Working at a nightclubs I met a lot of people; famous, infamous, and nobodies. Sometimes I had no idea who was who. One night at Hurrah I stopped a skinny bearded man from entering the club for free. His massive bodyguard steered me right.
"It's Mick Jagger."
"That's him." The rock star was with a blonde model. She knew who he was.
"My bad."
A year later at the Mudd Club Steve Mass called down from his apartment, as Meryl Streep approached the ropes. The quirky owner had seen the actress on his CCTV and shouted over the intercom, “Don’t let her in?”
“Why not?” The blonde actress had won an Oscar for KRAMER VS. KRAMER in 1979.
“Why? Because I hate THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN.”
“Me too.” Especially her scene where she turns her head on the quai and I said to the Hollywood star, “Sorry, but you can’t come in.”
“Don’t you know who I am?” Her voice threatened me with contempt.
“Yes, but tonight’s not your night.” I didn’t have to explained why, for in the 1970s doormen ruled the night and that privilege followed me to Paris in 1982.
“Here you are not a doorman, but a physionomiste.” The manager of the Rex was a socialist. He wanted an eclectic crowd based on fun.
“No, problem, but I don’t know how to speak French.” Two years of grammar school French from a nun with a lisp had taught me how to ask, “Ou est le Bibliotechque?”
“Pas de problem,” Olivier shrugged with ease and said, “You only have to say two words. ‘Ouais’ or ‘Non.'”
“Okay” I had learned that trick at CBGBs, Hurrah, and Studio 54. “But I don’t know anyone in Paris. Not the famous people. Not the people who go to nightclubs.”
“Pas de problem.” His partner and he were tired of everyone getting in for free. “Make everyone pay and I don’t care if it’s Brigitte Bardot.”
“But how shall I treat them?”
“Comme le merde.”
“Like shit?” I didn’t think that I had heard him right.
“Exactement.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Treating Parisians like shit was a dream job for an American and I obeyed Olivier to a tee and favored my friends with glory. I built a new clientele of rockers, punks, models, gangsters, pop stars, and normal people for the basement club under the famed movie theater on the Grand Boulevard.
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