- 04/06/2025
Deborah Harry - Biography Documentary
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TVTranscript
00:00someone you thought you knew like you've never seen her before her style i just looked at these
00:09photographs and said this girl is a star this is marilyn revisited via your these were feminist
00:15times the idea of being a sex goddess was not being done the voice when you're on stage with
00:23her and you hear her sing a lyric it's kind of incredible yes she is deborah harry
00:29she had great style and style always has some humor to it you're always breaking the rules of
00:50what was stylish before you if you set a new trend
00:53debbie harry is a style icon debbie has had huge influence on other celebrities whether it be
01:14mandana or whether it be gwen stefani i think it's because she was almost reckless in the way that
01:20she dressed which was marvelous because that's how to create fashion you think blondie you think
01:26debbie she's the blonde it was even better that she had really dark roots and she wasn't afraid to let
01:31them show the whole idea is that yes i'm blondie and i'm not blonde in this american pop world where
01:36sincerity does mean so much that becomes a real statement up until that point in rock and roll
01:42you didn't have beautiful women in bands but debbie was like a playboy bunny who was in a band
01:48you couldn't take a bad picture of debbie harry certainly for my money she's by far the greatest
01:56blonde that ever rocked well i find that debbie's just got a classic face i mean no matter where you
02:01put the lights no matter where you put the camera you get an amazing picture every head would turn to
02:06look at debbie because when debbie came in the room it's like boom she'd turn it on every other
02:11beautiful woman in there it was like you know they were like the moon and the stars completely
02:17eclipse and she was the sun what has debbie harry really done for us she's made a certain kind of
02:37uh sexuality permissible for uh intelligent women there's some sex overtures to you to what you do
02:44when you're on stage oh sure you're not exactly hiding oh no why should i women didn't get played
02:49on the radio very much and her image did help her a lot it opens a lot of doors because she looked
02:56great and those songs were hits it opened the door
02:59women girls wanted to be like her they perceived her as having all this power on stage and i think
03:18the men wanted her and wanted to be with her but at the same time they were a little scared
03:22which turned them on more it was just wrongly assumed that because she was so great looking and
03:27blonde and cute and pop songs that she wasn't bright and without question she was sharp as a
03:35tack and incredibly bright because she had it all figured out she really did
03:39deborah harry has spent her grown-up life perfecting a unique blend of music and image fashion
03:59statements like the 2003 grammy appearance keep her famous but it's the music of blondie that has made
04:05her deserve that fame with a new album and a revamp lineup the reason that she and blondie got to the
04:12top are thrillingly obvious deborah harry the first time i heard her music sounded unusual she sounded
04:20different than anything else that was on the radio in 1976 they were the first new wave punk band to
04:28break through to the pop scene without really compromising what they were doing they just did
04:34whatever they wanted to do she always was able to have melody in her songs in a way that most pop
04:43artists have completely forgotten about deborah is a performance artist as well as a musician
04:49actress and fashionista all have been part of a long journey of creativity and self-discovery i'm always
04:56very fascinated with people that know exactly who they are i didn't really know exactly who i was
05:02and so fantasy you know was part of was a way of exploring and trying to figure out you know who i
05:10wanted to be who i was and so on and so forth that's how you sort of come up with an original blend you
05:16the thing that's fascinating and confounding about deborah harry is that she had the package she had the
05:36beauty the talent and yet she was her own creation unwilling to compromise that and as an artist she
05:43was always pushing herself she had a very definite idea of what was cool it had nothing to do with what
05:48mainstream people thought was cool and she gravitated towards that whether her choices were popular or not
05:54i feel like she had a real craving to be that person who was both underground and a star it's hard for
06:05people to understand that someone that looks like debbie could feel like a geek or an outsider or a cretin or
06:12any of those things but i think you know that was a large part of debbie's early thing you know her her
06:19inside didn't necessarily match with her outside until you know she gained a lot more confidence
06:24and success i think it was a time when i hadn't really done anything that i was satisfied with and
06:31i you know i just sort of felt like oh well gee am i ever going to be the person that i really want to
06:36be or am i ever going to feel good about my achievements or am i ever going to really enjoy life
06:43debbie's style would rise but before that she would have to break into and then out on one of
06:49the most competitive environments in the history of popular music
07:05on her way to stardom deborah harry fell in love with new york city
07:09it was a relationship that began when she was just a young girl
07:14i would sort of come into town when everybody was still asleep i would never meet anybody or see
07:19anything i would could never go to clubs i mean i was really too young for that i sort of just walk
07:24around these little streets that were so beautiful the little tiny you know old streets of the west
07:30village and and sort of fantasize about everything debbie was born in 1945 she was
07:38adopted at the age of three months she was born to an unwed mother in florida who discovered that
07:47the man she was in love with already had a family she gave the baby up for adoption and she was adopted
07:52by catherine and richard harry you know when you're separated abruptly from a parent and i did stay with
08:00my mother for a short time i think that that probably caused a real sense of panic that i could never
08:07really uh articulate for a long time she felt it would be disloyal to look for her parents it would
08:14be disloyal to her adopted parents but at a certain point i think you need to know your history you need
08:20to know where you came from where you have that desire most adopted children do and she went looking
08:25and she got a few answers i found out that i could you know investigate and i could approach this person
08:31one time and see if she was interested in you know having a meeting and she wasn't debbie was brought
08:39up in hawthorne new jersey just outside new york as a kid she had strong support from her adoptive parents
08:46she idolized marilyn monroe who became the model and talisman for her groundbreaking work in music
08:51and the creation of her image i was always interested in music and i used to drive my mother crazy with my
08:58records and i would play them over and over and over again the same song she always sang we'd be in the
09:04back of a car and going on vacation and there'd be billboards and she'd always make a jingle up and
09:10sing it her mother wanted her to dress like a connecticut wasp but even as a child she had a
09:16penchant for black and she wanted to wear her guardians backwards one time she did her hair
09:21and it went purple my mom was so angry at her she made her go to school i guess that that's the way
09:27that i got to express sort of performance quality at that time in my life you know was that i would
09:33just freak out with my hair and i would come to school with different color hair debbie's first foray
09:39into the music business was with the folk group the wind in the willows which made just one album in 1967
09:46i wasn't knowledgeable enough to say that i was in the in the record business or in the music
09:52business or even in show business for that matter i mean i felt like i was a performance artist and i
09:58was more in the conceptual end of it you can see how terrified she was in the wind in the willows
10:04there she is she can barely stand to have anyone looking at her she's hiding behind this
10:09dark curtain of her straight hippie hair
10:15after the group split up debbie floated from job to job she was even a playboy bunny for a time
10:21but her ascent to fame was chiefly influenced by working as a waitress at max's kansas city
10:26a new york club that was a spiritual home of such modernist luminaries as andy warhol and the velvet
10:32underground at that time it was mecca i mean there was no place else to go but max's and everybody
10:41came to max's i i waited on you know james colburn i you know served food to the jefferson airplane i
10:49mean it was it was fabulous it was a really exciting place it was through working at max's that debbie
10:55got back into music in 72 she joined elder gentile and rosie ross in the group the stilettos
11:03we would back each other up and each of us would take turns singing lead rosie ross she was more of
11:10an r b singer and elder did some rock um but liked cabaret and sort of campy stuff a lot and and i leaned
11:19more towards those sort of you know rock songs the band had lacked reliable musicians that problem was
11:27solved by eric emerson who had a child with elder christine a roadie with emerson's band stepped into
11:33the breach jeffi was just so gorgeous i was just astonished at how fantastic she was and she had
11:40a tremendous appeal he came to a show and we met afterwards and then he volunteered to a play for
11:47the trio since you know we really couldn't hold on to any musicians because it really it really
11:53wasn't about having a band it was about being a little backup band for an act soon working together
12:00propelled chris and debbie into a powerful relationship you couldn't talk about debbie without
12:05talking about chris they were inseparable they were as close a couple as i've ever seen we were friends
12:12first and he's a very interesting person chris really a lot of fun and uh very sweet they met i
12:22think it was this sort of incredible engine of ideas and collaboration and they took off
12:28after the stilettos broke up in 1974 chris and debbie formed their own band eventually they decided on a
12:35name blondie it was the usual cat call debbie got from men in the street
12:56blondie having a cartoon-like image and having a comic book you know sort of basis was a really
13:02important aspect of why the band worked you know we're able to look at ourselves as being
13:08characters and step outside of ourselves and you know in some senses not take ourselves all that
13:14seriously blondie joined by clen burke on drums and gary valentine on bass guitar came together just as
13:20the pop scene in new york was exploding like fireworks groups like talking heads television patti smith and
13:29the ramones gathered at cbgb's a club on the bowery that rapidly became the center of the punk and new wave
13:34universe i mean why would i end up being at cbgb's and you know at this at the birth of this sort of
13:41really fundamental you know group of musicians and and artists and writers could have been anywhere
13:49but it was there we all thought we were the center of the world and we thought we were going to affect
13:54the music of the world each band was on their own particular musical path i don't think there was
14:00one of the initial cbgb bands that was trying to be like the other all the stuff that was popular then
14:05was kind of laid back there was a real deliberate attempt to go against that and to be grittier and
14:12to be more in your face
14:30the raw power of blondie was apparent in the very first gigs in 74. you could see that there was something there
14:37and the problem was that they couldn't play it everything i heard about blondie was that they
14:41were the worst band musically at cbgb's and not to waste my time even checking them out and the band
14:47everybody thought was going to make it big was television some people would come up to me they'd go
14:51back to jersey but i probably deserved it you know we were sort of you know we were really rough she was
14:59sort of kind of tripping over her feet and looking like she felt uncomfortable on the stage you know we
15:07would go up there just be sort of you know well we're just going to wing it tonight oh okay let's try
15:12this you know and i would stand there with a fishbowl in one hand and i mean what's that about
15:19even living in the cheap and rough part of the bowery debbie and chris couldn't make ends meet debbie
15:23made belt buckles for a while i was on welfare for years on into the arpen around we were on our
15:31first tour somewhere right by welfare got cut off they didn't have any kind of bourgeois concerns about
15:39you know sanitation or hygiene or cleanliness entire building cost 125 a month it was really
15:46really full of uh poor old drunks and and crazy people while living on the bowery debbie formed a
15:52lifelong friendship with steven sprouse he was the designer who helped create her radical image
15:59brows used to live with us on the bowery he used to shudder when he'd see the things that i was
16:04wearing because girls should never dress herself that point she's like she kind of put on anything i
16:09said you know she's like didn't care and so that was good she's kind of like um canvas here she comes now
16:16with the addition of jimmy destry on keyboards in 1976 blondie sound began to mature people outside the
16:26local club scene had started to take notice of the band in the increasingly competitive atmosphere
16:32of cbgb's there was a few months in which they were recording they're practicing recording getting their
16:39songs together when they came back they were a different band same debbie same music different
16:46band our goal was to be on the radio our goal was to have people hear us we weren't particularly
16:53interested in being underground that was the nature of the band these were bands that did not have
16:57record deals they all wanted record deals they were all wildly tripping over each other to get signed
17:04the thing that chris did was he was such a great photographer that he would take pictures of debbie
17:09and then send them to all the rock magazines and then all the rock magazines would publish these
17:13pictures for free because every magazine wants stuff for free and this really helped put debbie on the map
17:20obviously everybody thought debbie was very uh visually exciting but you know no one thought that that was
17:25going to be enough to you know take them where they needed to go there was always this real serious
17:35element you know the talking heads and television and patty smith where they were conflicted about
17:41debbie being too attractive these were feminist times and the idea of being a sex goddess was just not
17:52being done it was so easy to put her down and say oh she's just beautiful that's the only reason she's in that band
18:04but blondie got its record deal the group made its first album for richard gottaher and private stock
18:10records in august 1976. it was this mixture amalgam of things that they just spewed out in what i call
18:19the joyous noise i thought they were all really great instrumentalists great players her voice and
18:26her sound and style were fantastic but it wasn't in a form that's traditionally recognized as a great
18:34musician now they sucked me in uh the rest of the world didn't get sucked in right away but richard's
18:41faith paid off debbie harry and blondie were on the verge of becoming superstars
18:49so they had released their debut album simply titled blondie debbie harry and the band still lacked
19:06acceptance in the music world in 1977 a visit to los angeles showed that things were looking up
19:13in new york they've always been treated as uh second class citizens and then once they hit l.a they
19:19realized that uh they were a pretty good band people were calling in on the quest line who is that
19:25who's that girl blondie i go what's the band blondie it's deborah harry singing with the band everybody
19:30showed up at the shows in sort of long flowered skirts and big white pants and everything and the
19:35following week when we did our second week they all came in dressed like us everybody was
19:41jumping around pogoing body slamming and just really getting into it blondie continued its tour
19:47in england where punk was already big
19:53we got to england everybody just went wild i remember the first gig we did there we were really
19:57overwhelmed and everybody just going nuts in the audience and jumping around and going crazy from
20:02growing up with bands like sex pistols and the clash to house a woman as as the front woman who was
20:10also saying so much about fashion and style was something that we all wanted to emulate blondie
20:16toured with television in england and that's when they made it big they blew television off the stage
20:23they killed him and that was the end of television and the beginning of blondie mania
20:34blondie's rights have been acquired by chrysalis records the executives there introduced the group
20:39to a producer called mike chapman i mean i just looked at these photographs and said you know this
20:46girl is a star you know this is marilyn revisited she just is a star the group wanted to make commercial
20:55mainstream pop records uh albeit a bit quirky and mike was the person that could explain to them
21:03how to make those records chapman's method was
21:09it was like he had a riding crop in his head said okay one more time get it right one more time get it
21:14right and and we would just do these things over and over and over again until they were letter perfect
21:23the resulting album parallel lines would be the breakthrough the group have been waiting for
21:29that is an album for me that will always be quintessential blondie you have songs like hanging
21:34on the telephone and the wonderfully angry one way or another and the very heartfelt sunday girl
21:40and then the ultimate disco new wave crossover which is heart of glass
21:53we just sort of put this this sound on there and and it just it clicked it all really went together now
22:01in the world of midi and computer sequencing heart of glass sounds like exactly like that stuff but it's
22:09all done manually with debbie in a sexy little stephen sprouse number for the video heart of glass became
22:16blondie's first number one single in america and sold over a million copies in the uk while parallel lines
22:22went on to sell 20 million copies the follow-up album eat to the beat reached number one in britain
22:28while the single call me from the american gigolo film soundtrack topped the charts on both sides of
22:33the pond were they a pop band were they a punk band were they a new wave band were they a garage band
22:39well they were all four you can't have one they were all four at once and they did it great
22:46ah blondie was on a roll it continued in 1980 with the release of auto american which contained a long
22:54forgotten song by reggae star john holt it was another number one
23:09they weren't hung up on you know writing their own songs they just knew they had to have great songs the
23:15tide is high works on several levels i mean it's an irresistible pop reggae number but you can also
23:19kind of hear debbie smirking and going like i don't really believe in this
23:28blondie also became the first rock band to take the radical jean called rap into the mainstream
23:34chris and debbie honored their friend fab five freddy with the song rapture
23:37blondie was working with rap stuff very very early way before you know 10 years before it was
23:47fashionable i never rehearsed it and i got into the studio and we just tried to figure it out and
23:53we were writing it as we were we were recording it
24:02i got it down once and mike said okay great we got it and that was it as blondie's success grew
24:09debbie got closer to one of her early influences andy warhol the pop movement was really about modern
24:16culture and and what you know what was feeding us you know cartoons and photography and tv all of that
24:23stuff you know it really came full circle and you know coalesced there you know he was really part of
24:29that he could he could see it he could feel it debbie was very helpful with our tv show in the beginning
24:34it was called andy warhol's tv she did a lot of the voiceovers debbie out of her busy schedule always
24:39came in and did that and then later on she was more involved when we essentially got onto mtv
24:45i heard this i never had a famous way
24:52between 1979 and 1981 blondie made three platinum albums consecutively and had four number one singles
25:00but with rifts among band members poor management and lots of drugs the ride down became as quick
25:05as the rider from the very beginning they did decide that the band would be one person one vote
25:12and there was a lot of frustration because uh often debbie and chris couldn't get the kind of thing they
25:19wanted done within the confines of the group debbie wouldn't have done maybe even an auto american
25:24if it was up to her you know she was kind of disgusted with the way things were going where do you
25:28think uh blondie will be 10 years from now san quentin at that point i think the record company really
25:35was trying to freeze the development of the of the group and of the character and they saw that they
25:42had this thing that they could market and they wanted it to to stay that way the minute that they
25:48got signed they went touring around the world for two years living in hotel rooms they didn't have any
25:53life they lost touch with their friends with sort of who they were in new york and they got burned out
25:59it seemed like everywhere you go somebody would offer you drugs i had always had a sort of minor
26:08depression going on sometimes major depression and trying to you know sort of ease that and uh you
26:18know plus it being so available well we were together we were doing all kinds of drugs and it wasn't for a
26:24very long period you know but it was it was also enough to make people who were okay with them
26:29doing coke and us doing coke if they found out we were doing heroin and they backed off she went solo
26:34and and did the cuckoo album which had this frightening artwork with skewers going through her face and it
26:40really confused people these are supposed to be the lightning rods of inspiration and you know the energy
26:46because they're like gigantic acupuncture needles a lot of people were a little bit horrified of it but
26:54it actually did sort of lead into the period when everybody started you know piercing themselves
27:01blondie made one final album hunter in 1982 but any hope of keeping the band together was put on hold
27:07when chris stein went down with a mysterious illness when you know chris and debbie were starting to have
27:14some money to enjoy and bought a new house chris was not feeling so well he was wasting away he was losing
27:21a ton of weight he had terrific problems swallowing he couldn't eat most of the time he ate tofu he lived
27:27on tofu and then he just deteriorated he just got worse and worse and worse i just started breaking
27:35out and had the rashes and that's when they really noticed things were screwing up there were a lot
27:39of um thoughts that he had a aids and no one would help him and that's when she actually moved in on a
27:45cot and took care of him like a nurse it turned out he had some disease that nobody had ever heard of
27:50called pemphigus vulgaris which is a rare hereditary immune disease his illness and him getting
27:58better and him getting treatment took over their lives and i think it frightened them to the core
28:03at that time they lived two blocks away from me and i'll never forget i ran into her in the supermarket
28:08once i mean she looked awful she looked like it took its toll on her you don't take care of somebody
28:14and love somebody and live with them and go through something like that and just sort of sail through
28:19it you know it affects you as well it took three whole years for chris to get well the strain placed
28:26on his relationship with debbie was too severe to overcome we never talked about daring marriage
28:33you know just didn't seem like it mattered that much because we were we were together all the time
28:37our relationship was so intense it's just overwhelming you know it's just there was no
28:45i don't know it just became too complicated they remained best friends they lived together
28:49in the same building for many years after they broke up her on one floor him on another floor
28:55and to this day they're best friends they love each other so much they talk all the time
29:00debbie harry will go on with her music but in the 1980s she would also find success in another very
29:06different creative medium in the mid-80s newly single and newly solo debbie harry set out on her own
29:20everybody went their own way did other things took a break took a breather i don't know grew up
29:28throughout blondie's life as a band debbie had done other things apart from music one of the most
29:33extraordinary was teen act tansy in 1983 a broadway play set entirely inside a wrestling ring tansy was
29:42cool tansy was fun she wrestles her way through life it's very symbolic i actually saw a teen act tansy on
29:48broadway the one night that had actually played there in addition to 14 previews it was a disaster
29:53but it was a really fascinating disaster i mean it was wilder than the rocky horror show and broadway was
29:58not ready for it debbie's career singing solo continued through the 80s and early 90s there were three
30:12albums rockbird deaf dumb and blonde and deprivation none became a hit in america but one single got
30:18into the top 10 in england her solo albums even the best of them which was the last one there's some
30:27synergy missing there's some conceptual distinction that isn't there
30:33she comes back into the light on her later solo albums and some of those songs are very debra harry
30:42very blondie but by then she was being shuffled from label to label and there really wasn't the support
30:49i guess i was a little bit late starting my solo career you know i sort of skipped a couple of years
30:54and if i had sort of picked up right you know on the the blondie you know trail i think it would have
31:01gone a little bit better although the singing was in the doldrums the film career was gaining pace
31:07her film roles dated back to 1978 when she worked on amos pose and made beds and the foreigner
31:31i thought it could be boring so we're going to make it not boring every time we cut back to you
31:38have less clothes on until you're in like you know your lingerie and she was like okay a big nightmare
31:44that nobody really knows is that debbie was up for the daryl hannah part in blade runner she really
31:50could have got the part and our manager at the time encouraged her to not to do it since it wasn't the lead
31:55but in 1982 debbie got a big part starring opposite james woods in the horror film video drone this
32:03was david cronenberg's surrealistic vision of the television of the future the thing that was really
32:09interesting about that part was that we kept saying well what is she is she a television character or is
32:17she flesh and blood we kept wondering what it was and now we know because it the virtual character or the
32:24virtual creature or being or whatever it is exists but at that time there was no name for what nikki was
32:33six years later debbie reached her widest film audience playing velma von tussle in john water's
32:38hairspray a camp look back at the 1960s i thought she would be right for it and i really wanted her and
32:45i couldn't afford her at the time at all because i was still like making underground budgets and she was
32:49the height of her career then in a way and uh and i told her i wanted sonny bono to be her husband
32:54she was like oh tell him i have sex with him but she was just kidding you know just saying outrageous
32:58things to get sonny to do it probably would have scared him our characters were they were pretty fun
33:03i mean we were really over the top and we were very evil now come on a one two a one two three pony
33:10mash potatoes faster i remember reading the words on the page and not knowing how she was going to
33:21do it and then she just got there and she was like in my face and she was doing this like the dance moves
33:26with me her character was the villain in the movie the richest lady in east baltimore who thought she
33:31was jackie kennedy or something thought she was really elegant when in a way she was a hair hopper is
33:36what we call it in baltimore he had a real sort of stylized campy approach it's truly the john waters
33:42approach in 1995 debbie played someone completely different she took on the realistically gritty role
33:49of a bit of waitress in james mangold's film heavy we had only seen the kind of hyperbolic kind of rock
33:58and roll version of who she is and there's this other really soulful person i couldn't finesse that you
34:03know that that she had to really feel ripped off and you know like her life was stuck there that
34:11had to really come out you know that was a serious part one of the reasons a lot of people have
34:15commented to me about the power of debbie's performance in that movie is because it also
34:21so contradicted other assumptions about who she was and what she could do and i think in that sense
34:27she brought a very human and more vulnerable side of herself to the screen which is something i'm
34:31really proud of being part of she's not afraid of looking very much the antithesis of what someone
34:36would perceive to be blondie i think debbie's probably a lot better actress than people think
34:41she is what debbie has done you know at least cinematically it's just the tip of the iceberg if
34:47she gets the right role debbie moved away from the character of blondie in several ways in 1994 she
34:54embarked on a completely new adventure when she joined roy nathanson and the jazz passengers
35:01i really didn't have any musical education i was just learning it as as we went along so this actually
35:07was like going to school afterwards sort of like getting the job and then going to school and learning
35:14the job her persona and what she can bring to things is really layered when you're on stage with
35:19her and you hear her sing a lyric it's kind of incredible the thing about the way she sings she
35:44sings sings as an actress and that's really important to me i mean billy holliday did that
35:48really great jazz singers to me do that they they can actually sing the song act the song act the
35:54lyric of the song speak about what the lyric is speaking about that little voice matured into a
36:01really really good instrument it's become deep rich resonant smoky people don't usually become better
36:08singers as they pass 50 and she has the new timbre and depth allowed debbie to feel at home with jazz
36:14and stay at the edge of uncharted musical territory the only kind of crossover i've ever been interested
36:20in i think with debbie too it's not about money or anything it's about getting the next generation to
36:24still be a fan and to still understand what you're doing and i think that's really hard to do
36:29retaining her underground status over the past years debbie harry has continued to be in on new
36:35york's wildest moments she is like the biggest new york icon ever that i can think of i mean she
36:44represents the city and everything that i love about it to this day she's part of the downtown
36:50underground and she not only is informed by it but she contributes to it i enjoy anomaly and i think
36:57that's sort of what i look for in life i don't really want to hang around with people that look like
37:02me and act like me the enjoyment of the different has taken debbie to some legendary alternatives
37:09such as click and drag squeeze box and jackie 60. debbie's participation in a show like
37:18the jackie 60 christmas show means that people start looking at the show in a more serious way
37:25so she always uses her position in a good way to throw attention on things that she thinks
37:32are very valid i was completely mesmerized and taken by the fact that here are these people
37:39that throughout the year perform the most bitter satire and they're the most unconventional people
37:47and christmas comes around and then the performances become very sweet and sentimental
37:52i remember in that first christmas show we had a leftover straight jacket that we rented from a
37:58costume house and i asked her if she would wear the straight jacket and sing her song and wiggle out
38:06of the straight jacket by the end of the number and of course she did and was happy to do so and brought
38:11down the house please put your hands together for the incredible deborah harry deborah has also been a
38:20stylewart at the landmark drag festival wigstock if you're a girl you'd admire her for her style if you're a
38:26guy you were probably turned on by her and if you're a gay guy you loved your clothes and makeup and hair
38:33the flamboyance of the drag queens and the people that go there you know equals whatever i could put
38:39out maybe i would like to have my picture taken with them you know mutual her performances with the
38:46dueling bank heads she was this diva with these sort of two gender hacking pretend divas who were so much
38:54more diva than the diva we did heart of glass i think yeah we did we did it very badly and was
39:00saying things how anybody can do this crap and debbie was in the background talking to lady bunny
39:05pretending to be really upset and about midway through the song storm the stage a big fight ensues
39:13david's wig comes flying off debbie's wig comes flying off and i'm in the background going ladies please
39:19this is so unnecessary it really did make people no wonder is that real of course it wasn't they
39:26had you know arranged to do it beforehand at heart of performance artist deborah's recent projects
39:32include the production of the play crave at the axis theater in new york we did crave for about six
39:37weeks i remember walking to the theater every night and through those little streets in the village
39:42and it was so satisfying you know it was my dream come true it made me very very happy she's also
39:51been busy again with blondie reuniting for the 1999 album no exit which was a spin-off from the group's
39:57first number one hit in england since 1980 maria we really felt we would have gone back to square one
40:04with everything and we were rehearsing in a dingy basement on the lower east side and uh nothing had
40:09changed now 20 years later i think the performances all together are better
40:29we do things better now we're better at what we do boy it is very unusual for a band to come back
40:35together again and make a good record and they did it i think it's a great tribute to all of their
40:41gifts that they could but especially to chris and debbie they're to me they're like one person
40:48the one's the right hand one's the left hand but they're part of the same body they're not a couple
40:52in that way but they're still really close musical partners best friends i think it's great i just
40:57think it's a great love story the reunion was so successful that deborah and the band recorded a new
41:02album for 2003 on the strength of it and even made plans for a summer tour the peripheral stuff seems
41:10much less important now for all of us and debbie's just a great performer and she's singing better than
41:15ever she can get the crowd into the palm of her hands pretty easily i think it was incredible i mean
41:21i've played in a lot of bands in my day but i've never seen anybody just sort of seize control of an
41:27audience like that it's hard to be a rock and roll legend with dignity in your late 50s that's a tricky
41:46thing to pull off and she does it effortlessly i think
41:59she's always on some kind of artistic search and she's still on that search now and that whether or
42:06not she makes work that is important in that moment if you look at the body of the work it's this
42:15quest forever towards this sort of almost like a beat generation desolation angel aesthetic well debbie
42:23harry is a legend she's a great beauty she was a great original and she had talent there's very few
42:28people that have all those things there's a lot of people that have one or two of them but she had them
42:33all right up to this day i feel at this point that you know i might not be the biggest star in the
42:37world and i might not be the greatest artist in the world but i've achieved a very wide spread of
42:44interesting experiences and i'm very happy about that cheers
42:52now i'm going to tell you something that you don't know about alan alder his least favorite word do
43:05you know it it's vomit well at least i relay the important facts to you he's next
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