I’LL GET YOU, BLANCHE – THE STORY OF MARILYN
Marilyn was a live wire even at sixteen. I don’t remember him coming out. He was just out from the moment we met. He entered our lives through the Robert Gordon window. Probably his car window, since Robert drove, and when you’re a sixteen-year-old boy dressed as Marilyn Monroe you need someone with wheels. I tweeted a section of this story on X (formerly Twitter) rcently. Marilyn was very quick to bitch. So, disclaimer. Upfront. This is my story about Marilyn and let him write his own. I will absolutely get facts wrong, but I also might make him more interesting. Marilyn is interesting. Thoughtful and smart until self-destruction takes over.
My friend Robert Gordon met Marilyn at the Bandwagon disco in Kingsbury Circle, a local disco in outer suburbia north-west London. Both Robert and Marilyn considered themselves straight at the time, which, looking back, is hard to imagine. Robert was with his straight mates and Marilyn with a bunch of girlfriends. Robert’s mates wondered why he was chatting to this girly boy but they clearly recognised each other on a cellular level.
Robert’s dad had a shop in the local high street and Marilyn had been in there. Being Marilyn, he did a bit of detective work and subsequently found out where Robert lived. Marilyn arrived at Robert’s family home in full drag and Robert’s mum warned him not to ‘fall in love with that boy.’ That night Marilyn opened a white-chocolate Easter egg when Robert left his bedroom to put the kettle on. Robert had been given it by a friend and was saving it, but Marilyn broke it into pieces and, after devouring a chunk, said, ‘Ugh, it’s disgusting.’ Nothing gets in Marilyn’s way when she wants something.
Marylin invited Robert to a party at his mum’s house in sleepy Borehamwood but, when Robert arrived, he discovered he was the only guest. Marilyn pulled him into his bedroom, which he had decorated with black bin liners, and a life-long friendship was established. Marilyn and Robert had a thing for a while but in the end became best friends.
We all flitted between the queer and straight worlds. Happily leaving a punk gig to go to a gay club like the Sombrero in High Street Kensington or Global Village under the arches at Charing Cross station (which became Heaven in December 1979), which was more mixed but still an open-minded disco. So-called proper gay clubs were tiny and frequented by a much older crowd. Vile old queens would look down their noses at us in our punk garb. We were spoiling their bid for assimilation. They looked far less straight than they imagined.
I met Robert through Philip, and Robert had met Philip at the Sombrero. Robert had a car so he naturally became Philip’s new best friend. That’s not to suggest that Robert was less than his car. He had the best wedge haircut, with a fringe that covered one eye, and seemed laid back until Philip pushed him too far. Philip treated Robert as his personal chauffeur and often instructed him to drop people off on his way home. One night Philip met two cute boys and tried to get Robert to drop them somewhere he wasn’t going. They refused to get out of his car. ‘Drop us home,’ they demanded, so Robert drove to the nearest police station and they agreed to get out.
Robert was more of a soul boy than a New Romantic, but he upped his flowery game quite quickly. If you arrived at Philip’s to go out and he considered your outfit dreary, he would style you instantly whether you liked it or not.
One person Philip never needed to style was Pinkietessa Braithwaite, who once had a regular name that you can no longer use. I won’t dare say it because the last time I did she bit off my head. Pinkie dresses like a 1940s movie star but she would probably eyeroll at such a description. I have never seen Pinkie looking less than splendiferous, and if she owns anything casual, I have never seen it. The first time Robert met her was at a house party and she was wearing a cowboy outfit like Jane Russell in The Outlaw. Most people who dress up are doing it for attention but not Pinkie. She is the queen of self-promotion in some ways but always says no to pictures. I used to say no if I wasn’t dressed up but now I always say yes unless I’m in a toilet. I find it’s actually more time consuming and stressful to say no.
When Pinkie lived in Los Angeles I took her as my date to the 1986 Grammys and the press wrote that she was Marilyn. It was the night Prince won everything and John Travolta blew me a kiss. Marilyn was furious and rang a few news channels to put them right. I let Pinkie steal all the glamour that night and I dressed down in a suit with light make-up and Clark Kent glasses – my Clark Bent look.
Pinkie changed her own name, but most people were given disco monikers by Philip or me. Philip always called Robert ‘Gay Robert’ but we no longer use that title because it annoys Robert (even though he is the gayest person I know). He’s a couple of years older than me but still looks amazing. He still goes to gay clubs where you can only wear your boots. He even makes music with Marilyn. Robert does it more as a hobby and, when I suggested he should work with other singers, he said, ‘God, no, I don’t want a job.’ He has worked hard for years, though, and has now retired and just wants to have as much fun and sex as possible.
In the early days of our friendship, Marilyn considered Robert his soul property, but then so did Philip. Poor Robert, having to pick sides between two of London’s spikiest specimens. He’s mine, he’s mine. No, he’s mine. These days I am very close to Robert, and we often share Marilyn stories. I think we both love Marilyn, but we bear scars.
It’s difficult to know where to start with the Marilyn story. Her version of events is heavily weighted towards her own complexities. She remembers, loosely, every act of cruelty I have ever inflicted but there are holes in her holiness.
So let’s go back to the beginning . . . I first met Marilyn, or Peter Robinson, at Punk Jayne’s council flat in Swiss Cottage in 1977. Jeremy Healy was going out with Punk Jayne and I would hang out in the living room while they had sex upstairs. It was during the time of my first feud with Philip and he came over with Peter to rub my nose in it. ‘Doesn’t he look like Marilyn Monroe?’ he kept saying. ‘Go on do the face,’ and Marilyn pouted but he was wearing a hacking jacket and jeans. Hardly Hollywood. That night some local skinheads threw bricks through the window and everyone was screaming. We were always running from skinheads or Teddy Boys.
The first time I saw Marilyn in full Marilyn Monroe drag was at the Sombrero. Philip accidently said hello to me because I was working an entirely new look: a bowler hat and channelling Sally Bowles. He tapped me on the shoulder, I turned, and he ran away screaming. Marilyn approached me and said, ‘Do you actually like Philip?’
‘She hates me, love, so it would be rude not to hate her back,’ I laughed.
I thought Philip had tried to turn this young starlet against me but his plans ran foul. Marilyn wanted to be on the winning team. I was fast breaking free of Philip’s hold over me and getting myself into clubs. That night it was my friend Ashley who got me into the Sombrero, but I was working on it.
I befriended Philip again and we moved as a threesome through the night. Philip, Marilyn and George. A gleesome threesome, always on the edge of falling out. We hung precariously off Philip’s one-liners, for he was the queen of the barb.
‘Hey, Philip, meet my new girlfriend.’
‘Hello, what’s your name, love, and what’s he going to do when you get the sight back in one eye?’
‘Hello, my name is Ben, what’s your last name? Dover?’
Philip was a relentless hoot with the off-the-cuff quips and he was always the loudest presence in any space. I can still hear Marilyn torturing Philip. ‘She’s old news. Beauty eclipses wisdom. Nothing she has to say is of any interest to me. She’s a fool. An old fool.’ Marilyn loved calling Philip ‘old’. Philip would say, ‘Marilyn is funny, she’s like Benny Hill, but don’t trust her.’
Marilyn’s party trick was to steal the boy you fancied from under your nose and then push him away when he showed interest. Straight boys fell for Marilyn because she was in heels and a dress. Her body was very masculine, but she swished through the room looking believable. She had a sense of humour about it, kicking off her heels in a taxicab and sighing, ‘I can’t wait to get home and take off these ridiculous clothes’; pulling an electric shaver from her handbag and shaving at the bus stop. It’s insane that we got on buses and trains, but this was life before Uber. Marilyn wasn’t shy and always made an entrance, even on the bus. She would fix her hair with hairspray, wiggle and say, ‘Enter my aching body.’ She used that line when she jumped on David Bowie’s lap at the Embassy club one night when we merely believed we were famous.
I once did an online chat with Bowie in the nineties when the internet was wind-up. It was a fascinating, hilarious conversation, which I only recently saw as a transcript. At one point he asked, ‘How’s that dreadful creature, Marilyn?’ Which is funny because Marilyn insists she slept with Bowie.
Marilyn was very cat-like with her friends. She had some ‘glitzy’ older friends that she kept away from me. People like photographer Johnny Rozsa and Stevie Hughes, who was a brilliant make-up artist and aspiring photographer. They were older gay men and very advanced in the queer universe. Marilyn ran off with them even when he lived in the basement of my squat in Carburton Street. It’s hilarious to say ‘my squat’ but I was there first so I suppose that’s what it was.
Marilyn talks about my perfectly crafted public image but is insanely protective of his own. Let’s discount the YouTube rants because Marilyn thinks these rants are his divine truth. If he really believes I sabotaged his career, then he is certifiable.
You’ll remember the story of Marilyn walking away from the cabaret. Soon after that he moved to America with John, Robert and Pinkie. They went to live in LA and I got on with my life. I resented him leaving because we had been inseparable until then. Partners in slime. But we always seemed to find a way back to each other. We travelled the world together. We did alot of drugs together. For a time, when you saw me, you saw Marilyn.
A few years back, after she went through rehab and was looking surprisingly amazing, I was helping her financially. I don’t think she was grateful – she implied I could give her more, but I had my limits. Don’t die but don’t take the piss. It wasn’t a one-off. I have helped her loads and, no, I haven’t kept count. Before we investigate what I’ve given Marilyn over the years we should look at how the universe keeps giving her chances. Her mother won the bloody lottery. I was told by Marilyn that she won it but I thought to myself, she’d be straight into a bikini and heels to hold that cheque high in the local paper. I still don’t know if it was Marilyn or her mum that won, but whatever, Zeus parted the clouds again and said, ‘Hey, Marilyn, here’s another opportunity.’
As soon as Marilyn got some of that money, I barely heard from her.
I have no idea how much her mum gave her but it was enough to buy a house in Margate and a new car. (Both the house and the car are now gone.) I kept seeing posts of shopping bags. She booked into The Ritz hotel in St James’s with her new man, a naked yoga teacher who had previously been straight and had kids. Marilyn sent a text to my sister, Siobhan, who had been sending him money on my behalf. It said, ‘Hi Shoe, I no longer need George’s money.’ Siobhan had already sent him money and asked for him to return it. Which he did. Shiv didn’t much like being called Shoe and I thought the least Marilyn could have done was send her a bunch of flowers. If the gender pronouns are fluid, it is intentional.
At this point, in 2016, I had been helping him financially and paying for recordings, musicians and a video for our track ‘Love or Money’. I even hired my friend, Hamilton, to do Marilyn’s make-up and hair. She wore a pair of my vintage Vivienne Westwood bondage trousers and a sequin jacket I bought her in Las Vegas. The only thing I didn’t do was hold her up with a gun. I insisted I got those trousers back at the end of the shoot.
This was all going on as I was taking Marilyn on a bunch of TV shows to promote his record and create a buzz about him. He clamped up on TV and came across as cold and moody. I guess he felt controlled, but how is that my problem? PK never wanted me to do the TV shows with Marilyn and, when he saw how miserable he was, he said, ‘Well, you tried, now leave it.’
I was soon going to be heading out to Australia for The Voice and had my head in a book called The Path. I was probably reading two books, jumping from one to the other. I read something about psychic vampires and I thought, It’s her! Bloody Mongerleeesh. I have a string of names for Schmazda (Marilyn). She calls me Dawn, after Dawn Davenport, or Dawn Pigport, and I call her Abnormal Jean or Mongerleeeeeesh! Jon Moss used to call Marilyn Melon Head.
Back in London, Marilyn took me to a studio in Earls Court and introduced me to Benny D, who was trying to make music with Marilyn. We tried to work on some ideas but nothing really came of it. I knew Benny from NA meetings and we later become great friends and writing partners. At first I thought Benny was a weirdo but that’s how most great friendships start.
Writing with Marilyn was very stop-start and everything was a problem. I never struggle to come up with an idea but Marilyn hated everything. The truth is she wants to be Mary J. Blige but she hasn’t got the range. I wanted to create music that suited her vocal abilities and, with ‘Love or Money’ I think I nailed it. We recorded ‘Love or Money’, with John Themis, who was my musical director for years and my writing partner. I would argue that I wrote the words and melody, even though Marilyn was in the room pulling faces. She did contribute but you had to stab her in the neck to get her to say she liked anything. She was still smoking heavily, just cigarettes, and I kept telling her to stop if she really wanted to sound any good. There was talk at the time of Marilyn doing the Rewind Festival, which is a huge eighties live shindig. Marilyn was showing interest but that’s what she always does and then fear kicks in.
I can’t fill in the gaps in Marilyn’s logic or how she remembers things. The YouTube videos she posts seem to be done when wasted or in some sort of emotional state. I guess when anything goes wrong in Marilyn’s life, she thinks of me and believes I haven’t done enough for her. I can say all sorts of things about Marilyn and still feel a degree of love. When Marilyn decides to focus her rage against me it seems to be all consuming. The first YouTube video she did was from outside my house during the pandemic. The intercom went and all I saw was Marilyn’s mane filling the screen. She was buzzing like a brat. I didn’t answer and when I saw how crazy her eyes looked it was an easy decision. Plus. No mask. This was in the thick of the world crisis. I saw the video once it was posted, and the comments were flying. Most of them hoping for some peace mission between us but this drama, this war, is only in Marilyn’s head. Well, most of it. You only hear about how Marilyn is treated but never how she treats everyone else. Who knows what will happen with us now?