Tall Tales

Excerpts from Jerry Hall's autobiography Tall Tales

Chapter title: SIREN

I was still in it when I met Bryan Ferry, the lead singer of Roxy Music. Why, he proposed to me after seeing me leg wrestle! I didn't tell you about that? Well, first, I should tell you how I met him.

He hired me from New York. He chose me out of English Vogue. I had all these great pictures and a cover by Norman Parkinson. It was the series I'd done in Jamaica with Antonio as the other model. They were some of my best pictures. And when Bryan saw them he decided to use me as the girl on the cover of the new Roxy music alum, Siren. He just picked me out and sent for me.

I was so impressed. He picked me up at Heathrow Airport in London in this big old Daimler limousine - you know, one of those old-fashioned cars the Queen has. They're so nice. And Bryan put me in a nice hotel and then took me out to dinner. He was charming. He was a real gentleman and handsome and beautifully dressed and his hair was all black and shiny and slicked back and he smelled of Floris. I didn't have a boyfriend then and I really fancied him. I could see he liked me, too. The next day we took a train trip to Wales. I'd never been on a train like that - a beautiful old-fashioned train with old leather seats. That was great. And we had Anthony Price with us. He's a really good designer. He's a friend of mine still. He does all of Bryan's clothes and album covers. So they started telling me the idea of the picture.

I was a bit apprehensive because a few weeks before in Paris I'd done a similar photo with Guy Bourdin, the photographer. He'd painted me all over with white body makeup and I'd broken out in a terrible rash. And the idea this time was that I was a siren like in Greek mythology. So when we got to Wales we found this cliff. And I put on this teeny little bikini and they painted my whole body blue with blue body makeup. I had long curly hair and false eyelashes and long blue false fingernails and this sort of mermaid-girl bikini and wings on my ankles. So we started taking the picture on the cliff and Bryan's there holding an umbrella over my head because it was summer and it was hot and the sun was melting my body makeup off. My fins kept popping off and the suit was glued together and the glue stuck to my bottom and the glue was melting. And it was getting late. And then just then these kids came rowing by the rocks in a yellow rubber raft and we were screaming at them, `Get out of the picture!' They must have thought we were ma. It took them forever to get out of the picture. But we finally got it.

But we were going to miss our train back to London, so we rush back to the hotel and they're trying to get this blue body makeup off me and it won't come off. It was a really funny scene. I was standing in the bathtub and Anthony's scrubbing and scrubbing trying to get this stuff off. And Bryan's there, too, and ... I still had on this little bikini thing. And Bryan was smoking and laughing and ... watching. I could see that something was happening.

The train was about to leave and I couldn't put on my clothes because I had all this greasy blue makeup on so they wrapped me in towels andput me on the train with all these false eyelashes and these long blue fingernails and all this blue paint running everywhere. You can imagine the sight we made in a small Welsh town. And I went to the bathroom on the train to try to towel it off but I couldn't get it all off. So when we got to London Bryan asked me back to his place to take a bath. He had a really nice house in Holland Park. And when I came out of the bathroom wearing a robe he said, `Why don't you just stay here? I have a guest room.' So since it was late I stayed there. And that's the night it began!

We really liked each other - Bryan and I. I stayed there a couple of days. Then I went back to New York but we stayed in touch. He kept writing and I kept writing. He came over to New York once and visited me there. And then we decided that I would come over to London and spend Christmas with him. We had this really nice Christmas in London and then we went on holiday to Mustique. It's a small island in the Caribbean where you see the same people at least ten times a day. And there were some friends of Bryan's there like Charles Benson, who writes the tips on the horses for the Daily Express, and one night we got good and drunk.

I've never been a big drinker, you know. That night in Martinique with the straight tequilas was an exception. But this night was another exception. And I started telling everyone the story about how I'd been girls' champion leg wrestler back in Mesquite. Then I decided to give them a demonstration. And I'm doing this leg wrestlin' and being real loud-mannered and, you know, hootin' and hollerin'', and all these people were like eggin' me on. They thought it was so funny. Then I started telling Texas lines like, `Fatter than a hog on a fence,' or `redder than a fox's ass in gooseberry time.' And Bryan was really embarrassed. He thought I was making a fool of myself.

So when we got back to our room he was very upset with me and I was crying and everything because he said I'd embarrassed him in front of his friends with my leg wrestlin'. And I said, `What do you have to say about it? You can't tell me what to do!' And then...all of a sudden he said he wanted to marry me.

I was stunned. We knew we were in love and everything but we hadn't discussed marriage. I really don't know why he proposed just then. But maybe it was because I'd said , `You can't tell me what to do!' It was like a challenge. Maybe he decided he tell me what to do. Anyway, we got engaged right then and there - still drunk. But we hadn't changed our minds the next day! Then I went back to New York to work and the next time I saw him in London he gave me an engagement ring so that made it official.

But the leg wrestlin' was always a sore point between us. He wouldn't even like to think about it. Mick and I have leg wrestled a lot. He thinks it's funny.

...

Chapter title: LET'S STICK TOGETHER

When I decided to move to London with Bryan, Eileen [Ford] and everyone at the Ford Agency said, `Are you crazy? You've just got it all together in New York. You're working every day, you're making great money...you must be crazy!'

And I'd just sort of moon and say, `But this is love...'

I was in love - half the time. Like just about everyone, I've got two sides. When I moved into Bryan's house in Holland Park I realized what they were. I had always had this sort of ladylike thing because my mother was real ladylike and she'd brought us up that way. But I also had my rowdy side from being with cowboys and going to rodeos and then going off to Paris and all the freedom I found there. In London, Bryan got me off dancing on tables. He calmed me down a lot. Mick always says now, `He trained you halfway.'

Bryan always seemed to have two sides to him, too. Part of him liked that I was a model. He thought I was glamorous and funny. And then there was this other side of him that wanted a wholesome, aristocratic country life and wanted me to be a different kind of girl. He was always real sweet but I think he was afraid that I was going to be too ambitious and that I was going to go off and do my career and not stay with him. I think every man has that a bit - that's been my experience - but he had it really bad.

I think Texans and the English have a common bond of eccentricity. They both thrive on it. They love eccentrics and try to be eccentric as they can be. But just like in Texas there'll be these Baptist people who really go to church every five minutes, there's this very straight, uptight side to the English, too. Bryan seemed to have both sides.

We felt this sort of intimacy right away. But in a way it was the kind of intimacy that couples have after a long time together. We were like an older couple, being comfortable sitting around doing nothing. Bryan was a bit of a loner. He loved to think. He could just sit there and look off and think. He used to have this little mannerism with his ear. There's a cartilage in your ear and some people have it in a certain shape where they can just flip it back and forth. Bryan did and he used to sit there and do that and just look off into space. He'd be in a deep reverie.

I learned a lot from him. He has very refined taste. He knows all about art and the quality things in life. We were always going around looking at antiques and paintings. I learned a lot about those things in London. Plus that's where I first got into hostessing. I became the mistress of the house, fixing it up and buying china and linens. I found a lot of four-leaf clovers in our garden. And every afternoon I started having tea with smoked salmon and cucumber sandwiches on brown bread. It's a little habit I still have.

Bryan would get excited about anything I did that was like a housewife. He loved it when I took up needlepoint. A lot of it I liked.

...

Bryan had come from a family like mine. His father was a coal miner in Newcastle. And he'd pulled himself up from that and made a real gentleman out of himself, but that always seemed to make him insecure. There were only certain people he could relax around. He was great friends with Charles Benson, the one who writes tips on the horses, and his fiancee, Caroline, who's now his wife, so we used to go to the horse races a lot. I began to know the racing world. It was very grand and very social. Once we even went together to stay with the Aga Khan in Sardinia. I loved that.

Plus Bryan had a great affinity for gay guys. He had a camp side and he loved their sense of humor. But then the English all seem to have a camp side to them. Bryan got me reading all sorts of English books. Noel Coward was his favorite. And he loved P. G. Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh. When I was in Paris, and with Antonio, I didn't read anything except what I picked up at the airport on Interview or stuff about fashion and glamour. I was studying up on all that. But with Bryan I got a more diversified taste in reading. He had a big library and I was on my own a lot, so I read all the time.

...

In England the majority of people still get the news by reading. There's so many newspapers there. People read the morning papers with their breakfast and afternoon papers with their tea. It's a way of life over there. And Bryan had all these hang-ups about what people thought and what the press said and about ... you know the whole image thing. Sand I used to say, `Oh, who cares what they say? Forget it. You're great. Just g on doing what you have to do.' I used to give him these pep talks all the time. I think he liked that.

It was in London that I started learning about publicity. I used to get in the papers just for being with Bryan. They used to call us `the Perfect Couple.'

...

We had a tailor we both used - in fact, he was Bryan's tailor. Bryan had liked the skintight look until I got to be his fiancee. Then he wanted to wear gray suits. And country tweeds.

Bryan always had this thing about the country. Then we got this beautiful house in Sussex. We were so excited about it. It was like kids exploring - we'd go for walks in the woods and look at everything. And we dreamed about how we'd fix it up. That's where I started to feel this nesting thing. I loved going from room to room thinking how I'd do this and do that. I wanted to have a lot of kids to fill it up. I had so many plans for it. I wanted to give little plays in the garden. And we used to go for picnics - these idyllic romps through the English countryside. Once Bryan said I wasn't an English rose but a Texas rose. I thought that was so sweet.

I was so happy. I really was. I thought I could have lived like that forever. But I always had to be so ladylike and I kept saying the wrong thing and Bryan would get so upset with me. I was still so young. I still hadn't learned discretion. It's something that comes with age - knowing how to listen more and knowing when to speak. I learned a lot from Bryan because he's a very, very private person, but it also made me a little paranoid, especially because with the English press anything you say gets in the papers. I caught on very quickly to what interviewers wanted to hear - what makes good copy, you know. But a lot of times it got me in trouble because I'd be so wanting to give them what they wanted that it came out wild and stupid.

I used to see a lot of Jackie Collins, who writes the novels about, you know, trashy girls and the glamorous jet-set life. She used to keep her tape recorder going under the table at lunches with the girls and at baby showers. She's told me that she got a lot of great material that way. I gave a lot of baby showers. Once I gave one while Bryan was away that went on all day. We drank up all of his champagne. When he got home we were all completely loaded. He was furious with me for days.

Every time I'd get drunk and have a great time he'd get mad at me. It was a pattern that started with the leg wrestlin' in Mustique. Another time was during his first tour of America. Atlantic, his record company, gave a big party in New York. Ahmet Ertegun, the head of Atlantic, was there, and earl McGrath, who ran Rolling Stone Records, and Bette Midler ... the whole company. It was a whole big thing. And I'd just had these two covers of Cosmopolitan - one that was their first nipple cover and another one where I'm wearing this leopard-skin outfit and my tits are pushed like crazy. So I got drunk and this one photographer was taking pictures and Earl was eggin' me on so I kept saying, `Oh yeah do more flashes `cause flashes give me cosmic energy!' It was really silly but Earl brings out the silliness in me. And then I was saying, `Wait a minute, I need to get my cleavage just right for the photo...' And , you know, pushing it up. Everyone thought it was hilarious - except Bryan! My God, was he upset!

...

Bryan did two tours of America. I went on both of them. During the first one I took him him to meet my family. Then, around the time of the second tour, we tried living in L.A. We rented a house in Bel Air with a pool. We had a lot of fun times there. He used to ride me around piggyback and we'd throw each other in the pool. There were a lot of parties there, too. We used to see a lot of Joan Collins. She'd give parties for all the English people, like bangers and mash - sausages and mashed potatoes - on Jubilee Day. But I used to feel lost at most of the parties. I didn't really like Hollywood people that much. They were so rude and all they talked about was movies you'd never heard of because they hadn't been made yet. And meanwhile, I'd met Mick...

It's funny how people can be perfect for each other for a while - or that's they way it seems at the time - and then everything changes. Life changes. I always think that you should try and keep something together, but if it isn't working out and it's making you unhappy ... it's so silly to stay together just because you've been together - and then be miserable.

Bryan has a song called `Let's Stick Together.' I used to tell him about this pact my sister Terry and I had made. It was: `Twins forever stick together.' We still put it at the end of our letters to each other. And with my girlfriend Karen and her sister Michelle we'd all become blood sisters. You know, we'd cut our thumbs and stuck them together. Kids do things like that. So I used to tell Bryan about this all the time and then he did this song that went:

C'mon, c'mon, let's stick together,
You know we made a pact [sic] not to leave one another forever [sic]

It was one of my favorites. I hoot an' holler on it. And on that first tour of America, right around the time of the Atlantic Records party, he was going to do it live at the Bottom Line, which is a real small club in New York. Bryan was one of the first to do videos, you know, and I'd already gotten into several of them, including the one of this song, so I asked if I could do it in the act. I think he was a little apprehensive but he said I could.

So I painted myself with gold dust - just highlights, you know, glimmering - and then I had this costume that Anthony Price had made that was a leopard-skin swimsuit with built-in huge boobs inside and cut real high at the thighs and then in the back it came down with a long tail. So I came out doing my part, hootin' an' hollerin', you know, and I swung the tail around. It was really fun. I was really carryin' on. It was the first time I'd done a real live professional performance. Of course, modeling is a kind of performing, but I'd never hooted an' hollered and I'd never had a mike near me. So I rolled my eyes and winked at people and sashayed all around the stage and really hammed it up. I had a great time doin' it.

I'd invited all my friends. Andy Warhol was there and Eileen and Jerry Ford and Antonio. And afterward everyone started screaming, `Bring back Jerry!' That made Bryan very uncomfortable. I never got in his act again!

...

Chapter Title: STOP BREAKIN' DOWN

It's hard to say when things started going wrong with Bryan. Maybe it was when I took him home to meet the family. It was a little after Christmas in 1976, and in my family, whenever I'd come home around Christmas, they'd make it just like Christmas with a big meal and they'd save the presents and the tree for me. This time we all met up at Rosy's [her sister] house and my father was still alive and he was there. He thought Bryan was great. He was probably just relived, you know, thinking: Another one married.

But my mother and sisters thought he was gorgeous. And .. I think a cockroach crawled across the wall. That can happen, you know. There're roaches everywhere - except in England. And Bryan sort of freaked out about it and everyone was embarrassed. Plus I don't think he liked my mother's cooking too much - you know, real down-home cookin'. He made faces and picked at his food. He wasn't exactly what you'd call a good sport. And they were all sensitive enough to pick up on that. Then Daddy started in on his war stories. We girls retreated into the kitchen under the pretense of doing the dishes.

You can't always be in the perfect spot. And I think that's one of the things I didn't really like about Bryan. He thought you could be.

Mick and Bryan are so different. Mick doesn't worry about what anyone's going to say. He can laugh at all sorts of things. Bryan's sense of humor was drier and more cynical and sarcastic. He was real English. Mick's is much broader. He's beyond any sort of nationality - beyond one culture, really.

I'd met Mick in London in the summer of 1976. He'd called up Bryan and asked us to see his concert. After the concert we went backstage and Mick was sitting there in his dressing gown and he was so much smaller than I'd imagined. [...MICK...] And then we went out to dinner [...MICK...]

After we went out to dinner, we all got in the limousine and that's when Mick really got to me. He pressed his knee next to mine and I could feel the electricity.. [..MICK...] The whole time I was remembering this [a dream she'd had about Mick] in the limousine I kept saying to myself: Calm down, you're engaged! And then Mick came back to the house in Holland Park with us and he was so much fun jumping around and joking. He was leaping on the Ping-Pong table and getting tea and, you know, spilling things. And Bryan was real fanatical about the house. Plus Mick had invited some other people over and Bryan was getting sort of freaked out about the whole thing. I'd go into the kitchen to fix more tea and Mick would follow me and Bryan would follow . He was real jealous that Mick was flirting with me. And I tried to behave myself. But finally Bryan got really upset and said, `I'm going to bed.' He stomped off and everyone started to leave. And Mick tried to kiss me when he was going out the door but I didn't let him.

And then Mick started calling and leaving messages on the machine, saying, `Hi, Bryan, let's go out again.'

And Bryan said, `I'm never going out with him again. All he did was ogle you all night!'

Mick called a couple of times and then when he was back in London again he called some more. Bryan would never call him back and I didn't dare because I was still engaged. I had my ring and everything. I thought that was the end of it.

But I knew I wasn't completely happy in London. ...

Basically, I was giving up my career to sit around the house in London. And Bryan would come home and complain about the house and that the dinner wasn't right and that the vegetables weren't right. He'd run his finger along the windowsill and say, `And have a maid. My mother kept the house cleaner without one.' Plus there were the grey suits he always wanted me to wear. He was great when we were on our own, especially on holidays when we'd be in sunny climates. Then we'd laugh and have a great time. But London got him down. And it started getting me down, too.

Then Bryan went off to tour Japan and Australia for two months. I wanted to come with him but he said I couldn't go. He could be a bit tyrannical. Plus he'd said that he wouldn't call me for the whole two months because it was too expensive. I couldn't believe that. I mean, he is a rock star. So I decided to go back to New York and work for that period. And when I arrived I was like, `Whew!'

Bryan Chow, bryan@loudcloud.com