by Simon Doonan
5 I have a distinct memory of Oscar-winning Hattie uttering these words in a movie the name of which escapes me. If I have misattributed this quote, then I offer passionate apologies to all concerned.
6 Foo-Foo was a very well-known nightclub-owning drag performer who happened to live next door to Joy’s mum. When, years later, Foo-Foo died, the whole city, including football stars like David Beckham, turned out. Manchester has always loved a trannie.
7 Clobber: trendy sixties Brit-speak meaning “fashionable attire.”
8 Champers: abbreviation for champagne popularized in the television series AbFab.
9 Yma Sumac: a glamorous songstress. Back in the fifties, when Yma and her five-octave range burst onto the scene, her press releases claimed that she was a Peruvian princess. She said she had grown up in the Andes, surrounded by eagles and panthers. Rumors subsequently abounded that this was pure fantasy and that she was just a nice girl from Brooklyn called Amy Camus, who had reversed her name.
10 Tippi Hedren: the much-pecked star of Hitchcock’s The Birds.
11 For my court appearance, I wore a nice little suit, a crisp white shirt, and a narrow red tie. Next to my giant lawyer I must have looked like an innocent prep school boy, or Happy Harry. Either way, the judge took pity and reduced the charge to reckless driving. I paid, with great difficulty, a nominal fine.
12 Twinkie: old-school Greenwich Village vernacular referring to a fresh-faced male frequently seen in the company of less fresh-faced males, a.k.a. trolls.
13 Mishigas: Yiddish, crazy Jewish in-laws expressing themselves in an uninhibited fashion.
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This Simon & Schuster trade paperback edition April 2009
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Beautiful people : my family and other glamorous varmints / Simon Doonan.
p. cm.
1. Male models—Great Britain—Biography. 2. Male models—Great Britain—Humor. I. Title.
HD8039.M772G725 2009
746.9′2092--dc22
[B] 2008032791
ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-5936-1(ebk)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-6705-2 (pbk)
ISBN-10: 0-7432-6705-2 (pbk)
Originally published in 2005 as Nasty in hardcover
by Simon & Schuster, Inc.