Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies (7 page)

I comment that it was very magnanimous of Cherry to share her prize. "Oh yeah," she smiles, "we used to give our best ones to each other. And somebody else was coming next week-Leon Russell! So who cared? I first met Leon at the Capitol Theatre on the Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour. That was the ultimate run-away-with-the-circus tour for me, when I thought I could get on the bus and never come back to reality. The music was so amazing and the atmosphere so welcoming, so family, and a nonstop party. I had an instant rapport with the Okies in the band, most especially Chuckie Blackwell, the adorable goldenboy drummer. He was a little devil and a true sex maniac, able to fuck and fuck and fuck for hours nonstop. And playful, maybe a little bisexual, and there were a million laughs mixed with the orgasms. I really loved him, not in a girlfriend way, but as a true sex buddy. Through Chuckie, I eventually got to know Leon-as much as anyone really gets to know Leon. He's a quiet, keep-tohimself kind of guy. Of course, I was madly in love with his music and wanted to be as close to him as possible, which in my head, at the time, meant sleeping with him. Chuckie and Leon were sharing a room, twin beds. I had sex with Chuckie, then Leon called me over, and I had sex with him. I can't say it was the most exciting sex I ever had, certainly not like with Chuckie. Nobody in rock and roll was quite like Chuckie Blackwell when it came to sex. But I got to be close with Leon for a few hours and give him the gift of my loving in return for all the pleasure his music had given me."

Aww, it sounds positively idyllic. "Not exactly," Cherry laughs ruefully. "The next morning in the hotel coffee shop, everyone told me that Leon had crabs in his pubic hair, beard, everywhere! And for a minute I totally freaked out. They were just putting me on and having a laugh, but for a while they really had me going."

While DJing at Aux Puces, Cherry got asked to audition for an off-the-wall play. "I said, `I'm not an actress.' But they didn't want real actresses. It was called `Theatre of the Ridiculous,' and they needed people who were crazy and free, so I said, `Why not?' I wound up in this wild play written by Jayne County, who was actually Wayne County then, World: Birth of a Nation. It was all made up of song lyrics. I wore a corset, and we used hot dogs as penises. I'd cut them off and castrate those boys. Andy Warhol came to see us. His play Pork was being performed at La Mama in New York with a Broadway actress in the lead role, but he thought she was too trained. Pork was going to the Roundhouse Theatre in London, and he wanted a new lead. He asked my director, `What about that girl who used to go around with the hot dogs?' So I auditioned for Andy at the Factory. I had been around him in the back room at Max's Kansas City, but never had the nerve to sit next to him and start talking."

I'm full of questions about the enigmatic Mr. Warhol. Was he mysterious? Amusing? Quiet? "He was childish with me. He'd whisper in my ear at a party, `I hear that boy has a big penis. Why don't you go see, and come back and tell me about it.' He was very voyeuristic and adorable, and wanted to hear stories. He would bolster your ego, saying, `You are so fabulous. If only Hollywood knew who the real stars are, it would be a different world.' Other people had problems with him. I think they became dependent on him for money, but I never did. This was an Equity play and we got a salary and didn't expect Andy to pay our rent. When I auditioned for him I discovered he loved advertising. I had done an ad for Yodora deodorant for black people, which would be so racist now. But we used to say it was made for Negro skin. And he just ate it up! The other subject he loved was Catholicism, so he asked me all about Catholic school."

Cherry diligently rehearsed for the play, but Andy just wanted to hear her sing "Our Lady of Fatima." "I sang terribly, I'm sure, because I was nervous. Probably the worse I sang, the better Andy loved it. I got the part and walked out of there, thinking, `Wow, I just auditioned for Andy Warhol. And I'm going to London to play the lead in his play!"

It was much more difficult in 1970 for a woman to make her mark in the music world. "I wanted to be necessary, I wanted to be needed, so I thought, `Wow, I'm getting in there. I'm really a part of show business.' Oh, it was the most magical summer! The cast lived together. Rod Stewart came to our apartment, and the band America. A lot of local bands would sleep at our flat. We had a ball. Andy came for a couple of days before we opened. And we had a fabulous opening night party."

Cherry was already an underground star in her own right, playing the lead in Pork, when she saw David Bowie perform for the first time. "I played Brigid Polk, or `Pork: She was supposed to be gross and freaking out on speed. There was a gesture I did all through the play, which was to pop out a tit. Bowie was a Warhol fan and knew we were in town. So at the end of Bowie's show, he introduced us in the audience: Leee Childers, Jayne County, and myself-and I popped out a tit. Bowie had long hair and yellow bell-bottoms and played an acoustic guitar. Mick Ronson was on electric guitar and Rick Wakeman played piano. Angie was pregnant, and running the lights. So we all got to be friends and started hanging out." When the play ended, Bowie's new manager, Tony DeFries, kept in contact with Cherry and Leee in New York, eventually asking them to help bring David to America to get a record deal. "In September '72, he brought Bowie to America, and we became the core of MainMan-the management agency. I was the only one with some structured Madison Avenue experience, so I organized the office, did all the contract typing; I was the `everything girl.' DeFries had this ploy to make David more desirable: he wasn't going to let him talk to the press. `You can't talk to him. But you can talk to Cherry.' So I was yap-yap-yappin' with the press. I'd had poems published in magazines, and was colorful enough to keep people interested and entertain them a bit. Basically, I started doing David's interviews. I had no idea what I was doing, but it worked beautifully."

Here's a revealing little nugget from Bowie's Web site in 1998:

I had decided to give my public life over to an extraordinary woman called Cherry Vanilla, an actress and performer whom I had hired to be my PR. And of course, she just wrote about her own life, like what shows she was seeing, where she ate and all that. If Cherry loved or hated something or someone it was Ziggy/Bowie who loved/hated it. Some of the events she wrote about did happen to me but you can assume that most of anything that is taking place in New York is happening to Ms. Vanilla. The cute thing is that every now and then she'd write how I had just come from seeing this great new performer whom everyone should know about ... Cherry Vanilla.

Cherry continues with her intrepid tale: "We were in Boston one night, Angie wasn't there, and I ended up in bed with Bowie. And oh boy, did I want that to happen from the moment I met him! They had this so-called open marriage, but until then I never had the opportunity. Also, I worked for him and Angie was his wife and my friend. So even though I was this wild thing, it did feel a little strange. If I was gonna do it, I was gonna sneak! It was wonderful. Bowie is an amazing lover, because he, too, is romantic. Although with him, one might feel he's acting, but who cares? Bowie is an actor. And I feel that way in life too. Whatever job you get, you put on the uniform, the costume, and act the way you think you'd act if you were in a play. Romance made lovemaking better, but I didn't always go for it. I went home with guys who I knew were into S&M and did some pretty weird things because I wanted to try everything. The missionary position between a man and a woman is great, because you can be kissing while you're coming. Who doesn't love it? Bowie was very good, athletic and strong and fun. But being with David was forbidden by Tony DeFries. Members of the staff weren't supposed to do that. We had been in Tony's room earlier, and Bowie made me sit in the same chair with him. DeFries was saying, `You better have those contracts typed tomorrow.' That made it all the more exciting, because it was forbidden. So were drugs on the tour, but we did drugs anyway. But by the time I was working for Bowie I didn't have much time for sex with anybody else. I tried girls, even Angie Bowie, but girls were not my cup of tea. There were a couple of guy groupies on the road, but by the time I worked for him, '72, '73, '74, my big groupie days were over. They kind of ended with Bowie."

Seems like a pretty good place to stop, if stop you must. "It wasn't enough anymore. Once I got to work with Bowie on a business level and help make him a star, that was much more fulfilling than just having sex and then, good-bye. It wouldn't be satisfying to have sex without that mental connection and respect for what I was doing."

After her lengthy stint with MainMan, Cherry was ready to pursue her own extremely creative side, and started doing a poetry act at clubs around Greenwich Village. "I had written a bunch of songs at Leon Russell and Carl Radle's house in Oklahoma. Then I went to my dear friend Michael Kamen and said, `I wanna write a rock and roll song.' And I wrote `Little Red Rooster,' about Bowie. Then I wrote a song called `The Punk,' about Punk magazine in New York, the Ramones, and what was going on in the punk scene. When I went to England, in February '77, it was the first single we recorded. They called us punk rock, but I thought we were lollipop, like a joke. I was being satirical, `Yeah, I'm a rock star, too!' I made two albums, for RCA UK. The first record was all rock and roll. During the second one, it was romance time with my guitar player, Louie. I thought it was punky to write hymns and love songs, punkier than trying to be punk. Like saying, `Fuck you! I'll do what I want!' But there were a couple of good tracks. Stuart Copeland, Henry Padovani, and Sting were in my band in England. They worked for me and the Police was my opening act. They didn't have Andy Summers then, and Henry was a real punk guitarist. By then, I was into one boyfriend at a time. I was monogamous, but they weren't, which I found out later. It was always my lead guitar player; I had a string of those."

For the last eight years, Cherry has been working with Vangelis, the world renowned Greek composer/artist, most noted for his stunning Chariots of Fire soundtrack. "I met him in the RCA offices when we were both on RCA. He's the same age as I am, sixty-two. He was nothing like anybody I had ever been with before. I always loved skinny, little rock and roll boys. Here was a man my age, an intellectual, and I fell in love with his mind ... and his kindness. I fell in love in a whole new way. Vangelis kept sending for me, to do little `talk' things on his records, whatever excuse he could find. Then one time, I wound up having sex with him. We had sex a couple more times, then, it was like, now what? Am I supposed to be your girlfriend? But we both knew we would never be boyfriend and girlfriend, because I was much too independent. So we thought, `What are we going to do? We love each other, but we know it's not going to work.' He said, `We will love each other, and be friends forever.' He was right, we are. And here I am, working for him. And look!" Cherry beams, holding out her arm, "He gave me a $15,000 watch for my sixtieth birthday!"

When I ask Cherry if she misses her former life and time spent with all those rowdy rock and rollers, she runs her hands through her tousled turquoise hair and grins, "I still love musicians, and always will. Rufus Wainwright is the love of my life now. Not that I date him, but if I were younger, he'd have been attacked already. He certainly wouldn't be a virgin for girls anymore, believe me!"