Original subtitles

You had to watch Antonio.

As he was drawing, he was breathing,

like he was pulling the magic

right out of the atmosphere.

His mouth was like a fish,

and it was going in and it was coming out

through his fingers on the drawing pad.

And then he'd look at you and take you in.

And then, on, you couldn't wait for him to look at you again.

And he doesn't stop, and you just wish he would breathe for a second,

but you know he's holding his breath

till he gets that stroke down.

Everyone sat quiet.

They were as still as you could imagine.

And that went on till he finished the most beautiful drawings.

And Antonio, when he's drawing, always had an audience around him.

He fed on it.

He was so far ahead of his time.

He was in another century.

And so creative and so imaginative.

It was just beyond belief what he created, actually.

Antonio's aesthetic is beyond- It's like fantastic.

So, in his field, he's a giant, the most talented.

Not just his illustration, but the whole package, the whole way of thinking,

and his contribution is enormous.

Until he came along,

a fashion drawing was just like-

like a very stiff couture model.

Antonio brought this thing where he put them in a fantasy.

He added so many things to his drawings besides just the girl and the fashion.

He brought this whole new style to fashion

that I thought was wonderful, really wonderful.

And you kind of got caught up in his dream.

I think everybody at that time got swept up into Antonio's world.

There was something magical about it.

He had this way of kind of bringing this joy into peoples lives.

Here was this magician

in the center of fashion

who expressed what it was about fashion,

what it was about beauty, at that time, better than anybody else.

But he and Juan and his friends were also taking the piss out of it.

It's all about beauty. It's all about beauty.

He is not commercially driven. Zero.

Very few times in life one meets someone like that.

David Hockney said to me at some point in the '80s,

that if you look at a film

of an elephant walking through the savanna

and a cartoon of an elephant walking through the savanna,

the cartoon gives you so much more the feeling of the elephant,

because there's something in the rendering rather than in the recording.

Antonio didn't record, he rendered.

Everything was so new in the '70s.

I mean, the gay thing was new, the drug thing was new.

We were all baby boomers.

It was like a social era that doesn't happen very often.

One of the big social history trends

was the emergence of the fashion designer as true social forces

and as major figures in what was called society.

Until the '70s,

designers were seen as dressmakers, basically,

and they weren't so much part of the social scene.

The ladies they dressed didn't necessarily invite them to dinner,

and they certainly didn't go to the designers' houses for dinner.

Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino, Halston

became so rich from all the licensing

and had such opulent lifestyles

that all the ladies, all the society people, wanted to go to their parties.

And they really sort of took over.

The ready-to-wear would have just started,

and it was mostly happening in Paris,

and it was such an exciting period for clothes also.

Before the ready-to-wear everything was driven by the couture, which was amazing,

but it was almost frigid.

The mannequins were mannequins.

They were, you know, girls

that lived in white coats in between their shows.

So when the ready-to-wear arrived,

it unleashed all these crazy models that had enormous personality,

and that was a really strong moment for Paris itself as a city.

The '60s kind of social revolution

really kind of came true in the 70s.

Then everything underground was becoming above ground.

Underground was in by the '70s.

It dovetailed with the acceptance of homosexuality.

It was just a much more open, fluid society.

You had these new groups that had hot been accepted how were running the show almost.

It was all part of this scene that just sort of took off in the '70s,

took off and took over.

In the late '50s or early '60s,

I was then writing, I think, for Women's Wear.

I had an old Rolls-Royce, a period one.

Oh, the kids loved it.

With the leather trunk on the back, on a rack, you know, outside the car.

And the kids saw it and they wanted me to drive them to a party

so Antonio could impress everyone.

He wanted to arrive at an event at FIT

in that car with me as the chauffeur.

And I got a chauffeur's cap, put it on, and off we went.

And after that, we just became very good friends,

and I found them an apartment in Carnegie Hall.

As a matter of fact, I gave them my large apartment, which is six rooms,

'cause it had been a shop,

and they moved in,

and Norman Mailer was living in my studio

with his lady friend at the time, Lady Campbell.

And no one's studio door was ever locked.

You walked right in and out, whatever it was.

It was like a college campus.

Consequently, the French photographers moved in with their girlfriends

and then Antonio got them jobs modeling

because they were all sleeping with the fashion editors.

I mean, you can't imagine the intrigue.

It was- It was unbelievable.

But charming. Absolutely charming.

'Cause it was harmless.

I mean, those kids were the most fun you've ever known.

And talented?

Forget everyone else.

I will never forget meeting Antonio

because it was kind of the culmination

of everything I had come to New York for.

This was, like, somebody I really, really wanted to know,

because when I was in art school-

We went to the same high school,

the High School of Art and Design-

I was copying his drawings.

It was 1968.

I was attending Parsons School of Design

and I was just walking around the hallways

and I noticed three people that were wandering around.

One was Antonio Lopez,

one was Juan Ramos,

and one was Cathee Dhamen,

who, of course, was the ultimate high-fashion model of the moment.

And I just- I couldn't believe it was them.

When he walked into the room, he was so handsome.

When he walked into the room, he was so handsome.

My God, he had this raven-black, curly hair

and he had this little entourage of cute guys.

Nearby, they were doing a drawing session and Cathee was the model.

Antonio was guest professor that day

and everybody was just crowding the doorways and just staring at him.

And he pointed- He looked at me and he said, “You, come here.”

And then suddenly Antonio turned around to me, said, “Who are you?”

And I was, like, shocked 'cause he was so cute.

And, uh, I didn't know what to do and I stood there.

And he said, “Well, say something.”

I said, “Well, who are you?"

And he pulled me out of the crowd

and he pulled me up on the platform with Cathee

and we were posing for the students.

He says, “I'm Antonio and I'm gonna draw you, girl.”

And the way he talked was so cute and so sexy.

Oh, my God. I immediately went up to him and gave him a hug.

And he threw his arms around me and says, “How would you like to work with me?”

And he was, like, hugging me and I said, “Oh, my God, I'm falling in love.”

And then he said, “Call me.” You know, “Call me later on.”

And of course I did.

And then we became friends,

and we were friends the rest of our lives.

After I met Antonio at Parsons School of Design,

I pretty much stopped going to school.

Antonio, myself, Juan, and Bill Cunningham rented bicycles

and we rode through Central Park.

And in those days, Bethesda Fountain was a big commingling area

where people would hang out and get dressed up.

And that's where Antonio discovered Jane and Donna.

Well, the first time I saw Antonio ever

was at the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park.

And every Sunday there was be-ins.

Those were wild, hippie times when everybody gathered.

That's what you did. You just gathered.

We were walking, Donna and I. I was with Donna.

And Antonio came up to us.

There was this vision in red

that was coming down the main steps-

top hat, red suit, red pants, cane in hand.

And it was Antonio.

But I didn't know that at the time.

It's funny.

It looked almost like a pimp with the red hats

and, like, these crazy suits and a walking stick.

I was with my girlfriend Jane

and he immediately was drawn to her face and said, “Can I draw you?”

And I was probably about 15,

and normally I wouldn't say,

“Yeah, I'll come to your apartment.”

Right? It was, like, out of my nature.

He seemed very not-dangerous. He had such bright eyes and I just agreed.

“Yeah, I'll come by and pose for you.”

And he said, “And I'll pay you too.” And I said, “All right.”

She started going to Carnegie Hall, where his studio was,

and I was, like, kind of the tag-along.

And I kept on saying, “Well, what about me?”

Uh, I mean, to myself, of course.

Finally I got to be drawn by Antonio after a while

because he saw that I moved well.

And so we would just have sessions-

you know, alternate sessions, Jane and I.

And he would draw us for The New York Times.

We kind of at that point found our little teenage gang, our little posse,

and we just hung out.

We were inseparable.

They started coming around

and then we started working on them.

You know, they were like art projects for us-

painting them, dying their hair.

Corey and I were like brother and sister.

We were, like, very close.

And he had a real vision for makeup,

very expressive makeup and very inventive.

Corey created the white eyebrow with white lipstick, you know,

and he just really just sculpted my face.

He was a sculptor.

Oh, I saw Corey every day.

He would dress us up.

He'd pick an outfit out,

and then Corey would design makeup for us.

Corey and I were at a party.

All of a sudden, I just said to Corey,

“I don't want my eyebrows anymore.”

And I went into this bathroom

and I took off my eyebrows.

And I looked in the mirror and I said, “I like this.

Now we can start to make eyebrows. We can draw any shape.”

He loved that.

And then we would play around with it.

We were always designing looks for ourselves.

I really love Corey.

He's, like, the oldest friend I have.

We would just get ready for hours and hours and hours.

We'd just spend all day getting ready and then we'd go out.

And Max's Kansas City was right around the corner, within walking distance,

so we'd- we'd go to Max's every night, for starters.

That was in '67, '68, way before Paris.

Those were the years, the Max's Kansas City years.

We got in by begging Mickey Ruskin

and by hanging out every single night at the door, just begging him- “Let us in.”

'Cause we were underage.

And we did it. We got in there.

We were just kids. Kids.

Like street kids.

You know, we would just live on French fries and Coke.

Max's Kansas City became my living room at night

and it was just wild, as you can imagine.

I mean, every night was different.

You never knew what was gonna happen there.

For the most part, the artists were in the front. I mean the real artists.

The famous artists of the '70s would be at the bar, and we'd be all in the back room.

Yeah, so you had the musicians upstairs, the artists in the front,

and the wackos in the back.

It was just hanging out all night long. It was insane.

And I'm sure a lot of people were doing drugs. A lot.

We used to beg Antonio to, you know, finish work. “Let's go to Max's.”

And we'd go and all we'd do is dance. That's all we would do.

I mean, he was the most incredible dancer.

I met Antonio and Juan in, um, New York City

at Max's Kansas City upstairs.

I would get out and dance by myself,

and suddenly one night this amazing-looking man-

And he had these suede pants that had fringe

and this amazing suede jacket-esque kind of thing that had fringe.

And when he twirled, it would-

everything just kind of Whipped all around him.

And he was gorgeous.

And he just took me. He just took me.

He took me and we started dancing together and he twirled me around,

and I was lost, and that was that.

Well, he was extremely seductive,

extremely romantic.

So much of Antonio was the way he stood and the way he danced.

Everything was fluid, the way he moved.

Everything was movement, everything was music, everything was dancing.

We went dan- I mean, you went dancing all the time.

There was something very kind of cat-like about Antonio,

you know, the way he moved.

When you were next to him, it was, like, you felt like dancing.

It was truly about pleasure, the pleasure of color, of line, of music,

and incredible heart.

I would cry on his shoulder. I would ask for advice.

He would give always very good advice.

He was the kind of person that was non-discriminating about who you were,

the kind of person you were.

He was just very intense when he was drawn to someone.

And he was so inquisitive, you know.

A very, very curious person.

You felt like you knew him.

He was very vulnerable, but very giving.

I think that all fed his creativity.

It was just what he needed.

I guess you'd call it, like, magnetism,

or an aura about him that was power.

He had a lot of power.

If you were in his crosshairs, you were the target of his attention,

and therefore helpless.

And it wasn't just me. It was all the people I knew, everyone.

It is that rare gift that some people have

It is that rare gift that some people have

of being so full of life that you're just, kind of-

You're drawn into it, you know?

Whatever you did with Antonio, it was fun.

It was wide open. It was just wild.

We could do anything we wanted.

Everyone was as free as a bird.

The kids talk about being liberated today.

We never used the word, but, by God-

And Antonio and Juan were the most liberated.

Those kids went off dancing

and went sleeping with whoever they wanted.

It was wonderful.

Well, it was all happening then.

It was that pre-AIDS, gay-liberation feeling of the early '70s.

It was everywhere, and I think everybody picked up on it.

Everybody who was an artist picked up on it and used it.

There's no taboo. There was no AIDS. There was no taboo.

And there was no boundary.

So Antonio is totally free. He's completely free.

And also he's bisexual, so he's even freer.

It was about people, it was about love,

it was about sex, it was about who was sexy.

Well, we had a certain amount of decadence,

but it was kind of lighter and fun decadence.

It didn't feel, like, wicked or dirty

or that we were descending into the depths of anything.

It felt like we were rising to the heights of everything.

You know, his father was a psychic, and Antonio had a lot of that.

Antonio had very sharp instincts about things,

visual things and emotional things

and things happening in his friends' lives.

Antonio's father was a mannequin maker

when they first came to the United States,

and fancied himself a psychic.

I think Antonio had a certain way of looking at people

and feeling that he knew what they should do,

and he was right.

And that's what he used his art for, in a way,

to draw the way that he thought they should look.

Antonio would talk about his mother, always with fondness.

He adored her.

She was beautiful and she made dresses, and he loved what she did.

Being young, Puerto Rican man, and being gay,

I'm sure it was, like, a shock to both parents

and to his brothers

and it probably estranged them.

And I think afterwards it was never the same with his mother.

They weren't close, but they spoke periodically.

So I was working with my father, making mannequins in the summertime,

helping my mother make dresses.

I had a collection of dolls. If my friends ever found out, they would've killed me.

It's like, you know, two lives.

Antonio and Juan, you know, they were Nuyoricans.

They weren't Puerto Ricans at all.

They came to New York at a very young age,

and I think race and ethnicity and sexuality

have become the primary underpinnings of their art,

as opposed to fashion,

which has always been how everybody perceived Juan and Antonio's work.

Sometime, probably the spring of 1968-

Perhaps it was the end of '67-

there were these drawings in Elle,

line drawings of these girls with long, flowing hair.

I grew up in France reading Tintin.

My ideal life is lived as a line drawing.

And to see, sort of, the line of Tintin

turned into these perfect expressions

of pulchritude, beauty, femininity, fashion-

And the lines, the curls,

the expressions on the girls' faces,

the way their arms were, the way their legs were.

I was absolutely mesmerized.

I had this boyfriend- Actually, my first boyfriend, an English guy called Edward.

And probably the reason I was with him was that he'd said at one point,

“Oh, Antonio Lopez is a friend of mine.”

And so Edward takes me to the studios

behind Carnegie Hall on 56th Street,

up in this funny elevator to this studio,

and there was Antonio standing in contrapposto

and Juan looking short, anguished, intense.

I mean, Juan was sort of the Puerto Rican Roy Scheider.

You know, small and always Worried about stuff.

Antonio was Michelangelo's David

with black hair and a mustache and just this ease about him.

And the fact that I was in the studio of the guy

who had done these drawings that were everything to me

was completely overwhelming and wonderful.

The first thing we did was we went out and had dinner with Bill Cunningham at the automat.

Then Donna Jordan and Jane Forth materialize.

And I used to go over there to the studios

and sit and watch the girls pose for Antonio.

Antonio would do the drawing. Then Juan would color it at a different table.

When I Went over, I met Cathee Dhamen, his model.

She was there with Antonio and he was drawing her when I walked in the room.

It was very sparsely decorated

and the only thing he had in there was this amazing black leather chair.

And it was all white, and it had wooden floors,

and it was sort of walking into something from heaven, like a white cloud.

You felt like you were in heaven being there.

I just remember the afternoons there in that beautiful apartment

with the light and...

just sit and, you know, watch him draw,

watch him draw me and-

And the atmosphere was fantastic, always, in that studio.

It was electric. That's the best way I can describe it.

It was electric.

♪ Ah, freak out ♪

♪ Le Freak, c'est chic ♪

♪ Freak out ♪

♪ Ah, freak out ♪

♪ Le Freak, c'est chic ♪

♪ Freak out ♪

♪ Have you heard About the new dance craze? ♪

♪ Listen to us ♪

♪ I'm sure you'll be amazed ♪

They were probably the most talented people I think I ever knew.

Just raw talent.

And they didn't need anyone or they didn't take it from anyone.

Antonio was born with it and Juan refined it.

They couldn't separate them.

It was the most wonderful collaboration you could ever imagine.

Antonio was born with the talent, but not the refinement.

Juan had all the refinement.

And Juan had the taste.

Antonio was pure the '60s- flamboyant but delightful.

And everyone just gravitated towards Antonio.

Juan was definitely the intellectual.

Antonio was sort of proud of his street cred,

although he was a very, very intelligent person.

But this was the roles that they sort of felt most comfortable in as a team.

They were both students at FIT.

It was the first year that they met.

They immediately became boyfriends.

They weren't there that long.

They actually were plucked out of FIT in their first or second year

by Women's Wear Daily,

who had seen their drawings and asked them if they wanted to go on staff there.

And they did. They quit school and went to work for Women's Wear Daily.

That lasted for a few months.

When The New York Times approached, they said they would do it,

but they didn't want to have a contract.

And they worked for Vogue too at the same time.

They were a couple for about five or six years,

from '65 to '70.

After that, even though they were very close,

they began more of a working relationship

Where they both participated in the art-making.

Juan's art directing was more nebulous

and therefore much more hard to define.

Antonio, obviously, did the drawings, and they were so compelling,

Whereas you didn't see what went on in order to produce those drawings,

which was Juan's collaboration, which brought a whole other dimension to the thing.

Because in the '60s, when he was very young,

he was very traditional in his illustration.

His drawings were very fashion-oriented,

and as he gained confidence

and Juan gained more control over the drawings themselves,

it really took it to a whole new level.

That's when they started to get more adventurous and had really entered their own realm.

That's when they started to get more adventurous and had really entered their own realm.

Juan kept him involved in modern art.

Juan took influences from it

and put it into Antonio's drawings.

And if he didn't like the drawing, he'd come in- “What is this? What is this?”

And take them and tear them up and tell Antonio to get back to work.

Juan was the greatest art director, after Brodovitch,

at Harper's Bazaar.

The glamour and the sexiness

of being with Juan and Antonio

was totally tied up with their relationship,

because they had a very volatile relationship

as far as when they worked together.

Antonio would be the butch one and he would be, like, yelling,

and then Juan would explode, and actually he would be the butcher one in the end,

because it was just this kind of confrontation that had to either end

in a fistfight or in a drawing.

He was always kind of overshadowed by Tony,

but in point of fact he really held his own in a lot of areas.

He was funny and witty and loving and sweet

and, uh, very dedicated to Antonio.

And also kept Tony anchored.

'Cause he was very anchored, Juan.

The biggest problem was getting them to work and produce the work.

'Cause Antonio, when he wanted to go out dancing,

Juan wanted to work.

And Antonio was always dancing in front of the mirrors to practice how he'd look at, un-

Oh, the ones long before Studio 54.

So he'd get back at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning,

and then by the time Antonio wanted to work,

Juan wasn't in the mood to work.

It was simply wonderful. I say wonderful 'cause it was.

And they charmed all the editors they worked for.

You can't imagine.

They were months late with the drawings.

Oh, those rascals. They knew the real deadline.

Antonio and Juan knew that if they had them too early-

“Could you change that belt,

change those shoes, or do this?”

So he'd wait up till they couldn't make any changes.

And Antonio charmed the pants off them.

When they finally got the drawings, they had solid gold.

You see, everyone at that time,

“Oh, fashion drawings, that's just commercial art.”

It wasn't at all.

Antonio was giving them the real thing,

but all the ones running it, they didn't know.

But anyone who waited got the real thing.

They had tons of people, followers,

because they were so free with their ideas.

They gave their ideas away like they were confetti on New Year's Eve.

They'd turn around, they had a hundred thousand other ideas.

I mean, that's the way they were.

And sure, Juan would get mad, uh, at some of them for things they did,

but it would last three minutes.

They didn't believe in holding grudges or anything of the sort.

And Antonio and Juan, if they didn't like the clothes they were drawing,

they'd make others and have their friends sew them up,

dress their model friends, go to the clubs.

He did a lot of his work at night.

So, probably, all night.

And the first job I did with him was-

I think it was pretty much all on Donna.

He could start with nothing at all,

just the clothes and the girl,

and then when you looked at the drawing,

it was this whole narrative fantasy

that was so amazing.

I remember the first ones I did.

They were on a great white stallion, galloping through,

and it was the collections.

Antonio was very, very influenced by the street.

Days when he was not in the studio drawing were spent on the street,

looking at people on the subway, talking to people

and being inspired by what they wore, how they acted.

He went through this ritual before he would draw.

He would lay the dress to the side,

and then I would just sit in my underwear

and he would draw the dress on me.

But he needed it, like, close to him visually.

So then he would put Sly and the Family Stone on.

He would blast that so loud,

and he would start to dance like his feet were on fire.

♪ Whoo ♪

♪ Whoo ♪

Let me tell you, he was such a great dancer.

And so he had to get this whole energy pumped up, and then he was ready.

And then once he started to draw,

you just knew you were gonna be there for hours.

And it's funny, the way he held his hands.

It's almost like he was conducting with this hand and drawing with this hand.

And his hands were beautiful.

So I used to, like, watch his hands while I would sit there.

You would have to be very still so that he could focus,

because if you weren't very still,

then he would not be able to hold on to the energy.

Because he would look at you and you would be still and you would be together,

but all of this stuff would be going on around you, the creativity.

You're vulnerable, you're excited.

It was hard to stay still because of the excitement.

His directions were so precise.

Just his whole movement of his hand was so graceful,

and to see the hand going across the page

and, you know, it's just this grace.

And his ever-steadfast companion statue in the back, Juan,

always, you know, looking and directing over his shoulder.

He was a very, very physical illustrator.

It was like a workout for him.

First of all, the breathing, it was very unique.

He would gasp.

He would hold his breath, probably to get a very fine detail,

and then once he got the line, he would-

Like, exhale it all out.

Sometimes there'd be beads of sweat on his forehead,

and there was always music, always music.

Watching him draw was one of the things that used to keep me awake

when we were drawing late at night

because he was so fascinating.

He always put his tongue out,

and he had this rapid-fire way of looking down and up and down and up,

and you had to stay still.

And so that's how I devised this thing of watching him watch me.

I can close- I don't even have to close my eyes and I can see him.

He was illustrating Charles James,

all of those clothes.

So we would go over to the Chelsea Hotel

into Charles's strange little studio living apartment

with this obese beagle called Sputnik, I think, that lived in the bathroom.

It was like a room-

The bathroom was about as big as this couch,

and this huge, obese beagle.

Well, of course, you know, I had no references,

so I didn't know that I was in the presence of, like,

this kind of world-class, world-renowned designer.

I knew nothing about fashion or clothes or...

I said, “Antonio and Juan, come, let's meet Charles James.”

I knew all about him. I knew his genius.

And Charlie always knew who he could use to his advantage.

And Charlie immediately realized the talent,

and over the years

he got them to draw drawings of his collections.

Now, those were drawing sessions.

Antonio was learning from Charles

what angles, what to see in the clothes to draw them.

One night Charlie was bending them over and showing them what to do and everything,

and a dress wouldn't fit anyone- they put it on me.

Except I had nothing up here. You know?

The damn thing was falling down and- I-It was- It was wonderful.

Antonio, he never said anything.

He got up and went out.

About an hour later, he came back to the Chelsea Hotel.

It's now 3:00 in the morning.

He went out and picked up a hustler.

The dress he was drawing,

no one could get their hips into it.

This young fella, they put the dress on him,

it slid right, like a serpent, over his hips.

Antonio was very inspired.

He had the right body in the dress.

The drawing session went on, and it was like magic.

The drawing session went on, and it was like magic.

And as it went on, it was terrifying.

Charlie is there.

The whole room, everyone's watching, quietly listening.

You knew right before your eyes real creation was happening.

You could feel him breathing it right in, sucking it out of them.

And it went through his head and came out through his fingers.

You could see the fingers and what was going on.

And that wasn't put on for show.

That was the real thing 'cause he had the dress just as he wanted it.

Even Charlie never got up or said anything.

But that was the most electrifying experience with Antonio.

♪ Why couldn't they just Let me be? ♪

♪ Let me be, let me be ♪

- Sometimes he couldn't draw. - ♪ Let me be ♪

He called it a block and he-

If you read his diary, it's always, “Blocked today. Not a good day.”

And he was on deadline and he had to produce a drawing for a certain client,

and he would call, uh-

One of his psychiatrists was a hypnotist,

and she would hypnotize him over the phone,

and then he was able to draw after that.

That happened often.

Weekly or biweekly.

So, sometimes I would be there, waiting,

and the block-

would not open,

and we'd sit there for hours and hours.

And sometimes it would be very late at night,

so we would actually end up working all night.

I think, probably,

he couldn't draw

because of his ongoing sexual affairs,

which were, like, nightly and with different people.

They were very complicated.

His father being a psychic

and his believing in... something paranormal

was a huge influence too,

and I think that was very much a part of a ritual that he would have.

He would dance and sort of put himself into a trance,

and sometimes it'd work and sometimes it didn't.

But if it didn't work, that's when he would turn to the psychiatrist

or the hypnotist.

There was all sorts of different physical things that he would do

in order to connect the mind to the hand

and have that flow without having to think.

It's very hard to draw if you think of what you're drawing.

It's much easier to let it flow out.

It was about making beauty.

That's almost like a sexual urge,

or an urge towards food or an urge towards music or dance

or, God knows, drugs or drink, but it's-

It wasn't drugs or drink.

It was... make these lines.

If I had to describe those afternoons

or those evenings or late nights

or whatever up there in that apartment,

there was a sensuality to the whole thing,

an exchange of energy.

And that was, you know, always the precursor for going out.

You'd model, and then he loved to dress me up

and do my makeup and everything,

and then we'd go out for the evening.

Donna Jordan and Jane Forth were a lot of fun.

Jane was all the rage,

especially when she started the no-eyebrow look.

Bazaar and Vogue really picked up on her and Donna.

They were much around the Factory and then Max's Kansas City.

They were sort of the new It Girls in New York

in '70, '71, '72.

And sort of eclipsing, a little bit, the drag queens-

Holly Woodlawn and Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling.

It just seemed like Jane and Donna were the favorites,

and if we were going to a big party,

you know, with eight or ten people, they were in the entourage.

The only time I really saw Andy out

would be at Max's in those days.

Um, this was prior to the assassination attempt.

And he was pretty free

and in a safe kind of posse

of Fred Hughes and Paul Morrissey.

At that time at Max's Kansas City,

they used to have their own corners,

and you were either in the Andy corner or the Antonio corner.

The Andy corner was more like hangers-on,

and the Antonio corner was more like the cool corner.

There were so many different camps. I was in the Warhol camp.

And then there was the back room and that was even subdivided into different camps.

The relationship between Andy Warhol and Antonio

existed on a professional level

because they were both illustrators

and they had both made their careers in New York City.

They had this common professional friendship

with the editors of fashion magazines.

So these two kind of separate orbits were kind of colliding.

And it was the same people

that kind of slid between the two universes.

I was in both circles at the same time.

I think there was a lot of curiosity between Andy and Antonio.

As wild and exuberant and passionate

and Puerto Rican as Antonio was,

Andy was, you know, kind of quiet and reserved

and he just let things happen around him.

And Antonio created things happening.

Andy had people performing for him, essentially, most of the time,

and Tony was performing for people most of the time.

I know that there was a big rivalry between them.

David Hockney and Andy Warhol

both really admired Antonio's drawings

and were a bit jealous.

In a way, as an artist,

you never dared to draw the figure when Antonio was around

because he could draw it so well and it was so effortless,

and as an artist you feel this.

And Antonio was the same way. He was jealous of them for their accomplishments.

I do know that Andy admired Antonio's work a lot,

and in fact they ended up exchanging portraits in the '80s, finally.

The women that read the magazines and all

reacted in a very serious way to Antonio's drawings

because he put real, live women in them,

pulsating with sexual desire.

They were wonderful, the drawings.

I mean, women could relate with them.

I wanted to be gorgeous,

I wanted to be gorgeous,

fantastic, indomitable.

Antonio was the one who drew girls like that.

The girls in the fashion photographs didn't look like that.

Drawings made them look like goddesses.

That kind of making of beauty translated to the Antonio's Girls.

You know, finding a girl and telling her how to be super, unbelievably, extra beautiful.

Antonio was always discovering these girls.

So the first girl that he brought over was Pat Cleveland.

And the next girl that he brought over was Jerry Hall.

These girls that were hanging out in Antonio's apart-

I just thought they were the most exotic creatures in the world.

Jane Forth, Donna Jordan

were much more exotic than the models who came before.

They weren't classic beauties. They were a little edgy.

He always looked for people who were flawed,

you know, a little bit crazy in their attitude.

He would take something, like, kind of really, really raw

and say, “This is what you can be.”

And he's, like, magical.

Anybody go near him,

they become transformed in a very natural way.

These girls, most especially Pat Cleveland,

didn't just walk down the runway

in that old-fashioned, very methodical, cold way.

They, like, danced down the runway. They made it fun and young.

♪ Oh, love to love you, baby ♪

The people that he fixated on-

men and women, but especially women-

had to have a certain something beyond their beauty

that connected to something inside him,

and I'm not sure what that something is.

Just being a beauty is- is not enough.

It's the way they carry themselves,

how they feel about themselves.

You can see it clearly in the way they stand,

the way they speak, the way they walk,

the way they take care of themselves.

And I find that very exciting.

I think what he saw was your desire and your passion,

as long as you knew how to express yourself through fashion.

So it didn't matter what you were

or what color you were.

In fashion, and for a fashion illustrator and for a designer,

the model is the beginning of the embodiment of your ideal.

Well, Antonio's like, um, guru

of what they call Antonio's Girls.

It's like Charlie's Angels, so to speak,

and he really, uh, teaches 'em everything.

Antonio's Girls encompass many girls.

There was a magazine article in 1973

in Esquire magazine

written by Jean-Paul Goude

called “Rags by the Trade; Girls by Antonio,”

and the subtitle was “Antonio's Girls.”

And then the subsequent book that came out.

Antonio's Girls consisted of people Antonio had discovered

and made over in the image

that enhanced them the most

in the most fashionable and the most exciting way.

The girls were very different,

ethnically, physically, and mentally.

They were all very exciting.

They were either runway models or even print models,

but they were also very individualistic

and just different from your run-of-the-mill model

or even woman.

Tina Chow became a socialite by marrying Michael Chow.

Grace Jones became a singer.

Jerry Hall became Jerry Hall.

And Pat Cleveland is now an author.

You know, it's just like they all had careers

that exceeded what you would consider a regular modeling career.

Jessica Lange and Patti D'Arbanville became actresses

soon after Antonio met them and used them for his drawings.

And I think he played a part in that.

I think he encouraged them, and they followed his advice.

I was studying mime. I was living in Paris.

I'd been there for a couple years,

completely broke, as you can imagine.

And I had no idea who Antonio was.

I don't know how he found me.

But Antonio saw Jessica and then lost her phone number.

And so therefore, he put up these sighs oh all the trees and the lampposts

saying the blonde, American girl named Jessica should call Antonio,

and she called him.

I was in New York,

and I was going to the go-sees, right?

And they were looking for some girls, and I went into the studio.

I see this girl sitting there with runs in her stockings,

and her wig kind of tipped over oh the side of her head,

and I thought, “Who is that girl? She's amazing looking.”

And they were sort of ignoring her, and she said, “Oh, I don't get a chance.”

I think she had a hangover or something.

And I sort of, like, took her and straightened her hair out.

I said, “Oh, you don't worry about them.

One day you're gonna be a star.”

So I get to Paris,

and I'm hanging out with Antonio and the boys,

and this girl, Grace Jones,

she got into Island Records

and she became a star.

♪ Pull up to my bumper, baby ♪

♪ in your long black limousine ♪

♪ You pull up to my bumper, baby ♪

♪ Drive it in between ♪

Antonio knew, um, instinctively what was coming up

because he comes from the feeling that you're liberated,

you're free, you don't have to answer to anyone for the feeling you have.

♪ Love to love you, baby ♪

He knew that his bisexuality was way biased towards men,

but he slept with many, many women too

and totally appreciated women

and loved them, and they loved him back.

They were doomed to be disappointed because he was a playboy.

You know, he would go from one person to the next.

And even his boyfriends didn't last that long.

I mean, I'm sure, like everybody else,

I had a wild crush on Antonio.

Didn't everybody?

♪ Love to love you, baby ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Love to love you, baby ♪

I was crazy in love with him. Absolutely.

I remember everybody falling in love with Antonio.

I think you couldn't meet him and not fall in love with him.

He was engaging, and he drew you in, and he loved to-

He was an incredible flirt. He was so good at it.

And he flirted with everybody- man, woman, child, dog.

You know, nobody was spared from his charm.

And he was one of the most charming people I ever met.

He was very easy to fall in love with.

You know, very easy to get attached to.

I did, as a teenager, for a little bit.

Yeah, and then I fell in love with Juan.

That's usually what happens.

And then you have a different relationship with Antonio after that.

Because of the way Antonio was,

which was he would get very intimate very quickly

with everybody who was around him,

especially people he was drawing,

everybody felt very close to Antonio.

Well, you become a part of him.

Well, you become a part of him.

You have been touched by him. You've been polished up.

He's like a jewel maker.

If he saw you going too far off track,

he'd grab you back and not let you get away.

Very protective.

Very much like a big brother,

but a sort of forbidden relationship.

Oh, yeah, there was a lot of competition trying to get close to Antonio.

But, you know, I think he gave everybody all that he had, one person at a time,

and then he set them on the road and made sure they were okay.

No, he didn't let you go until you were safe.

I had a crush on Antonio, big time, of course.

You can probably count on one hand, you know,

people who have that capacity for life

that draws people into this circle.

Because you just loved being with him.

And when I say I had a crush on Antonio, I really had a crush on him.

I was crazy about him.

Absolutely crazy about him.

Well, with the dancing with somebody like that,

it's very intimate,

and the longer you dance, the more intimate it gets,

and we danced all the time.

And then it was a natural progression into a bed,

and-and that worked out well too.

We were creative, and we'd stay up until 3:00 in the morning, drawing,

or later.

Then we'd fall into bed and we'd either not sleep or we would sleep,

and it was-

He was very talented with his hands and with his eyes,

and I didn't really care that Juan was there

or that anyone else was there.

I was in love with him. I just loved him.

And they didn't seem to mind.

And I would sleep in Tony's bed and, you know,

not all the time, and it would never-

not even present itself as a problem at all.

Triangularity? There was-

It was “chincanchalarity.” There was-

I mean, there were so many people involved. Are you kidding me?

The triangularity didn't bother us, no.

He was very sexual. Very sexual.

And I think its hard to categorize sexuality when someone is that sexual.

I think he favored men,

but it's a very complicated subject.

I'm not a psychiatrist, but he had four of them,

and they were all delving into it with him.

He was very promiscuous. Voracious.

I think he was addicted to sex.

He was so addicted to sex.

That was, like, his major addiction.

He drank socially. He didn't smoke pot.

He didn't even drink coffee that much.

But he was addicted to sex.

It was huge in his life.

More important than anything else.

Like, we would be at a business meeting or a dinner at Mr. Chow's,

and he would just, like, keep looking at his watch.

And Juan would roll his eyes and say, “Oh, he's got a date.”

And he would leave.

That was this, uh, “Love the one you're with,”

and everything was funky and free and colorful,

and there was no boundary for him.

He was sort of sorting through finding who could be available for his art.

You know, and that was the love affair right there in itself.

He could use you.

Songs like Grace Jones' “Use me till you use me up.”

Oh, he could do that too, you know?

He was very good.

And so finally, you know, New York was over at some point,

and, uh, we had to go and be in Paris.

♪ Ay ♪

♪ Ay ♪

♪ Ay-yi-yi ♪

- ♪ Hey baby let me stay ♪ - When they went to Paris,

they met up with Karl Lagerfeld,

and I think more than a romantic attitude towards Antonio,

Lagerfeld felt, “Ah, here's the fountain of ideas.”

Lagerfeld had the affluence to take care of the guys.

There was a wonderful give-and-take between them.

What they brought to Paris

was an awareness of ethnicity as beauty.

Of course, it was always in our DNA

to incorporate a lot of ethnicity.

You know, that's where fashion came from.

Juan and Antonio had begun already, in the mid-'60s in America,

to use black models for Vogue,

and they had a lot of trouble because the women that ran Vogue in those days

were not like today.

They felt like there was a latent racism at Vogue

that was inhibiting their style.

They wanted to draw black women, and Vogue didn't want that,

so they felt like they had to go to Europe.

When Elle magazine called them from Paris,

they jumped at the chance because they were ready for a change,

so they were not averse to Juan and Antonio bringing over black models

or Puerto Rican models or whatever

and using them in their drawings.

And I think that brought a lot of diversity to the fashion scene,

and it was ready to be opened up at that point.

It was a new era.

It was the end of that staid, haute couture, old-world salon.

When Antonio and Juan brought over Amina Warsuma,

I remember Karl said of Amina,

“That's the woman of the future.”

He saw that

that was the way out of the staleness

that they were stuck in in Paris fashion.

It must have been a total explosion

for these, you know, Americans to come in like this,

and Antonio really blew up.

I mean, he was the real, true vibration.

Europe was renewing itself. It was a renaissance.

We were part of breaking through.

In about 1969, I got on a plane and went-

In the fall, I went to Paris.

I knew that Antonio and Juan had rented an apartment there,

and Donna Jordan had gone to England first

to try to make her way there,

and Antonio had sent for her to come to Paris

because he needed an illustrating model.

I get this phone call, and he said, “Do you want to come to Paris?”

And so I said, “Well, yeah.”

And then I went to Paris, and my life changed, of course.

You know, I was living in little hotels by night,

and by day, I was, um, getting drawn by Antonio.

And then my life was more the fashion, the runways,

the hanging out with Antonio and his entourage, which was so much fun.

And then the fashion magazines.

My modeling career was launched by Antonio.

I really never worked that much in New York.

My whole career really took place in Europe

because, uh, Europe was much more receptive to a face like mine.

Here, everything was like Cheryl Tiegs

and, you know, your peaches-and-cream faces.

They weren't ready for somebody like me,

and so I had a better chance in Europe

because they were more, uh, modern

and they were more receptive

to something that was not standard.

Lucky for me, you know.

I mean, Guy Bourdin was a great photographer,

and I had a really great run with him.

And, uh, Helmut Newton. All of them fantastic.

That would have never happened to me had I not been in Europe.

Karl Lagerfeld designed for Chloé at the time.

First of all, I had never seen such a flamboyant man in my life,

and I had come from New York and I had seen plenty of, you know, kooky stuff.

But to see a man of that kind of presence,

obviously a well-established professional-

Uh, he wasn't a drug addict. He wasn't drinking.

And in broad daylight, he was wearing-

I wouldn't even call it the male version of what he was designing.

It was what he was designing for Chloé is what he was wearing.

It was a three-piece- a tunic, a blouse,

and these really, really wide sort of “flowy” trousers with high-heeled boots.

And just kind of really moved quickly,

so everything was “flowy.”

He just really was very respected in Saint-Germain.

You know, everyone adored him.

And he was always a very generous person.

He would find things to give us.

And he would never say, “Here, I want you to have this shirt.”

He would throw it at you, you know, from across the room. “Here, my dear.”

And it would come flying into your chest.

And he's quite a formidable character,

And he's quite a formidable character,

even back in those days.

Karl, at the time, was working at Chloé

and really making magic.

His designs were truly exceptional.

I think that probably the designer

that I looked forward most to see.

Him and Saint Laurent.

Karl's an extraordinary person also for gathering people around him

and major people of the moment that were very inspirational to him.

And I think Antonio was part of that process, if you like.

You know, 'cause he had all these women around him,

these great girls which, for sure, had an influence on Karl.

They were very energy-giving.

Not that Karl needed extra energy,

'cause he's got tons and tons of it.

But it just was inspiring.

It's that American in Paris kind of feeling,

'cause all the girls were kind of American too.

It was a very closed world.

It was not the Chloé we know now.

It was very, very traditional French clothing.

And Karl was trying to open that up, I think.

When he saw Juan and Antonio, he realized that this was the key to opening that door.

It was a talent for beauty.

Of course, Karl would want to have that near him.

It was life-giving. It was inspiring.

Karl supplied everything for them- the apartment, everything.

He dressed them.

On the other hand, when he was at Chloé,

Juan and Antonio influenced in the prints that Lagerfeld did.

All of them. Course they did.

I think Karl would be the first one to say that.

And they were that period and they were all the Chloé clothes

with the prints inspired by Antonio and Juan.

And it was an even give.

It wasn't one was stealing from the other or the other.

Then sometimes they would, um, brainstorm outfits together.

They would be drawing buddies, you know,

and sometimes they'd get a piece of paper and scribble on it together,

and Karl would say, “What do you think of my drawing?

It's nothing like yours, Antonio.”

And he would get, like, really disheartened.

“Well, you know what to do, darling. Just make it look better.”

He would say that. “I'll dress her and you draw her.”

Karl's intellectual and visual.

Antonio wasn't intellectual,

but he was visual and instinctive,

deeply instinctive.

I think that Karl, Antonio, and Juan

all sort of fell into a very comfortable relationship.

It just seemed to be very positive and smooth and obviously creative.

It was obviously beneficial to all involved.

And it grew. It just sort of expanded.

I think that Karl was very, very fond of Juan.

Juan and Karl became extremely close.

Juan is- was a curator, an academic,

was, uh, curious, would go to museums,

would research,

and had an extremely acute knowledge

of art history, history, pop culture,

and therefore was the channel of that, literally,

and was able to have a very unique,

strong relationship with Karl Lagerfeld

based on Juan's qualities.

Well, there were many drawing sessions

at the 134 Boulevard Saint-Germain apartment

that Karl owned

and so generously lent to Antonio and Juan.

And there were many long drawing symposiums

using Eija Vehka Aho,

who is the incredible discovery,

a Finnish Woman who was already in her late 20s

when she was discovered

and became an incredible muse to Antonio, Karl, and Juan,

and who was the model upon which were imposed these incredible ideas

that Antonio would sketch

while Karl would watch and Juan would interpret.

His apartment in Paris was like the hub

of everything that was going on.

As a fashion editor, and also as a photographer and artist,

you don't necessarily stay in any one camp.

Obviously, he wasn't only drawing Karl's clothes.

He was in the midst of all those amazing people

like Kenzo and Sonia Rykiel and Dorothée Bis and all those,

and he knew those collections better than I did.

I would go over there with a suitcase full of clothes and kind of leave them with him.

And then we'd all go out and have fun.

And it was kind of fantastic because, you know, he's the one that accessorized them

and made them look good.

I could give him any old rubbish, and he would make them look amazing.

Antonio was certainly a stylist. He was a major stylist.

I was a baby at the business when I met him,

and certainly I think he probably taught me a lot.

You know, I wasn't very daring about putting stuff together

and, you know, I really looked to him

as to what he put oh their feet or in their hair

or how he tied the sleeves up

and had the strings flying or whatever it was.

So he was inspirational to me, yes.

♪ If you feel like You wanna scream ♪

♪ 'Cause that's your way Of letting off steam ♪

♪ Scream on ♪

♪ Scream on ♪

He was like the center, I believe, you know,

and Karl kind of flocked more towards Antonio and Juan

more than the other way around.

Karl sort of warmed up to the idea

of having this kind of counterculture posse around him.

I think that he wanted to maybe distinguish himself

from the other designers in Paris at the time

who were more lodged in tradition.

And Juan and Antonio were very, very instrumental in doing that.

I mean, I think, in a way, they made him notorious.

I mean, he took that football and ran with it.

And I don't think he's ever dropped it.

There were these rigid cliques.

There was the Karl Lagerfeld clique.

There was the Yves Saint Laurent clique.

And you really had to be very careful.

They didn't like you crossing borders.

It was very rigid.

The French are that way, you know,

and it was very hierarchal.

And we, of course, being Americans, wanted to see everybody.

Karl was much more about having young, talented people around him.

Yves was like Andy, in a way.

They were these kind of helpless,

seemingly weak, effete kind of individuals

that needed, like, an entourage around them to do everything for them.

Karl didn't need that.

Yves needed Betty Catroux and Loulou de la Falaise

to sort of give him ideas of what women wanted to wear.

And he needed Pierre Bergé, certainly, to handle the business.

Yves would have been a total flop without Pierre Bergé.

It was just much more like a family,

and Karl's entourage didn't last.

Yves' stayed with him right till the end of his life.

So I think the Saint Laurents were a family.

I think the Lagerfelds were an entourage.

Yves was sort of at the top of the mountain,

Yves was sort of at the top of the mountain,

and Karl was kind of one of us.

Yves was not functional.

Between his nervous breakdown when he went into the army

and the drugs, the substances, the self-destruction,

the self-hatred,

Yves always had someone to lean on, which was Pierre.

You can really be self-destructive if you have someone

who's gonna pick up the pieces.

Karl is entirely autonomous.

But I wouldn't call the people around Yves a family.

It's more like a phalanx.

Whereas the people around Karl are more like a mood board.

The Saint Laurent woman was very different

from the Karl Lagerfeld woman.

Karl was much more daring in his choice of muses.

Eija, Pat Cleveland,

being kind of exotic and “exoticized” by the French.

I think Karl always saw himself more as a modern man,

but he was always changing, always evolving.

And Chloé, all of a sudden, was it.

And that was ready-to-wear, but it was extremely well done,

and all the girls wanted ready-to-wear and the ladies wanted Chloé.

Then Yves Saint Laurent started Rive Gauche.

There were always these dramas and rivalries involving these fashion people.

And everyone was accusing everyone of copying.

But they were all friends.

You know, it was very French.

Well, Andy always said, you know, that,

“Oh, Bob, you know, Paris is so different because they give dinners against people.

They give dinner parties just so they can leave somebody out.

They don't give dinners for somebody, like in New York.”

The whole thing was kind of absurd, you know.

But Antonio moved between both groups.

Didn't mean a thing.

If they were fun, Antonio was involved and would play with them.

If they weren't fun, if they were uptight, very snobby,

Antonio had no interest.

None at all.

I mean, he was- he was the real thing, the real McCoy.

I called ourselves "Les Américains" in Paris

because it was like the new café society.

We were always, always hanging out at Café Flore.

We'd wake up in the morning, like 12:30 in the afternoon,

and go to the Flore.

We'd be there drawing on the napkins

and putting our lipstick on with knives

and being really outrageous, and Karl loved us.

All of our food would arrive,

and we'd do what we called “crazy eating.”

And we'd stuff our mouths like this with all our food

and talk and drink at the same time.

And somebody would get up on a table with a champagne bottle-

usually me- and see how much they could get down.

Usually a lot.

And we had people staring at us.

And the minute we walked into a place, first of all,

it was quite a sight because everybody was either really interesting looking

or very beautiful,

and we'd walk into La Coupole, and every single solitary head would turn.

But I remember one time particularly,

that crazy crowd,

they're coming down from Montmartre in a cab.

The feathers and the scarves were blowing out the windows.

They're driving down through Paris in a rickety old cab.

And Antonio, he saw somebody and he said, “Stop!”

And there was a call girl, a streetwalker,

and they said, “Oh, would you want to be a model

in Lagerfeld's show this morning?”

So Karl dressed her, and she came out in the show.

It was a sensation.

Their life was like that.

I mean, the place was alive with talent and freedom.

Now everyone's so proper and so p-

Oh, baloney with that nonsense.

Yeah, that time in Paris with Antonio was really-

It was- It was unique.

It was just fun, you know?

We were young and we were having so much fun.

A lot of drugs, of course,

but as far as clubs, I think it was really just the Club Sept.

We'd go out with Antonio and have these great meals at Club Sept,

and then you'd go downstairs and you would dance

until, like, dawn.

The big gay bar at the time was Club Sept.

That was like the big bar, uh, in Paris.

Juan and Antonio used to go there almost every night.

It was the first real dance club

that played good music that you could dance to.

We were just there all the time.

Upstairs was a nice, respectable dining area

that catered to all those, kind of, quote, “bourgeois” French people

or poets or writers.

And then downstairs, of course, was the discotheque.

You know, there are just amazing stories,

mostly circling around Pat Cleveland

and her getting naked on the dance floor, et cetera.

When you went to the Club Sept, there was no boundary there

because all the boys used the girls' room and the girls used the boys' room.

And everybody was dancing in the darkness of the basement of the Club Sept

and touching and feeling and being together.

And all these creative people in the world of art and fashion.

And when we danced, the entire room would open up

because Antonio had his crew of dancers,

and then there would be other French dancers.

It was like a dance war.

We all just hang and dance to the wee hours,

and there was never time to sleep.

Catch a few little shut-eyes and then get right oh the, uh, runway.

I mean, we'd leave the Club Sept and walk home, you know,

at, like, dawn, and Paris was just-

There was something just so alive and sensual about everything,

you know, at that time.

In the early '70s, I mean, to go to gay bars

and, you know, dance to disco music

was all a very sort of, um, particular thing to do,

and it was really the fashion people, I would say,

who were in the vanguard of that movement.

I was editor of Interview. Interview was really tiny.

I mean, in 1970, the print run was 5,000.

Maybe it was 20,000 by 1973 or '74.

But it was like the school newspaper of Club Sept,

and it was really fun.

But it was a very small scene. It was a very inside thing.

And, uh, Jerry Hall was discovered there by Antonio.

Antonio was at Club Sept, and he saw Jerry there

and came home that night and said that he had seen the ultimate Antonio girl.

This girl was one of his drawings come to life.

She had just arrived from Texas at the age of 17,

and he took her under his wing and he started to model her

into what she would later become,

as far as the way she looked.

It was Antonio who created Jerry Hall as we knew her.

He said, “I'd like to draw you.” She said, “Well, I have no place to stay.”

“Come and live with us.” I mean, it was that way. It was that openness.

And Jerry was marvelous.

I always called her “Tex.”

And also they became lovers and she moved in with us.

And so it was no longer Juan, Antonio, and me.

It was Juan, Antonio, Jerry, and me

all living together in this new apartment that we had.

And that lasted for a couple years,

until we all came back to America.

She was a real handful.

Very young, but she knew exactly what she wanted.

Okay, girls. And a-one, and a-two, and a-three-

♪ Come on, baby light my fire ♪

♪ Try to set the night on fire ♪

♪ Merry Christmas to you ♪

Okay, what are we gonna sing now?

♪ I got a hot rod Ford And a two-dollar bill ♪

I felt so good when I saw her.

I thought, “Now I can leave.”

Because you don't want to leave him without a muse.

So, I felt like I passed my torch to her.

Well, you know, you got to have somebody to play off of, you know.

It's the male-female thing sometimes.

That is very appealing, you know.

And I think she was right at that right moment.

Not that we all didn't have a piece.

She just came in that moment. We had him before.

I thought she was great. She was very funny.

She was fun to be around.

She had the Texan twang,

and it was so thick that you almost didn't believe it, you know.

You always think you'd wake her up and she'd talk normal.

She was always wild and-and ready for anything,

but he really turned her into something extraordinary.

Everybody was used to Antonio's outrageous activities.

He had affairs with other girls, other women.

It was like every week, a different boyfriend or girlfriend.

It was not something that- I mean, maybe they were a little bit surprised

by how long it lasted, 'cause it lasted a long time.

And I remember even at one time, Jerry, in her 17-year-old naïveté,

came up to Juan and me and said, “Antonio and I decided that you guys have to move out.”

Well, Juan took care of that.

He slammed the door, and there was this glass panel in the door, and it shattered.

Y'all look.

I took a picture of all y'all.

In my first job with her in Jamaica with Parkinson,

I guess she was just starting to make it big,

and we went to the airport to pick her up.

And this incredible woman stepped out

with a floor-length fur coat,

kind of waving like some gorgeous film star.

I was a little shocked because, you know,

it was 90 degrees-

And you didn't really need a coat, let alone a fur coat.

But it was obviously one of her big dreams was to own a fur coat.

With her first big check, she ran out and bought one

and she was determined to wear it.

Even to Jamaica.

And she's a very, very glamorous girl.

At this time, Antonio was dating Jerry Hall.

I was told that they were engaged.

I'm sure it was Parkinson's idea, and he said, you know,

“Let's take them to Jamaica like a honeymoon couple.”

And we went off to the Jamaica Inn in Ocho Rios.

We gave them the honeymoon cottage,

and we did this series of pictures, which are quite lovely.

And we had so much fun.

And all the way through, Antonio was filming Jerry.

Antonio, take a picture of me!

- I'll say a few words. - Sing a few words.

♪ Chantilly lace, hair and face ♪

♪ A ponytail ♪

♪ And a wiggle and a walk Giggle in her talk ♪

♪ Makes the world go round Round, round ♪

♪ Ain't nothin' in the world Like a blue-eyed girl ♪

♪ To make me act so funny Spend all my money ♪

And they were an amazing couple together.

I mean, we even took them to a church and kind of married them.

♪ Going to the chapel, baby ♪

♪ Gonna get married ♪

♪ Goin' to the chapel of love ♪

We got married. Hmm!

I'm so embarrassed. I don't know what to do with myself.

I think I'll hide.

That's enough.

I always thought Antonio was with Juan,

so I was a little surprised when he was engaged to Jerry.

But, uh, it's not up to me to ask questions.

Um, they seemed to be having a lovely time,

and they were a beautiful couple and they were so much fun.

- Is this on, Antonio? - Say merry Christmas, Jerry.

♪ Merry Christmas to me ♪

Merry Christmas, Santa.

- Merry Christmas, Antonio. - Boy, you look great, John.

Jerry and Antonio, they believed that they were engaged.

They wanted it to be true.

Eventually, reality set in and it kind of dissipated.

I know that Bryan Ferry was very smitten with her,

and soon after her relationship with Antonio ended,

she was with Bryan.

Jerry Hall and Grace Jones lived together at the Crystal Hotel.

They had the ground floor.

They had a window that actually looked out onto the street.

Sometimes, at night, they would pull the curtains open on the Window

and they would dance in the window, the two of them together.

Usually when they were stoned.

And have a- like a little show for people walking by in the street.

Then they would quickly close the curtains again.

Until they got kicked out of the hotel. I mean, we all got kicked out.

I thought Paul was great.

Paul Caranicas was, I thought,

one of the best things that happened to that whole group.

And I went to Paris to paint, and right away, you know,

we were kindred spirits- Juan, Antonio, and I.

We were- We hit it off and we all became friends.

I became closer with Juan, and eventually Juan became my boyfriend,

and that was 1972.

When Juan and I became partners, it was just Juan and me.

We didn't, like, do group sex and things like that.

And Antonio continued with his, uh, many boyfriends and girlfriends.

But we were very close spiritually, all of us.

But I think also between Juan and Antonio, it created a lot of friction

because they had been lovers.

I remember once we had a huge fight in a restaurant,

and Karl was there, and Antonio reached across-

He was wearing this ring and he reached across the table

and punched Juan in the face and out his eye really badly.

And Karl and I took Juan to the hospital,

and he had to have stitches.

As Antonio brought in his group of people,

Karl was very welcoming and very generous, you know.

He took us to Saint-Tropez that first summer.

I think the first time he felt comfortable

to kind of have fun was in Saint-Tropez.

Three or four summers, they went down to Saint-Tropez,

and Karl would rent a different villa each time.

It was so fabulous to be in the Saint-Tropez.

I mean, in 1970, it was still raw.

We stayed in beautiful places.

We dined in great restaurants.

We went dancing when we could and then there was the beach all day.

That's all we did was beach.

Donna and I would swim with sunglasses, high heels, and diamonds.

I had arms full of diamond bangles on the beach.

We would get on the boat, like one of those Rivas,

and go from the port in Saint-Tropez

to the beach on the boat,

and Karl would, like, have on one of those little 1920s bathing suits

with the straps that go up.

He had these huge muscles.

We would be spreading that Bain de Soleil all over our bodies.

And Karl, you know, he just supplied us with our needs.

And the house we stayed at was in the middle of the grape vineyards,

and we had our own pool, and we were just having the best time.

Wherever we went in the south of France,

people would follow us and try to follow us home.

And then it would be, “No, no, no, no, we're not bringing the whole club over here.”

It was sort of a swell of recognition that we sensed.

Peoples attitudes towards us and the momentum around Donna.

It was just an amazing time.

I mean, you're in Saint-Tropez. You're in a gorgeous place.

You're in a- You know, it was like fantasyland.

It was fantastic.

This was probably our third season with Karl

when he said, “And here is Jacques.”

And we just kind of went-

Like we knew it was gonna be something in the mix

that was gonna be difficult.

We kind of saw the writing on the wall.

I mean, artistically, the collaboration

between Karl Lagerfeld, Antonio Lopez, and Juan Ramos was indelible.

Like, nothing could really shake it

except Karts attention to other matters, like romance.

Jacques drove a wedge between Juan, Antonio, and Karl.

The fact that he was so close to Karl so quickly-

And he became close to Yves too, and he had ah affair with Yves, in fact.

So, you know, he was in there to make trouble, and he did.

So much fuss was being made over this guy

who, basically, he had no talent at all

at doing anything but making trouble.

I'm sure Jacques didn't want Antonio and-and Juan around.

The aura that Jacques carried and constructed

was this sort of dirty, bad sex.

It was very S and M oriented,

and Jacques was really into that scene.

He was kind of taking over, taking control.

The chemistry definitely changed.

Fred and Andy bought an apartment on Rue du Cherche-Midi,

so that put Andy and Fred into the middle

of this Parisian social and fashion world.

When Andy came, he was making this movie called L'Amour,

where Karl was playing this guy who's in love with Patti.

And it was really the story of these two hippie girls in Paris

becoming glamour girls.

I think they were thinking somewhat about the idea of L'Amour.

Originally, it was going to be called The Beauties,

and it was sort of the story of Jane Forth and Donna Jordan coming to Paris,

meeting me, being transformed into these gold-digger beauties

and finding rich husbands.

They wanted me to play Karl Lagerfeld's wife,

and that's how I met Karl.

Karl Lagerfeld so generously lent his apartment

Karl Lagerfeld so generously lent his apartment

in which we shot the opening scenes and some of the later scenes.

Andy was always, in my opinion, bored stiff on set.

He was just there 'cause his name was there

and he wanted to see What would happen.

It's the only reason he was anywhere,

is that he wanted to see What would happen.

I had the Warhol connection already

from Max's and New York,

but it was Jane that was more the Warhol star.

Shed already been filmed in Trash,

so she already had the experience with Andy Warhol.

It was exciting because the way they made the film

is that Paul would just go off to shoot for an afternoon with the cast.

They were doing reality television.

They were not really scripted.

Basically, Paul would feed them mostly direction

right on the set as they were filming.

Donna Jordan was a star, and Jane Forth was a star,

and somehow Karl got in there as a lover.

I mean, he was really kissing me.

Like deep, thrusting, passionate kissing.

I think Karl was totally at home, as you can see in the film.

He's very comfortable.

And don't forget, you know, this is all spontaneous.

And for him to deal with, like, these kooky characters-

A lot of them, you know, were not sober and using drugs,

and yet he was a constant thread.

He did stay in character and totally got it

and was pretty campy about the whole thing.

Where is he?

Karl!

Oh, hi. Another girl.

- Nice. - You like it?

- Sure, it's great. - I'm not sure about it though.

Stay off the tranquilizers. You'll be another Marilyn Monroe.

You know, Karl was right.

It was, uh, childish moviemaking at its best.

A lot of drugs and a lot of alcohol, but that's my perspective.

The thing that I remember most about L'Amour

is a tiny little scene

of Karl and another man outside the Saint-Germain drugstore,

which is an equivocal little moment

because, of course, that's where guys used to pick guys up.

I supposed it was a reality show before its time

because French Vogue went crazy about Donna

and put her on the cover of Le Numéro Pop

because she was in Andy's movie

and Karl's clothes were sort of pop.

I mean, it wasn't really explicit in an X-rated way,

but it was like all this stuff that was going on

that nobody really was documenting in film other than Andy.

So, I think L'Amour was a slice of life

of what was going on with a certain group in Paris fashion world at the time.

They were more focused on what was going on

in the world of Karl Lagerfeld, Antonio Lopez, Donna Jordan, and Jane Forth

than they were on the Yves Saint Laurent group.

And unfortunately, Antonio and Juan, I think,

again went to Japan for a huge job, and they weren't around.

They obviously would have been stars of the- of the movie as well.

And he was probably meeting Tina Chow.

Yeah, because it was Antonio who introduced Tina to Michael,

so Antonio must have been working with Tina in Tokyo.

♪ Pink Pop, Pink Pop, Pink Pop ♪

Adelle Lutz and Tina Chow were modeling in Tokyo, in Japan,

and Juan and Antonio went to Tokyo to work

and right away was attracted to them

because they were half American and half Japanese

and very exotic and yet very familiar.

So, he started drawing them right away

and using them as models.

And then when they returned to Paris,

he used her over and over again as a model

until she got married.

Tina Chow was a magical person.

She was truly seductive in an innocent way,

and she was a very kind person.

Antonio had also met, at that time, Michael Chow,

and he introduced Tina to Michael.

He worked a lot in Japan.

I was in Tokyo, and Tina was modeling with Shiseido at the time.

He tried to introduce me to Tina,

and the rest is history, as they say.

Michael Chow was a friend in London.

He was an artist. He collected art too.

Antonio and Juan and I had a very close relationship with Michael Chow.

He's enormously creative.

So, he just, you know, completely jumped into the restaurant business

and was enormously successful.

I mean, he's very dynamic. He is.

He kind of sweeps you off your feet.

We got married very quickly.

I wasn't sure I was ready, but he was convinced I was.

Anyway, I think Michael and I were only actually married for about six months.

And Michael then set off and he went to Japan,

and through Antonio, he met Tina,

and they really hit it off.

And... she's the most beautiful woman I know.

I think I probably became closer friends with Tina after they separated

and I came to live in America.

I mean, I was only aware at the very, very end.

And then some friends told me that she had AIDS,

and I think I probably didn't even know what it was, you know.

'Cause I lived in England, and English people did not know.

I heard she was very ill with this disease, you know,

and I would try to be in touch with her,

but she did not respond.

Well, at that time, it was a time where, you know,

if you had AIDS, it was very, very shaming.

And people were very, very ignorant about it still.

And that was, like, horrifying

because some people lived through it,

and, uh, you know, the disease that came along,

um, was like a plague.

Probably in '82,

Antonio found out that he had AIDS.

That's when he began his quest

for any kind of cure possible,

and there was no cure at the time.

There were no drugs. There was nothing.

And when Antonio was ill-

And I'll never forget. I wouldn't speak to Lagerfeld after that.

Uh, Antonio said to him, uh-

They needed money, Antonio, for the doctors and everything.

“Can I do a campaign for you?” And he made drawings.

And Lagerfeld- “My dear, suppose you get sick in the middle of the campaign

and can't finish it?”

Someone you've known. But I guess he was feeling that they treated him badly.

They didn't. It was all equal.

Karl has gone through a lot of people.

He's had a lot of best friends and then people he's worked very closely with.

And then it's over.

Everyone wants to play, and I think Karl had the period

when, only child, he wanted to play,

and Antonio and Juan brought play into his life.

And then he wanted to be something else.

So, Antonio went to Oscar de la Renta and he said,

“Look, can we do a campaign for you?”

And he said, “We may not be able to finish it.”

And they said, “Do whatever you can.”

Antonio was so sick.

I remember being at a Oscar de la Renta show,

and he was sitting in the audience

and he was drawing for Oscar.

It was a short period of time that I spent with them.

Too short, you know? Their lives were too short.

We all flew together to Los Angeles,

where he was having a show,

and it was already March of '87,

and he died there in Los Angeles that March.

The bonding was straightaway.

He just, uh... had a deep soul.

And, um...

He's a very beautiful man and very talented,

and he's just- to me, he's just super cool.

It was a great gift to meet Antonio during those years,

to spend time with him.

What we had in those years in Paris

and in- when we all first came back to New York,

there was a wildness to it.

There was a sense of being able to do whatever we wanted.

It's a very important time.

All this, where we talk about supermodel,

all this, what we know of the whole culture,

came from that period.

'60s and '70s, they were the “it,” the magnets.

Their importance and their charm through the whole damn thing.

They never lost protecting their freedom

from any of these people.

That's a rarity, you know.

So, my memories of those kids are the happiest.

I miss them, but I've never found anyone-

I'm sure there are other people, but not like that.

What, do you think that you're Jean Shepherd?

- Go pick on an innocent old lady. - How 'bout a man child?

♪ Try me Try me, try me, try me ♪

♪ Just one time ♪

♪ Try me Try me, try me, try me ♪

♪ Anytime ♪

♪ Oh, try me for love ♪

♪ Baby don't you think you should? ♪

♪ Fill me, fill me Fill me, fill me full of love ♪

♪ Fill me, fill me Fill me, fill me to the top A'♪

♪ Oh, fill me with love ♪

♪ Baby is my loving good? ♪

♪ I just wanna feel your body ♪

♪ Close to mine ♪

♪ I just wanna share my love with you ♪

♪ All the time ♪

♪ All the time ♪

♪ Oh, try me, try me Try me, try me ♪

♪ Just one time ♪

♪ Try me, try me Try me, try me ♪

♪ Anytime ♪

♪ Oh, try me for love ♪

♪ Baby won't you try me for love? ♪

♪ I just wanna feel your body ♪

♪ Close to mine ♪

♪ I just wanna share your lovin', baby ♪

♪ All the time ♪

♪ All the time ♪

♪ Oh, try me, try me Try me, try me just one time ♪

♪ Try me, try me Try me, try me just one time ♪

♪ Oh, try me for love ♪

♪ Baby won't you try me for love? ♪

- ♪ Try me ♪ - ♪ Try me, try me, try me, try me ♪

♪ Just one time ♪

- ♪ Oh, try me ♪ - ♪ Try me, try me, try me, try me ♪

♪ Just one time ♪

- ♪ Baby try me ♪ - ♪ Try me, try me, try me, try me ♪

♪ Just one time ♪

- ♪ Want you to try me ♪ - ♪ Try me, try me, try me, try me ♪

♪ Just one time ♪

- ♪ Oh, baby please ♪ - ♪ Try me, try me, try me, try me ♪

♪ Just one time ♪

- ♪ Want you to try me ♪ - ♪ Try me, try me, try me, try me ♪

♪ Just one time ♪

- ♪ Oh, try me ♪ - ♪ Try me, try me, try me, try me ♪

♪ Just one time ♪

- ♪ Baby try me ♪ - ♪ Try me, try me, try me, try me ♪

♪ Just one time ♪

♪ Ooh, try me ♪

♪ Baby try me ♪

♪ Try me ♪

♪ Try me ♪

♪ Try me ♪

♪ Oh, baby won't you try me? ♪

♪ Oh, baby try me ♪

♪ Baby, baby, please ♪

♪ Try me ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Try me ♪

♪ Oh, try me ♪

♪ Oh, try me ♪

♪ Oh, try me ♪

♪ Oh, try me ♪

♪ Try me ♪

♪ Oh, try me ♪

♪ Try me ♪

♪ Oh, try me ♪