along the top of the bar, and the DJ crouched in a corner sorting through a pile of records. I thought, for one panicky moment, that nobody had turned up to see me.
The manager, who introduced himself as Al, handed me a drink – an enormous vodka martini. ‘So Marc, whaddya need? We got lights, we got music, we got a mike for ya.’
‘I’d like to see the stage, please.’
‘Baby, you’re sitting on it.’ That was the first shock of the night: I was expected to perform on the tiny raised dais on which our barstools were perched.
‘Is that it?’
‘What you see is what you get. Hey, don’t worry. We’ve had ‘em all in here. Singers, strippers, the lady with the snake,’ (there was a shout of derisive laughter from the DJ and the barman), ‘they’ve worked this stage, baby, and the kids love ‘em. You’re gonna be fine. Have another drink.’
I’d downed my first martini already; I felt the need for a little Dutch courage. I also felt an urgent need for the lavatory.
Once I’d recovered, I began to relax and enjoy myself. This isn’t London, I kept reminding myself; they do things differently here. So what if the stage was a few upended beer crates nailed together with chipboard ? It would make my triumph all the greater. The friendly barman handed me another drink with a wink and a smile. ‘I love that record you got out, Marc,’ he said. ‘We can’t wait to see what you’ve got to show us.’ My first American fan!
The club started to fill up around 11.30. At first a few shifty singles staked their place at the bar, surveying each new arrival with hungry eyes and plying my friend Larry the barman (clearly a bit of a pull) with drinks. But when the groups of twos and threes started to arrive, it was time to make myself scarce. So I retreated to the ‘dressing room’ (all I’ll say is that I’d had better – and worse, for that matter) and whiled away the time enjoying the martinis that were regularly sent through for me and eavesdropping on the bathroom gossip. ‘Hey, what time does the show start?’ I heard one reveller ask his companion. ‘I guess he’ll be on after the go-go dancers,’ came the reply.
Go-go dancers ? This hadn’t been mentioned. Wrapping a T shirt round my head as a disguise, I peeked into the club. It was crammed full (a good indication of my international pulling power!) and there, dancing along the top of the bar, were two young men wearing nothing but jockstraps. As they writhed their way from end to end, dodging the drinks, hands would reach up to tuck dollar bills into their waistbands and, if the money was right, cop a quick feel. It was little short of prostitution, and hardly the kind of support act I would have chosen, but ‘hey, welcome to New York!’ as Larry whispered in my ear when he caught me staring, open-mouthed. I laughed to cover my embarrassment, returned to the dressing room and wrapped myself around another martini.
One thing confused me: there was not a single woman in the club. At home, I’d been used to a mixed audience of every age, sex and class. In downtown Manhattan, it seemed, my appeal was somewhat more specialized. Many years later, artists from Bette Midler to Madonna to Take That realized the importance of ‘breaking’ themselves with the trendsetting gay audience. I was at the cutting edge yet again.
Finally it was show time: nearly three o’clock in the morning! I had been ready for hours, squeezed into my silver pants, my leather jacket open, my hair swept up to new heights. As Al announced me, I checked myself one last time in the veined, cracked mirror that dangled from a rusty nail in the dressing room. Was New York ready for me ? My intro music began.
The stage, I remember thinking as I stepped on to it, looked a lot better when it was properly lit and surrounded by a crowd of eager faces. The music slammed into gear, and I went into a raun
chy rendition of ‘Bi Bi Baby’ – possibly the best performance of that song I ever gave. Who cared that the microphone wasn’t working? My vocals were clearly audible on the backing tape. The audience applauded and screamed at my every move. For the final verse, I moved off the stage and walked among them, regaining the podium with my clothes only just intact. This wasn’t adulation, this was on a par with Beatlemania! Maybe Rolling Stone was right – another British invasion had taken place! There were even photographers at the club: news had travelled fast! One of them in particular caught my eye, a curly-haired young guy in a leather jacket that matched mine, prowling around the front of the stage snapping me from every angle. I found myself drawn to him, performing for him – but I had good reason to be wary of photographers ! Later, when I looked for him to find out which paper he represented, he had disappeared.
I followed ‘Bi Bi Baby’ with a soulful rendition of ‘Swing High, Swing Low’, which met with a muted response; it’s a more serious number, and I could see a number of thoughtful faces around the club, and even a few of the more romantic couples retiring to private corners to carry on their courting. But then for my finale I gave them what they really wanted: a reprise of ‘Bi Bi Baby’. Suddenly everyone was up on their feet again, screaming the house down, blowing whistles, happy and laughing. It was more than I’d hoped for. New York loved me – and I loved New York!
I didn’t get home until the commuters were streaming on to Manhattan by bridge and tunnel, the daytime people taking over from the night-time people. I’d been danced off my feet, taken from one club to the next by a group of fans who promised to be my best friends in the city, all of whom found time to give me their numbers and ask for a little private conversation. It was flattering, this new-world directness of approach, if not entirely to my taste. I wasn’t ready to plunge head-first into the fleshpots of Manhattan – yet.
I slept through most of the day, adjusting to my topsy-turvy New York routine. I was roused at six o‘clock in the evening by a knock at the door and the surprise announcement, by a liveried chauffeur, that my car was waiting downstairs. My car ? Anna had insisted that I use public transport, and had vetoed a limo service. ‘I think you have the wrong address,’ I told the handsome driver, reluctantly.
‘Mr LeJeune?’
‘That’s me!’
‘I’ve got a car downstairs to take you to the factory’
‘The factory? Am I opening it or something?’
‘No, sir. The Factory.’ This time he said it with an unmistakable capital F.
‘Mr Warhol is hoping to meet you, Mr Lejeune.’
Mr Warhol ? It rang a bell. Warhol . . . that’s right, the American artist who had been in London a few years before, who had seen me in Shitface, or was it The Bell End? I remembered seeing him on the news, heralded as the darling of the international avant-garde. Moska had been most dismissive, and I’d not bothered to find out more. But now he was courting me. I was intrigued.
‘Give me a minute to get dressed, and I’ll be right down.’ I stepped under the shower (so powerful it practically knocked my eye out), had to go suddenly to the toilet (that bug I’d caught on the plane had woken up in a bad mood!), showered again and thought about what to wear. I decided to dress down: a skin-tight white cotton T shirt and a pair of blue jeans would do just fine, Warhol or no Warhol.
My experience of Andy Warhol and his famous Factory was brief but intense. I was ushered into the run-down old building on Union Square, ascended in a scary freight elevator to the fifth floor and walked into a strange silver space littered with canvases, old furniture and people draping themselves in bizarre attitudes. There was no reception, nobody to greet me or introduce me to the great man, who, eventually, drifted over and stared at me in silence from behind his shades. ‘Wow . . .’ was all he said. He motioned me to a chair, where I sat uneasily fiddling with my quiff. Warhol disappeared for a moment, then returned with a super-8 movie camera on a tripod. He set it up, pointed it towards me and switched it on. This, I understood, was to be some sort of ‘screen test’, but the director himself had soon wandered off to apply a few dabs of paint to one of his outsize canvases. Eventually the machine whirred to a halt. I hovered behind the artist’s shoulder as he worked, crouched on the floor.
‘That’s very interesting,’ I said. ‘Who is it?’
‘Jackie,’ he said, breathlessly.
‘Lovely.’
There was silence again as he carried on working. I was becoming impatient.
‘You wanted to see me, then?’ I snapped.
‘Sure . . . We’re shooting a movie tomorrow, if you want to be in that. Otherwise I’m not sure what we can do for you. Talk to Brigid.’ It was the longest speech I ever heard him utter.
I couldn’t warm to Warhol, but like many others who came into his orbit, I wanted to prove myself worthy of his attention. I’d be back at the Factory.
Happily, Warhol had either forgotten about the limo or had omitted to mention that it was at my disposal, so for the rest of the week I enjoyed the car and the charming company of the driver until, one day, he simply stopped turning up.
That night I returned to Rascals. I felt that I’d made real friends there. I had a ball, and got completely addicted to the house martini all over again. And at every turn, I’d see that same young photographer from the night before. Was he going to sell these pictures ? If so, we had to talk business. But before I could beard him, he disappeared.
I was driven to the Factory the next afternoon, and found the place abuzz with activity. In every mirror people were adjusting their make-up, teasing their hair, plumping up their busts. Warhol himself was the still centre of this hurricane of vanity, gawping into space and occasionally muttering ‘Wow . . .’ I tried to catch his eye but he looked straight through me. He wasn’t even operating the camera, which was being loaded by one of his assistants.
At length I was hustled over to a decrepit old couch and told to sit down beside a muscular blond boy who was wearing nothing but a pair of swimming trunks. Assistants positioned the camera in front of us, while various women perched on the back of the couch and discussed our hair, the day’s news, their love-life problems. I wasn’t sure whether the camera was running or not. Warhol continued to stare into space.
Then one of the girls, a loud-mouthed overweight creature, smacked my blond neighbour round the ear and said, in a terrible whining New York accent, ‘Well aren’t ya going to suck his dick ?’ That was the cue for all hell to break loose. I won’t go into details; it’s all there for anyone to see in the famous Warhol ‘masterpiece’ (as it would later be called), Beauties # 5.
I’ve read a great deal about Andy Warhol’s ‘methods’ over the years, and have particularly enjoyed the wealth of speculation about the ‘structure’ of Beauties # 5. Let me lay this particular myth to rest. There were no methods, no structure. Much has been written about the fact that I seemed to appear and disappear at random in the film, reflecting ’ the evanescence of Warhol’s sense of selfhood’. The fact of the matter is that my stomach troubles were getting worse and worse, and I had to keep excusing myself to go to the lavatory Thus I missed out on some of the four-minute reels, of which around ten were shot that afternoon. Warhol didn’t seem to care whether his star was in the scene or not.
What qualities there may be in Beauties # 5 (and who am I to disagree with critics who regard it as a milestone in seventies cinema?) were nothing to do with Warhol; they were entirely the result of my performance. I was the only professional there; I controlled the action, I gave the cues, even my accidental absence gave the film its much-discussed philosophical core. Needless to say, I was never given credit for this, nor did I ever receive any form of payment. I phoned Anna directly after we’d finished shooting to tell her to send an invoice to the Factory.
The party after the film was more fun than the film itself. At night, the Factory turned into a strange sort of night club, where Warhol’s regulars would mix with whatever lumi
naries were in the mood for a bit of downtown slumming. That night I met Mick Jagger (who, of course, I’d known well in London) and his wife Bianca, painter Jasper Johns and even Elizabeth Taylor. I’d seen her hanging around at the side of the room, sparkling quietly in her diamonds, looking as beautiful as she did in the movies. She sidled up to Warhol and nervously, humbly asked him to introduce us. Andy beamed; this was the sort of thing he loved. He grabbed my arm and thrust me rudely at Miss Taylor. ‘This is Marc Lejeune, my new star!’ he said, then wandered off towards the toilets. She blushed, stumbled over her words and told me she loved my record. I hoped we’d become better friends than we did, but at that moment Liz was too shy to talk further, and left the party I’d see her again many times over the years, and she always gave me a special smile in memory of that awkward first meeting.
After a few days, I was well into the New York groove. My schedule went something like this: get up at four o‘clock in the afternoon, shower and shave, then wander down to my favourite coffee shop and diner, Tiffany’s on Sheridan Square (at least I could tell the folks back home that I’d had ‘breakfast at Tiffany’s’!). After eating, I’d meet up with friends in the Village, do some shopping or just ‘hang out’, picking up ideas and tapping into that famous creative energy. By ten o’clock it was time to hit the bars or go to a party – I was never short of invitations. As dawn broke we’d head off for Chinese food at one of the fantastic all-night places around Times Square. By seven or eight in the morning I was ready for bed again.
I was having a ball. I kept in touch every day with Anna, enthusing about the wonderful times I was having, teasing her about how much money I’d saved. She was so happy for me. ‘Stay as long as you like, babe! Mama’s taking care of business!’ It was good to know that I had such a good friend at home.
And wherever I went, I was haunted by my phantom photographer. He stalked me – that’s not too strong a term – from club to club, from party to party, even to my front door. After a few days, I’d have been disappointed if I hadn’t seen him somewhere in my peripheral vision, his camera clicking away, his scuffed leather jacket decked with lenses and light meters. He must be on assignment for a magazine, I concluded, and too shy to introduce himself.
