The Asylum (12 page)

His response was characteristically skeptical.

“They called
you
. Goodness me, they must really be scraping the barrel.”

When it comes to unconditional support, Terry was always the wind beneath my wings.

Buried somewhere 'neath Terence Sydney Doonan's naysaying incredulity, there was a legitimate point. What, indeed, were they thinking? Why cast an F-lister like me, whose screen credits are limited to random appearances on
America's Next Top Model
and VH1's
I Love the '80s
series, to play scenes opposite Oscar-laden Meryl Streep? Wasn't this surely a risky strategy?

I concluded that they must have decided to sprinkle some “real people” throughout the movie to add flava and brushed aside any misgivings. It was too late to turn back and too late for any kind of rational thought. I was entranced by the lights of Tinseltown. Like a moth to a flame, I was already hurtling toward my wing-singeing doom.

Adopting the kind of anything-for-kicks enthusiasm that made Barbara Stanwyck such a popular presence on every soundstage, I diligently learned my lines and showed up bright eyed, bushy tailed and embarrassingly early for my scheduled script reading. Delivering what I considered to be an appropriately pastiche-drenched characterization of a gay fashionista, I minced about and windmilled my arms. I vamped and camped. I poofed it up. I gave good nelly.

Smiling from ear to ear, the casting director informed me that I was utterly fabulous and begged me to come back and meet the director. She then handed me the entire screenplay and instructed me to learn huge chunks of it.

Wow! Lights! Camera! Action!

I set about committing the dialogue to memory. This was far more difficult than I would have imagined. And, for some strange reason, the dumbest chunks of text were the hardest. I'm talking about simple phrases like “Oh, hello!” “Good morning to you too,” and “Well, I don't see why not. In fact, I'd love to!”

For some reason these fleeting snatches of dialogue were so much harder to memorize than more complicated sentences. I began to understand how Marilyn Monroe could, while lensing
Some Like It Hot,
have repeatedly and famously fucked up the line “Hello. It's me, sugar.” It kept coming out “Hello, sugar! It's me!” or variations thereof. After take thirty, Billy Wilder had the line written on a blackboard. She required nearly fifty takes before getting it right.

As I struggled through the memorization of my lines, I had horrible visions of buggering up my takes and testing the patience of my costars. Anna Wintour was no longer haunting my dreams. Instead, I saw Meryl sighing and rolling her eyes and morphing into Mommie Dearest
.

But I persevered. I was determined not to screw up my big chance. I was determined not to let Hollywood eat me alive. I would avoid the pitfalls of booze and dope and narcissism. I would be
professional.

By the time I went back to meet Mr. Frankel, the director, I had committed my lines to memory. I had also convinced myself that stardom, popping champagne corks and a floor-length mink were all just a short limo ride away.

Sparkle, Neely, sparkle!

The day of the screen test arrived. I knocked it out of the park. I made love to the camera. I gave it my all. After I delivered my lines, a delighted Mr. Frankel quizzed me about various people at
Vogue
. And then he asks specifically about Ms. Wintour.

What is she really like? Is she as bitchy, tough and imperious as the Prada-toting devil of Weisberger's novel?

I tell him the truth. I tell him that Anna is straightforward, smart and highly professional. She is an incredible mother. She is extremely well liked by her staff. Demonic? I have never even heard her raise her voice and have yet to meet anyone who has. I conclude by telling him that Anna, in sharp contrast to the Weisberger creation, has achieved her position and her success by pragmatism, vision, clarity and hard work rather than Caligula-like intimidation. He visibly glazes over.

This is when I should have smelled a rat, or at least a moldy chinchilla. But I did not. I was blinded by my Neely dreams. I felt Tracy Flick–ish and buoyant about my audition. Clearly this movie would only benefit by the addition to the cast of a real fashion insider, and that would be me.

Skipping out of the casting office, I ran smack-dab into fellow telly-nelly fashionista Phillip Bloch. We're old pals, but this did not stop us from giving each other the evil eye.

You may not understand what I am about to say, but please believe me when I tell you that this encounter was very much the equivalent of Hattie McDaniel running into Butterfly McQueen outside the casting office for
Gone with the Wind
. We eyed each other suspiciously.
Don't steal my part, bitch!

Barely masking a foaming sea of competitive feelings, we commiserate politely about the agony of memorizing lines and go about our business.

As I rode the bus home—I love the M2's “limited stops” route, which zooms straight down Fifth Avenue—I couldn't help fantasizing about the limousines in my future. After the film comes out, it will be impossible for me to ride public transport. In a way, I would miss being “one of the people.” If I got the urge to ride the M2, I could always concoct a disguise of some description. Maybe a blue stripper wig would be enough . . .

The next day I ran into E!/Style/Bravo fashion diva Robert Verdi. He too had been called to audition. Same story. While kibitzing with Mr. Verdi, my Hollywood glamour haze started to evaporate. I was forced to ask myself some unpleasant questions.

Was there a pansy alive who has not read for this part? Had no fashion fag been left unturned?

I reassured myself that I had nothing to worry about. These other poofters would lose out to me, me, me, Norma Desmond. Why? Because of the accent. I am a Brit and Nigel was supposed to be English. Despite having lived in the United States since the late seventies, I still say “fortnight” and “knickers” with Brit-like regularity.

One morning soon afterward, I was pooping my dog on the sidewalk and ran into the gorgeous Candace Bushnell. She lives in my neighborhood. I was and am a fan of her oeuvre. Candace and I often chitty-chat while picking up dog poop. It's a bonding experience that allows for other certain frank conversations. On this particular day, Candace, for better or worse, delivered a heapin' helpin' of that straight talk.

I regaled her with tales of my imminent stardom. I told her about the auditioning process. I even told her about the fierce competition for the role of Nigel.

She gave me a look.

Even through her massive Chanel glamour shades I could see that it was a highly skeptical look. It was a look that said, “Hey, Blanche! You've been had.”

As I dropped Liberace's poop into the handy receptacle at the end of our block, the realization dropped on me. It dropped on me like a ton of remaindered copies of
TDWP.

I was not going to get the part—and neither were any of my fellow nellies. The whole audition charade was nothing more than a carefully orchestrated piece of unpaid research. We gays had been dragged in to swish it up—on camera, no less—for the delectation of some precast, overpaid straight actor. This thespian would then create his characterization based on our uncompensated-for mincings.

These dark suspicions were confirmed when the movie began lensing, just days later, with Stanley Tucci playing the part of Nigel.

Despite having played such a key role in the genesis of this movie, I was surprised when no tickets were forthcoming to the premiere.

So, like the wicked fairy in
Sleeping Beauty
whose invite to the christening of Aurora somehow got lost in the mail, I had no other option than to place a curse on Mr. Frankel, Ms. Weisberger and their entire cheesy-ass, cultural-bar-lowering, mediocre venture. Break a leg, bitches!

Time is a great healer. By the time the blockbuster, curse-immune movie was breaking every record known to man and winning every award and garnering free frocks for all concerned, I found it within me to forgive and let the healing begin. I found it within me to ask, “What would Anna do?”

Anna would don her welder-size glasses, assume an expression of noblesse oblige and move on.

And that's exactly what I intend to do . . . no, really, I do.

NOW THAT I AM IN MY SIXTIES,
a veteran of the fashion scene, I find myself ranting frequently about the younger generation. On the positive side, I find people in their twenties to be far more sweet and altruistic than those of yore. When I was a whippersnapper, me and my playmates were catty, selfish and superficial. We were too busy ironing the ruffles on our pirate outfits to read a newspaper and engage with global problems. Today, in sharp contrast, every young person I encounter is trying to make a difference, helping out at homeless shelters or supporting orphanages in AIDS-ravaged countries. It's a sweet thing.

On the downside, young people today would appear to be cursed with a strong megalomaniacal streak. Overly focused on professional and material success, they are desperate to claw their way to the top while overlooking the importance of creativity and originality. They would rather spend time honing their entrepreneurial skills than waste time developing an idiosyncratic voice. Everybody wants to be a global brand. Nobody seems able to chillax. This seems like a horrible way to spend your youth.

Your twenties should be sophomoric and exploratory and fun. This is the time to pluck your eyebrows into strange satanic configurations, to change your name to Ariadne or Arbuthnot, and to wear a giant alarm clock on your head.

I look back on my late teens and twenties with a sense of delight. I traveled the globe. I impulsively emigrated. I put dead coyotes in shop windows. I dressed up as the queen of England and got paid to do so. I sold hand-painted T-shirts. I got arrested wearing a skirt. I was inappropriate and uncouth. I was glam rock. I was punk (lite). I was even new romantic.

Career? What career?

On the rare occasions when I tried to be sensible, to force the issue and get all grown up and serious, it always backfired.

One day, in the very early eighties, I was busily selling T-shirts out of the back of my truck next to a chicken-wire fence on Melrose and Edinburgh in West Hollywood. (Chicken wire is great for dangling wire hangers and displaying mucho merch.) A pal screeched to a halt and attempted what I realize in retrospect was a
vocational intervention.

“You can't go on like this. I mean, just look at what you are doing. It's tragic. You have become a street vendor. At this rate, you'll end up working the Renaissance Fairs. You need to go to New York and get a rep and show your T-shirt collection on Seventh Avenue. You need to go see Bernie Ozer.”

Bernie Ozer (né Ozersky) was a legendary force in the fashion world. An unofficial Garment District ambassador, Bernie was known as
the
trend forecaster. He was hugely fat and very wise and wore daringly patchworked shirts and colorful oversize hats. And Bernie was a gourmand. The way to his heart, so my pal told me, was to bring him a lemon cake from Miss Grace's bakery in West Hollywood.

So, with the fear that I would end up pouring mead while wearing an Elizabethan costume or jousting in some godforsaken medieval theme park reverberating in my psyche, I purchased that cake, grabbed my samples and headed to New York City.

The transcontinental conveyance of the lemon gateau was a nerve-racking experience. People kept jamming their Samsonite weekenders on top of it. I flew most of the way with Miss Grace sitting on my lap.

When I called Bernie's office and told his secretary that I had brought him a lemon cake, I was immediately given an appointment.

The next day I showed up at Bernie's
bureau de la mode
wearing shorts and one of my T-shirts. A little too informal? Listen, I had been kicking back in L.A. for several years, so it's a miracle I wasn't wearing a Speedo. I had my samples, and most important, that bloody lemon cake, and that's what counted . . . or did it?

Knock, knock.

Bernie's office was lacquered in seventies burgundy and filled with trendy brass and Lucite tchotchkes. He was seated behind a grandiose desk looking like a gay Sydney Greenstreet. I plonked the cake in front of him and stood back. We both stared at it as if it were an explosive device. I waited for a reaction. He gave a snort of resignation and then attacked.

“What do you care if I go into a fucking diabetic coma!” he barked good-naturedly, and tore open the Miss Grace box as if it contained crack cocaine.

The rest of the interview consisted of me skipping about showing my samples while he ate cake and stared at my bare legs. I don't blame him. I do have great legs. And they were even better when I was in my twenties.

The good news: Bernie did not go into a diabetic coma.

The bad news: I did not become a billionaire T-shirt czar. No two-thousand-piece order was forthcoming from Macy's or anywhere else. I suspect that Bernie, in his infinite wisdom, identified my limitations on sight. He could tell that I was not ready for big-time wholesaling and distribution. He could see that I was much more the chicken-wire type. Before I knew it, me and my legs and my samples were headed back to L.A. and several more years of obscurity.

My Bernie interview had one positive outcome. It helped me realize that timing is everything. You cannot propel your career forward faster than it wants to go. This does not mean you have to waste your time. Not at all. When you are young, you simply need to throw a bunch of fabulosity against the wall and see what sticks. Work hard, stay positive and when a good opportunity floats into view, don't procrastinate, grab it with both paws as if it were a lemon cake.

During my twenties, I had no problem collaging together an income, albeit a modest one. (My W-2 for 1979 shows the princely sum of $5,175.00.) I worked in sales. I designed wacky theater sets. I schlepped for a photographer named Beverly Parker who shot country-and-western stars, thereby enjoying trips to Nashville, where I got to hang out with folks like Rosanne Cash and blind Ronnie Milsap and stuttering Mel Tillis. I also did odd jobs on movie sets, the most notable of which was designing the gallery set on
Beverly Hills Cop
.

Catastrophic sidebar: Prepping and shooting this movie took almost a year. When it came time to pay me, the Paramount accountant asked if I wanted cash or “points.” The skeptic in me became convinced that they were trying to hoodwink me out of some deserved shekels. Because I was a total fucking naïve idiot and had no idea what “points” meant, and was much too stupid to ask around and find out, I opted for cash. The movie went on to break all box-office records known to man. It made so much money that it saved Paramount from the brink. If I had taken the points, I would now be lolling in a chateau in the south of France mainlining Beluga caviar and guzzling crème de menthe. (And probably looking like Bernie Ozer.)

After shooting at Paramount Studios, I had lots of fantasies about a career in movie-set design. I felt sure that a screen credit on such a major movie would open up a cavalcade of opportunities . . . and yet, there I was, back at the chicken-wire fence a few weeks later, collaging together my Frieda Freelance lifestyle.

In my early thirties I had a sobering realization: It was time to go work somewhere where I could get medical insurance and a bit of stability. But work where, doing what and for whom?

I had many strings to my bow, but window display seemed to present the most opportunities. And so, at the age of thirty-four, I finally hung up my gypsy espadrilles and took a full-time job running the Barneys New York display studio.

What's my point? My point is that your twenties are the time to fluff and finagle. Fill this period with a creative mishmash of odd jobs and wacky interests. Untie your mind from your behind and cultivate it. Everything will eventually fall into place. There are so many opportunities. Now more so than ever.

The fashion world today is an exploding cornucopia of opportunity, or “opportunitay” as I like to think of it, since adding an “ay” makes it sound less corporate and more fun and Ru Paul–ish.

Sashay! Chantay! Opportunitay!

There have never been more fashion-related jobs than there are now. And it's only increasing. The universe of La Mode seems to double in size every year.

If you are a scrappy young gay or gal or guy or trans person and you cannot get some kind of entry-level schlepper freelance gig or full-time foothold in this vast terrain of design, public relations, sales, mags, blogs, pattern making, zip resourcing, rolling-rack pushing, wholesale, retail, schmetail, then you need to give your own boottay a good hard smack, possibly using a fly swatter in order to reach it.

Despite the plethora of low-hanging fruit and dingly-dangly opportunitays, many young saplings are floundering. This is because they insist on going about things ass-backward. While I, back in the day, had absurdly low expectations, the youngsters du jour now have stratospherically high ones. Impatient and grandiose, their goal is to start at the top. They seem to have no intention of paying their chicken-wire dues. Their heads are filled with unachievable accomplishments, unrealistic delusions, premature derangements, overly ambitious schemes and unattainable fantasias.

Blame it on
Project Runway
.

Thanks to Tim Gunn, Heidi and the gang, kids across America are suffering from the insane misconception that the only way to get involved in fashion is to establish
your own design house,
and that anything less than that constitutes a gruesome failure.
Yes, YOU shall have your name on the door, and YOU shall have your own runway show, and YOU shall be the next Tom Ford, and YOU shall be a star!

There is only one person who can set them straight . . .

Enter THE DREAM CRUSHER (c'est moi!).

Now that I am a senior member of the fashion firmament, my mission in life is to tell these young people the cold, unvarnished truth. In this age of self-esteem building and entrepreneurial precociousness, this has become a massive undertaking. As fast as I can crush their dreams, somebody is building them back up again. Kids today are drenched with relentless positivity on a daily basis. Nobody seems willing to tell it like it is.

The truth is that most of us are lucky if we can simply claw our way to the middle.

Most people, me included, are far better suited to work for somebody else rather than inaugurate an eponymous brand or fashion label, especially when they are right out of college. One in a million fashionistas has the nuts and the gnads and the ovaries and the ideas and the shekeltastic infrastructure to become a Wang or a Raf or a Dries or a Miuccia. The vast majority of us do better in a support capacity. In other words, most of us are a gusset or a bust dart. Few of us have what it takes to become the gown itself. Few of us could handle big-time success if it came along, never mind attain it in the first place.

If, perchance, success arrives before maturity and experience, it will really do a number on you. You will morph into a strangely unappealing individual. You will resemble those people who win the lottery and go totally bat-shit. Yes, you will be wearing a mauve ostrich-skin jumpsuit and driving a matching mauve Maybach, but will you be happy?

In my role as dream crusher, I am obliged to divest the kids of today of their grandiosity. This role was thrust upon me inexplicably and mysteriously. I accept it. I inhabit it. I crush. But I also nurture.

The role of the dream crusher goes way beyond merely crushing dreams. I always make sure that I replace every crushed dream with an achievable goal. This process involves the delivery of a twinkly perfect nugget of advice—advice which, I might add, is desperately needed.

Example 1: A young gal accosts me on line at Starbucks.

“You are Mr. Fashion and I want to be a model.”

“How tall are you?”

“Five feet . . . almost.”

“It's never going to happen.”

“Why?”

“You are twelve inches too short. And so am I.”

“Fuck you!”

“Glad I was able to help. If you like the world of modeling, why not try for a gofer job at a modeling agency and work your way up? In ten years' time you could be office manager or even an agent. I'll have a venti Earl Grey tea, please. Bag on the side.”

Example 2: A young lad stops me on the street and asks to show me his line of ornate ladies' hats. Before I can answer, he begins to show me samples and pictures. They look cute. He asks my opinion of his prospects. I give it to him.

“You need to radically modify your expectations. This can never be more than a hobby.”

“Why?”

“Because hats are a minuscule category in fashion, an endangered species. Look around. No women are wearing hats, which means that no women are buying hats. In the 1930s women never left the house without a hat. Now it is rare to see a hat unless you are at an English garden party or a Southern Baptist church. And since you live in Brooklyn, you need to reconsider, regroup and restrategize.”

“I know all that! [Getting annoyed.] But I am going to create a revolution. I am going to teach women to appreciate hats again.”

“No, you're not. And here's why: American women are committed to their hair.
Fully committed!
They spend all their money having it straightened, augmented, braided, combed out and woven, and they currently show no inclination to cover it up with elaborate concoctions, except on rare occasions.”

“Thanks for crushing my dreams.”

“You are so welcome. Why not try scarves? They are a huge category and there are no sizing issues. Or better yet, go to beauty school and learn to do hair. Have a nice day.”

While most kids today are well served to have their dreams crushed and replaced by more achievable goals, there are a small number of individuals who are not. They are the exceptions, the geniuses. While most of us are better suited to blunder about and baby-step our way through life, these talented supernovas are hitting the big time right out of the cradle.

These exceptions to the rule—the Proenza Schoulers, the Lims, the Thakoons, the Lams, the Prabals and the Altuzarras—are a delightfully, splendidly competent bunch, likable and hardworking too. They have pitched themselves into the pressure cooker of fashion and bravely endure operational, financial and emotional challenges which would probably have plunged the likes of me into a booze-addled abyss. And they are succeeding. No chicken-wire fences or abortive lemon-cake deliveries for them.