Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [277]
There’s a broad passageway in, and cameras are pointing at us as we go down it. ‘Smile,’ somebody says. As we push in through double doors, I catch sight of the black-cloaked figure of T. Capote. In the bright light he looks like a mole or a badger, appearing briefly, immaculately … then gone. Inside, the club is like any other heaving mass of bodies. Strobing lights, helpful darkness for those who want it – strategic pools of bright light for those who want it.
Almost immediately brush up against Mick J and Jerry. Jagger is at his most inelegantly slurry, and warns me against the poofs here. He greets me with congratulations on the film, which I dopily don’t comprehend. He is referring, of course, to the Rutles film. I compliment him on his performance – and he is lost, borne away on the crowd.
The party was ostensibly to watch the 50th Academy Awards Ceremony live from LA and at the same time show off Polaroid’s video-beam technique – by which a TV picture can be projected by means of three light sources onto a flat screen. The lights and cameras on the way in were to demonstrate the new instant film techniques. So we were all being used in a way – either for Capote and Warhol’s ego, or simply Polaroid’s salesmanship.
A glorious mixture of people. On one journey through the crowd I passed Dick Martin and Salvador Dali (not together). The model girl, Brooke Shields, who plays the twelve-year-old whore in Louis Malle’s shortly to open Pretty Baby was sitting beside us.
They bayed at the Academy Awards, especially when Vanessa Redgrave gave her short and rather mis-timed speech about anti-semitism and fascism and they roared with exultation at the three awards for Annie Hall. It was quite exciting in a wasteful way – for in the end the home crowd won. The starched and trim bronzinos of the West Coast, with their showbiz smiles and oozing wealth, were routed by the forces of the East Coast – by the critical, introspective, tasteful Mr Woody Allen. Woody, who was not even at the Hollywood awards, but was playing clarinet in Michael’s Pub in Greenwich Village. As Lome said, ‘Woody always has taste, and not being at the awards demonstrates taste at its highest.’
After the awards everyone headed either to the bar or to dance – ignoring glasses on the dance floor, which were smashed and trodden underfoot. At the bar the epicene bar boys held court. They pulled off their tight black T-shirts and swayed and swished and showed off. It was hard and aggressive and not at all friendly. The place was filling up and there was a growing compulsion to decadence – as if it was expected of the audience here to be outrageous, ego-manic, wild and uncontrolled. I found it horribly depressing – almost a nightmare, and was relieved when we left just before one.
Tuesday, April 4th, New York
Woke, frightened, after about two and a half hours’ solid sleep. Lay there – aware I had been losing sleep at the rate of four hours a night over the last five days and wondering how it would affect the rest of the week.
At five in the afternoon round to NBC, to the well-worn sprawl of offices – like a very liberal arts college, with Professor Michaels presiding. Unlike England, where writing is largely a domestic industry, here in the States they assemble in a suite of offices and start to tap out ideas.
Around ten, Lome and Jean Doumanian – the assistant producer – wander down and across Broadway to eat at Wally’s. Another unpretentious restaurant, which seems to be Italian despite the name. We join a table of Lome’s friends (he seems to have friends everywhere he goes), comprising Paul Simon, Shelley Duvall,1 David Geffen,2 Diana Ross, her escort – a handsome, but taciturn young Nordic chap – and a lady called Diana Von Furstenberg,3 who’s just seen and ‘adored’ Pretty Baby. She looks like Cher’s grandmother, but is clearly something of a NY society lady.
The talk turns to the Oscars. Paul and Shelley were in Annie Hall, so are obviously pleased. There is much talk of John Travolta,